Andy Rudin is a self-professed "energy nerd." Industry magazines like Contractor, Energy Markets and Plastics clutter the dining room in his three-story twin, built just inside the Montgomery County border nearly a century ago. He strides through the kitchen and out to the sun-soaked garden where plants, brimming with tomatoes, kale, string beans and squash, drink through a network of irrigation tubes.

Standing near the compost box on the garden path — laid from chimney bricks that came with the used wood-burning stove bought for $25 from a contractor who won it on a bad bet — Rudin looks at the south-slanting roof. Two sets of unremarkable solar panels power his hot-water heater and generate electricity. Meters bolted to the house tell him how much energy the sun provides and, when it's cloudy, how much energy he buys from PECO.

"This was a good day," he says, pointing to the spinning dials. "If it goes this way, I make money. If it goes the other way, PECO makes money."

stop it so it's hot: The ECA's Dennis Clark works on the drywall of a North Philadelphia home to ensure cold air stays out this winter. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Sun hits silicon wafers on the panels and an inverter turns direct current into alternating current to power the computer, television, fish tank and refrigerator. Rudin can't store the energy, but can sell kilowatt hours he makes to the Energy Cooperative Association of Pennsylvania. His August PECO bill was $14, and he cashed a $40 check from the co-op that month. "Anyone can do what we did," he says. "There's no big magic here."

Rudin has coughed up $30,000 over the years to transform his home into a lean, green, energy-saving machine, so if anyone would push for solar panels on every roof, you would think he'd be it. But, Rudin and other folks fiercely committed to renewable energy tout conservation as the best and cheapest defense against high home-heating bills.

Good thing, since it's not too late to ready your home to weather what experts are calling "a perfect storm."

A nearly 20 percent jump in natural gas bills, increased demand for less oil and new utility company policies could leave thousands without heat this winter. Gas hikes alone will add $335 to the average customer's bill, raising the annual price tag to $2,000. Low-income people are especially vulnerable, but moderate-income homeowners and renters will also have trouble making ends meet.

AccuWeather senior meteorologist Ken Reeves says the "noticeably colder than usual" weather can be attributed to the active Atlantic and Gulf hurricane season producing a strong ridge of high pressure over Greenland, which forces cold air through central Canada and the Great Lakes and into the mid-Atlantic region. The Old Farmer's Almanac predicts the mercury will dip seven degrees below average in December, eight degrees below average in January and that we'll have above average snowfall.

Coupled with rising fuel prices, frigid temps mean someone who leaves their thermostat at 70 degrees and makes no upgrades or attempts at conservation over last year could see a 50 percent jump in their bill, Reeves says. For gas, the number is closer to 70 percent.

"Kurt Vonnegut was right," says city Consumer Affairs director Lance Haver. ""Everything is going to become unimaginably worse, and never get better again.'"

In the ratty basement of a rundown twin on North Chadwick Street just above the Kensington section of the city, a crew gauging the home's energy efficiency is moments away from freaking out.

Aurora Carrero and Nathan Atkinson must first take care of what their bosses call "health and safety" issues, or, basically, anything that could put them in harm's way. Right away, they notice a silver tubular hot-water heater vent is disconnected, allowing a carbon monoxide leak. As they reattach it, Carrero and Atkinson squeeze into small, dark, dirty spaces and duck to avoid cobwebs and wires hanging from the low ceiling.

Next, they switch on the heater and turn their attention to crevices where wintry gusts find their way inside and drive up the need for natural gas and oil, expensive commodities right now. Someone notices something. Fleas! And not just one or two biting black flecks, but dozens gripping Carrero and Atkinson's yellow T-shirts and navy blue pants. Just like that, they're out.

Myra Goode, an Energy Coordinating Agency (ECA) supervisor shadowing the crew, explains to the homeowner that the home is infested, as if he didn't know, and it's not a safe place to work. The man tells her he got rid of his cat, but a water bowl in the basement says otherwise. Goode advises him to exterminate and call ECA to reschedule the energy audit.

Had they been able to finish looking for places where the homeowner could save on energy bills, the crew would have sealed a special fan in the front door to draw excess air outside, thus creating a vacuum effect and forcing air to seep back into the house through holes and cracks that need to be sealed.

Outside, Atkinson crouches behind an open door of the work van, strips down to boxer shorts and sprays himself liberally with Off!. As Carrero lifts her pant legs and pushes up her sleeves, she recalls finding fleas in her ears on a past job.

