Rising utility costs brings out creativity in students

By Diana Maxfield

Staff writer

There are seven blankets on Tracey Merrill’s bed. People leave their coats on

when they visit her apartment. And she had a “panic attack” the other day when she couldn’t find her slippers.

Merrill, like many other students at Utah State University, has found there

is a fine line between paying the heating bills and freezing. Many students are being affected by rising gas costs, but that isn’t the case with Merrill.

Her apartment is heated with electric heat, which means it always has and probably always will be expensive to heat.

For the entire fall semester, Merrill said she and her roommates tried to avoid a high utility bill by simply not turning on the heat. According to National Weather Service data, Utah temperatures in December reached an average high of 40.1 degrees. That’s warmer than the normal December average high of 38 degrees – but not much. It’s certainly not a heat wave.

“We gave that up,” she said of refraining from using he heat.

Since spring semester started, Merrill, who lives across the street from the

Spectrum in Old Farm student housing, said she and her five roommates have decided that keeping the heat off entirely is not an option, but they still keep the thermostat at around 50 degrees. It can feel a little warmer when they have been baking and heat from the oven leaks out to warm the living room, she said, but she still finds that her hands, nose, and ears are usually cold.

Even with the thermostat at well below what is marked the “comfort zone,” she said their bill last month was about $200, which turns out to cost about $30 a person. Considering that bill was mostly for a period of time that the apartment sat empty while its inhabitants spent Christmas in properly heated homes, thinking about next month’s bill can be a little scary.

But the Division of Housing and Community Development is trying to help Utah residents with their home-heating costs through the HEAT program.

It provides winter utility payment assistance to low-income households, targeting those who are truly vulnerable – the lowest-income households with the highest heating costs: the disabled, the elderly and families with preschool-age children. Utah received more than $14 million in federal funds for the HEAT program in fiscal year 2005, according to Utah.gov.

Kellianne Brown, who manages Old Farm with her husband Jason, tributed high costs to the fact that the “old side” of Old Farm – the apartments on the side closest to 800 East – are heated through electric heat.

“Gas is more energy-efficient,” she said.

In comparison with the rest of the country, Utah has one of the lowest residential gas prices in the lower 48 states.

In 2005, Utah was second to last next to Alaska in gas prices, while Hawaii was the highest, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Brown said the expense of converting the 52 units on the old side to gas heat prohibits them from making the switch.

It isn’t just tenants who are suffering, she said. She and her husband also live on the old side of Old Farm.

She said she keeps her thermostat at around 70 degrees and her utility bill ranges between $400 and $500.

But, she said, her apartment is in the basement, and her front door is always opening, which makes it harder to keep the apartment warm.

She said she hasn’t heard of utility bills much higher than $240 from residents.

Still, a fear of an astronomical bill keeps students like Merrill from upping the thermostat more than a few degrees.

From Accuweather.com’s forecast for Logan for the next few weeks, it doesn’t look like the cold is going to let up much.

Through Valentine’s Day, the highest predicted temperature is 41 degrees; the lowest, 9 degrees. In order to survive living through these temperatures in a barely heated apartment, Merrill says she has come up with a few tricks. One of them is hot chocolate.

“I live on that stuff,” she said. “It’s my life force.”

The seven blankets piled on her bed also pay a huge role. This bed is not just used for sleeping.

“It’s a big warm cocoon I study in,” she said.

Merrill said in addition to taking advantage of hot chocolate and lots of blankets, she and her roommates also carefully plan their use of heat.

They never have the heat on during the middle of the day when nobody is home, and they wear sweaters when they aren’t buried under blankets.

She said one roommate has a space heater they sometimes crowd around to warm up, and if they turn on the heat in their bedrooms, they stay in their bedrooms and don’t open the door for hours at a time, to conserve the heat in the room.

Certain rooms in the apartment don’t get heated at all.

They leave the thermostat at its lowest setting in the kitchen, since that room gets heated by cooking. The bathrooms get no heat as well. You only spend a few minutes in the bathroom, she said, so why spend the money to heat it?

In spite of the numb arms that result from her circumstances, there are some advantages to living in a cold apartment.

For instance, with seven blankets on her bed, Merrill says she can usually just roll out of bed and worry about making it only about once a week. Plus, she said, you don’t really have to refrigerate stuff.

A glass of water left on her desk all day will be fairly cold in the evening. When she accidentally forgets to put her butter away and it sits out all night, she said it’s still cold when it goes back in the fridge.

“I didn’t realize if you left it on the counter, you’d need to heat it up in the morning,” she said.

In the end, even though she would turn up the heat if she weren’t paying for it, Merrill says she really doesn’t notice the cold much anymore.

Her advice for students like her with sky-high bills?

“Wear a sweater – keep it at 50.”

-dmaxfield@cc.usu.edu