After a record-breaking cold and snowy winter, you might be surprised to find out that Goffstown resident Len Stuart used less propane to heat his home than during the previous winter.
He couldn’t have predicted the weather — but he did plan ahead.
It was a chilly fall morning last year when Len Stuart welcomed Elise to his home that he shares with his wife at Medvil Cooperative in Goffstown, a resident-owned community.
Built in 1981, their retirement home has a tidy yard, navy shutters, and an American flag flying near the baskets of mums at the front door. Len and his wife purchased the manufactured home seven years ago after they decided to downsize their space and expenses while remaining near their children.
Elise was visiting to learn more about Len’s experience weatherizing his home with NHSaves. NHSaves is a collaboration of New Hampshire’s electric and natural gas utilities working together to provide customers with information and incentives on energy efficiency.
Len relies on propane for heating and hot water, occasionally supplementing with an electric space heater. Since moving in, the bills increased as he became less tolerant of colder temperatures due to health issues.
“I'd been, shall we say, not happy with the house being cold in the winter,” he explained. “It was cold after I had some heart medications... I was even colder than previously, which was why I started to look for how to make this better.”
Synopsis:
In 2025, Len was able to access weatherizing funding through NHSaves — a statewide program that helps homeowners make efficiency improvements to their homes — with coaching from the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund.
Now, we’re launching an Energy Solutions educational program to help more manufactured-home owners in resident-owned communities (ROCs) be informed about beneficial energy solutions and access existing resources like NHSaves.
We’re focusing our energy solutions initiative on opportunities for households in ROCs to weatherize their homes, such as NHSaves and the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), which are financed by local utility partners and federal grants, respectively.
Recognizing that weatherization assistance programs can be challenging to navigate, we’re looking forward to helping homeowners every step of the way so they can submit successful applications and ultimately lower their bills.
We want to remove barriers for residents to save money with weatherization assistance by building trust and countering misinformation. Stories like Len’s will be key to building trust and countering misinformation.
“Sharing real stories about members in ROCs who have utilized the NHSaves and WAP programs may help others to trust that these programs are real,” said Elise Foerster, energy project specialist for ROC-NH. “We also learn from hearing member experiences about how we might be able to advocate for residents to improve the process for them.”
When he learned about the opportunity to audit his home for energy savings from an insert with his electric bill in spring 2025, he was excited about the potential benefits.
He quickly applied online and then submitted his previous couple of years of utility bills to qualify.
“I found as long as you have the records, it was very easy,” he said.
After the audit, which was scheduled a few weeks after his application was accepted, he received an itemized list of recommended upgrades and the name of a contractor who could complete the work, which totaled around $9,500. He also was offered the option to select his own contractor.
That was when he reached out to Elise.
“I was looking to make sure the prices being quoted were market rate,” he said.
As a former member of the Medvil Cooperative board, Len received training from ROC-NH on best practices for hiring vendors and managing infrastructure, including getting multiple quotes to compare vendors.
Elise was able to verify the costs and the reputation of the contractor with the help of Resilient Buildings Group.
Another barrier facing many homeowners is the cost.
Len received a $6,000 grant from Eversource (his electric utility), reducing his out-of-pocket expenses to $3,500. He paid $1,500 and then secured a two-year, 0 percent-interest loan through Eversource to pay for the remainder of the work.
“The finances worked out, and I said, ‘Okay, it's worth going for,’” Len remembered.
The work, which was completed at Len’s home in August over two-and-a-half days, included the installation of a new dryer vent system with insulation, adding caulking around air conditioning vents in the ceiling, and blowing an additional 6 inches of insulation into the underbelly of the home.
After one of the coldest, snowiest winters in recent memory, we checked back in with Len to see how the weatherization project had made a difference.
“I’ve noticed an improvement in the feeling inside,” he said recently, regarding his home’s ability to retain heat during the winter.
He also reported that his wife had seen significant decreases in drying time for laundry thanks to the upgrade of the dryer venting.
Len was already eager to spread the word to his neighbors about the benefits of weatherization.
“I'm trying to push people here,” he said.
He agreed to share his bills to help show other homeowners how the program works.
According to NHPR, the two-month stretch of December 2025 and January 2026 was the coldest since 2009, based on statewide average temperature rankings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
However, Len used 13% fewer gallons of propane from December to January than during the previous winter.
“In this bitter cold winter that we had, my electric use has stayed very stable,” Len said, in comparison to the steady increases he came to expect in other winters.
“This program works,” Elise said.
Len’s story also demonstrates that there are multiple pathways to funding for weatherization, and while the low-income programs such as WAP and the NHSaves Home Energy Assistance Program (HEA) offer higher subsidies, not all of the funding pathways require income-eligibility.
“The pathway that Len used, the NHSaves Home Energy Performance (HEP) path is based on the energy efficiency of his home,” she said. “I don’t think everyone knows that and we hope that others can proceed with weatherization even if they were not income eligible.
Although homeowners in resident-owned communities might hear about weatherization resources from their utility company or ROC-NH, Elise and her team have found that it’s challenging to overcome their initial skepticism and concerns about the process.
“Unfortunately, there are a lot of scams in the home improvement space,” she said. “Sometimes a ROC-NH coach can encourage a community to do something, but it isn’t until they hear from a peer about it that they feel comfortable moving forward. Elevating our residents’ experiences helps other ROC homeowners to trust that this might be a good decision for them.”
Elise described the process as “non-invasive.”
“The auditor and the contractors are kind and tidy — they are not judging the homes they are entering,” she said. “They just want to help make more homes dry, warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and safe for the people who live there.”
Learn More About Energy Solutions for Homeowners