Such unsavory conditions are not unusual for ECA, a nonprofit agency that does weatherization, insulation and repairs for the city's poorest residents as well as fee-for-service work for homes and businesses.

While most people are grateful for the help, there are also many low-income residents who have cluttered spaces, sewer leaks or some other problem, like fleas, that makes doing the work impossible. Through one program, PGW gives the agency a list of thousands of names of people who can't pay their bills, but only about one-tenth get the help they need.

People who can't pay their bills have historically turned to assistance programs, although experts say this year such alternatives will be inadequate to handle the demand. "These folks are not quote-unquote deadbeats," says John Hanger, president of the nonprofit environmental group Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future. "These are just people who are not going to be able to fully pay their heating bill."

The situation is so dire that last week when Mayor Street released his 10-year plan to end homelessness (see "Much To-Do About Nothing," p. 9), he said the city would create a fund to help poor and elderly people pay their bills and conserve energy. He also suggested that residents "adopt" a low-income family and help pay their heating costs.

About 60,000 customers are enrolled in PGW's Customer Responsibility Program, but PGW spokesman Doug Oliver says the program can accommodate twice that number. The federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) offers a cash benefit paid to the heating fuel provider and a crisis benefit of $300 within 48 hours for households out of fuel. The LIHEAP income eligibility limit is 135 percent of the federal poverty level, or $26,123 for a family of four. The payment is based on household size, income, heating region and heating type. (You can download an application at ECA's Web site, www.ecaSavesEnergy.org, or get help applying at one of its 10 neighborhood centers.)

Jerry Bennett, director of programs at ECA, which takes about 10,000 applications a year, says LIHEAP is "criminally underfunded" and that not enough people who qualify apply because they may feel grants are too small or they have trouble navigating the application process. There's usually some money left over at the end of each season that goes back to the federal government or toward the next year's outreach efforts.

Last year, $120 million in federal funds helped 340,000 people in Pennsylvania, one of only a few cold-weather states that do not supplement the federal program. (New Jersey and New York allocate $104 million and $77 million, respectively, to their LIHEAP funds each year.) In light of this winter's looming home-heating crisis, some politicians are trying to change that.

Following the lead of some other states, state Sen. Anthony Williams is pushing the idea of a voluntary donation system in which residents could contribute a minimum of $1 to LIHEAP when paying their state income tax.

State Sens. Vincent Hughes and Jay Costa Jr. are sponsoring legislation to allocate $80 million in state money to LIHEAP. They also support administrative changes that would raise the eligibility limit to 150 percent of the federal poverty level. Gov. Ed Rendell last month joined 27 other governors in asking Congress for another $1.276 billion in emergency LIHEAP funds.

If the Pennsylvania program doesn't get some kind of boost, Department of Public Welfare spokeswoman Stacy Ward says that the state will have to make the money "stretch further" by shrinking grants that advocates say are already too low.

All these factors mean homeowners and renters have fewer places to turn for help with higher bills. While renewable energy resources must be part of a long-term plan to reduce the nation's dependency on oil and natural gas, the only hope for cushioning the blow this winter is conservation, which immediately lowers bills and staves off the voracious furnace chugging away in the basement.

"This is not a temporary problem," says ECA Executive Director Liz Robinson. "This is not a problem caused by hurricanes. This is a new era."

To understand how things got so bad, you have to examine policies and practices that highlight our dependence on natural gas and oil. First, let's take PGW. The city-owned gas company announced last month it would raise rates 19.4 percent on top of the 4.9 percent increase the company said it needed before hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit.

The demand for natural gas was already up this summer because power plants use the fossil fuel to generate electricity, which runs air conditioners and fans, says PGW spokesman Oliver. "The primary factor for the increase is the relationship between supply and demand," he says.

PGW may even have to ask the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for another increase when it re-evaluates its rates in December because there's no telling whether another disaster could knock out supplies. PECO electricity rates will remain flat, but the company provides natural gas in the suburbs.

Penn Future's Hanger says this year's natural-gas increase follows several large increases that add up to 500 percent over six years. The price per thousand cubic feet has jumped from $2 to $12, he says. Oil is just as bad, with costs hovering around $65 a barrel, more than double the $25-a-barrel price tag of two years ago.

In a reversal from the time when fossil fuels were relatively affordable and electricity was expensive, this winter only city homeowners and renters who rely on PECO can breathe easy. "The bottom line is if you're using electric to heat your home, you're lucky," Hanger says. "Compared to what's going on with oil and natural gas costs, it's nothing."

