VIDEO: More Than 200 Homes Receive Makeovers Through An Extreme Energy Makeover Program

GOLDEN TRIANGLE, Miss. (WCBI)- You may have heard of home makeovers on television shows, but some Golden Triangle residents are living that dream.

4-County Electric Power Association has been doing the work for the past 18 months, and it was a nearly $4 million grant from TVA made it possible.

The power company made upgrades to more than 200 hundred homes including Lula Mae Howard’s.

The long-time Starkville resident said she first heard about the program on TV.

“My house needed some work done to it so I decided I would call that number and check and see and I got approved,” said Howard, who’s home received a makeover.

Howard said she was having problems with her AC unit, which was sky rocketing her light bill.

However, once she was approved for the home makeover, 4-County stepped in to lend a helping hand.

“Her unit was up in the attic and it was an older system,” said Ronnie Vernon, marketing specialist with 4-County. “It was an all electric system that was consuming a whole lot of electricity. Her duct work was very leaky, and we actually brought her unit out of the attic, put it down in the closet, redid all of our duct work, air-sealed her house, and duct sealed all of her duct work, and then added attic installation.”

Once the job was complete, Howard said she immediately noticed a difference.

Her electric bill went from around $200 a month to now being roughly $100 a month.

“That is very important, because at first it was really high so after they done the work, that cut it down a whole lot and I was just proud of that,” Howard expressed.

“With the utility bill being cut down, that gives them extra money to go to the grocery store and put it back into the local economy instead of overpaying an electric company,” said Matthew Dykes, who made upgrades to more than 50 homes.

“It was a low income program,” Vernon explained. “They had to bring their financial stuff into us, the house had to be an all electric, the house had to be at least 20 years old.”

When crews perform a makeover, they do various things such as install heating and cooling units, replace windows and doors, and seal air leaks.

“These systems we installed are the highest on the market pretty much,” said Dykes.

“The program was real beneficial to 4-County because it saved us some electricity that we have to buy from TVA, and it’s saving some of our customers a lot of money, it also helps with some of our vendors such as our heating and cooling people, our installation people, and some local vendors that we bought equipment from,” said Vernon.

On Thursday, 4-County held a program Celebration the program’s success.

In the past year and a half, 4-County made upgrades to 265 homes through its Extreme Energy Makeover Program.