And making matters worse, Act 201, an amendment to the Public Utility Code, for the first time gives utility companies the right to pull the plug on heat in the winter. Last year, the measure allowed PGW to shut off 1,200 households who were getting gas for free, but customers with legitimate payment problems continued to receive heat. "Last winter no residential heating customer was shut off for nonpayment," Oliver says. "This winter could be entirely different. We don't want to give free gas away this year either."

The intent of the act was to get people who were essentially stealing gas to pay up, but in a preliminary report, former PUC vice chairman-turned-consultant Joseph Rhodes Jr. calls Act 201 "a hasty, though well-intended, mistake." It was backed by House Speaker John Perzel, state Rep. Dwight Evans and Rendell as well as most major utility companies. "The legislature and the governor did not intend Act 201 to become a club with which to browbeat the poor," Rhodes writes. "Where a flyswatter might have been called for, Act 201 is a cannon."

Using the gas, water and electric company figures, Rhodes determined that come Nov. 1, 100,000 Pennsylvania households, of which 25,000 are in Philadelphia, are likely to lack service. The act says that, once disconnected, customers must pay their total bill plus a deposit equaling their two previous highest bills before they can be reconnected. The ECA estimates reconnection would cost $1,200, compared with last year's $500.

Rhodes, who was hired by Evans to study the act, is working on a final report. The legislature could amend problematic shutoff and reconnection sections of the act once the most current information is available.

In the meantime, Evans and state consumer advocate Irwin A. "Sonny" Popowsky have urged PUC commissioners to reconsider provisions limiting the number of payment agreements customers can make with utility companies and loosening the procedure customers go though to prove they need utility service because of a medical condition.

If utilities widely interpret the act and "historic percentages of reconnects [do] not occur," Rhodes writes, "there could be catastrophic consequences for the commonwealth."

Padding barefoot down to the basement, Rudin, the solar enthusiast, squeezes past wine made from grapes grown in the garden and eight bookcases, six shelves high, crammed with volumes on energy. He coordinates the Interfaith Coalition on Energy, a nonprofit project that helps religious congregations reduce their bills.

Considering his passion for renewable energy, rarely does Rudin suggest institutions or homeowners go solar right off the bat. He agrees with the ECA's Robinson, who says, "Conservation is the cheapest and cleanest form of energy. Conservation is a better investment than the stock market. The dollar-for-dollar return is unbeatable."

Rudin says the first step in reducing consumption is to put on a sweater and turn down the temperature using a programmable or clock thermostat (about $30) when you're away from home or sleeping. "Keep it as cold as you can stand it for as long as you can stand it," he says.

You should also close off and not heat any rooms that you're not using. In rooms you do frequent, open shades on windows facing the sun. Trim trees or shrubs that block the sun.

The biggest savings result when you seal your home's outer layer to keep warm air from escaping. Rudin told one client, the owner of a Main Line mansion, to simply close outside air vents mistakenly left open in frigid temps. "The place was leaking like a sieve," Rudin laughs. Likewise, when the fireplace is not in use, keep the flue damper closed tight.

To block the source of most drafts, fill cracks and crevices with caulk, spray-foam insulation or weather stripping (each under $10). Likely culprits include door sashes and frames, electrical outlets, ceiling and light fixtures, attic hatches and other places where there is a possible air path to the outside.

ECA's Viviette Moore used a "window kit" ($10) to seal off a bathroom window in the North 33rd Street home of an 84-year-old woman who's lived there for 40 years. She stuck adhesive plastic strips to the window frame, pulled heavy plastic sheeting taut over the window and sealed it with another plastic strip that snaps into place. In the summer, the elderly homeowner can unlock the strips and roll up the plastic to let in the breeze. For bigger insulation jobs like patching exterior walls and blocking drafts, ECA wedges rigid foam boards into spaces where air gets into the home. They also cover basement heating units with an insulation blanket ($20).

Roofs are another place where heat can escape. Few homes built before, say, 1920 to 1940 were insulated because fuel was affordable and there was no need to conserve, says Bennett, the ECA program director. Old row homes, where some of the city's poorest residents live, are well-protected by homes on either side, but the fronts, rears and roofs face the elements.

On a recent morning, another ECA crew prepped the Hancock Street home of a single mother of five. In a second-floor bedroom, carpenters sealed a ceiling hole where there was once a water leak. Once secure, another skilled worker climbed onto the roof, cut a hole and climbed inside where she sprayed shredded paper insulation, treated to repel insects and fire, in the attic space between the roof and the ceiling.

For homeowners paying for improvements themselves, starting in January the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, will offer a federal income tax credit of 10 percent up to $500. The cap on installing new windows is $200. Rudin plans to take advantage of this when he tears out and insulates a downstairs wall and replaces windows in his wife's office.

Another way you can significantly reduce costs is to replace your furnace with an energy-efficient model. The difference in efficiency can run $2,000, but Jeff Smith of J.A. Smith Heating and Air Conditioning in Warminster, says, "It's one thing you're going to buy that will save you money." Look for the Energy Star logo on heaters, appliances and energy-efficient materials.

Homeowners may be able to save money by joining a group that negotiates lower rates on behalf of its members such as the Energy Cooperative or PIRG Fuel Buyers Philadelphia. (More info at www.theenergyco-op.com or www.pirg.org/fuelbuyers.)

If getting a new heating system is not an option, make sure your furnace is well-maintained and clean and change the filters every few months. Smith says there's a joke in his industry. A technician asks the homeowner, "Have you changed your filter lately?" When the customer says, "What filter?," it's never a good sign. "Sometimes you can basically grow potatoes in there," he says. "It's pretty gross."

You can find someone qualified to assess the insulation needs of your home through the American Society of Home Inspectors at www.ashi.org, and an electrical or heating contractor through the Electrical Association of Philadelphia at www.eap.org. Looking for a technician through professional organizations is wise because there's no state licensing for this work. "What's the only license you need to be a heating and air conditioning contractor?" Smith asks. "A driver's license."

One ECA program, Smart Energy Solutions (SES), caters to people who can pay market rate prices for services. The ECA started SES three years ago to repair and replace heating systems, insulate and air-seal, perform energy audits, white-coat roofs for summertime efficiency, install and repair solar water heating systems and design and install solar photovoltaic systems.

Excess SES revenue from fee-for-service jobs helps expand ECA's low-income work. In addition to the 8,000 low-income homes they service annually, ECA this winter can help people at 200 percent of the poverty line with 250,000 gallons of heating oil donated by Sunoco. "There are so many people who need help, we don't even come close; and it's going to get worse," says Barry Miller, ECA director of conservation.

Penn Future's Hanger says those stuck with exorbitant bills should budget and pay as much as they can even if they can't swing the full amount, although there's no guarantee that approach will stave off disconnections. Now is the time to prepare and conserve, he says. "I personally think there are going to be people living in homes without heat," he says, "and that raises a fundamental question: What are we going to do when we know there are children and senior citizens without heat? Are we going to open shelters, or provide money to help them pay their bills?"

The big-picture answer to dependency is renewable energy, he says. Part of a $27 million settlement of a pending merger between PECO parent company Exelon and New Jersey's Public Service Enterprise Group would help build wind farms, generating enough energy to power 65,000 homes in the state.

"It's part of what will get us out of this fix in the long term," he says. "That progress, unfortunately, is not going to solve somebody's home-heating problem this winter. It's not going to deal with someone in Philadelphia who's trying to live on $1,000-a-month fixed income."

When LIHEAP grants run out, people will try to survive without heat or turn to electric space heaters, kerosene heaters and candles. "People will die this winter in fires caused by these dangerous heating and lighting substitutes," he says. "This not only puts the occupants of the homes, but also neighbors and firefighters and police, at risk. It's a very very serious situation."

Price Check

Home heating costs are expected to hit record levels this winter, putting pressure on low- and moderate-income families.

Natural Gas
Heating Oil Illustrations By: Hyacinth Hughes

• Each barrel shows the retail price of fuel.
• The average home's fuel consumption in gallons and in 1,000 cubic feet creeps up the scarf.
• Total heating expenses are indicated in the ice cube, which encases the house.

* Data provided by the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association.

No Heat? Call These Numbers

Energy Coordinating Agency
215-988-0929
www.ecaSavesEnergy.org

LIHEAP hotline numbers
Cash benefit 215-560-1583
CRISIS benefit 215-686-2590

Utility Emergency Service Fund
215-829-0545
www.uesfacts.org

PGW assistance programs information hotline
215-684-6100
www.pgworks.com

A list of housing services is available on the city's Web site
www.phila.gov/ohcd/QuickGuide.htm