How to Save Energy, Technique #7: Heat Your Home with the Morbidly Obese

Another creative way to save money on your heating bill is to befriend an obese person.  Or, better yet, an entire family of post-morbids!

Depending on a number of factors, including physical size, activity level, and genetic makeup, a grossly overweight person can generate as much heat as a potbelly stove, and render a medium-sized room warm and toasty in the dead of winter.

Take, for instance, the case of Buddy and Holly Richardson of Clear Lake, Iowa.  During the winter (December through February) of 2007, their heating bill totaled $694.17.  This took a sizable bite out of the family’s budget, and the couple began searching for alternatives.

One day Buddy was having lunch at a Taco Bell restaurant, and a 450 lb man sat at a nearby table.  Almost immediately he could feel waves of heat radiating off the man’s immense polo shirt.

Interesting, Buddy thought.  And he noticed that the slightest increase in exertion seemed to raise the temperature in the room.  After “Jumbo” encountered trouble opening a packet of mild sauce, it became almost unbearably hot, and some of the other patrons began moving to tables farther away.

But Buddy stayed (despite a thick Hulk Hogan moustache of sweat), and struck up a conversation with the gargantuan gentleman.  It turned out he worked with computers, and Buddy made an appointment with him to stop by his house to check out his family’s sluggish desktop.

When the man arrived the couple felt an instantaneous warming inside the room where the computer was housed, as well as the adjoining hallway.  Holly offered him some chips and spicy salsa, and the temperature went up even higher!

This was too good to be true.  Buddy and Holly made a concerted effort to befriend the man, and when winter rolled around he was at their house at least four nights per week.

The pair became very adept at adjusting the temperature levels in the room (almost like a thermostat!), via the types of food and beverages served to the man, as well as pre-planned activities.

During an extra-cold snap in January, Holly served crackers and pepper jack cheese, and Buddy introduced “Jumbo” to Wii.  Within twenty minutes the windows were fogged-over on three sides of the house, and the dog was panting like he’d just chased a UPS truck across town.

Buddy and Holly’s 2008 heating bill?  $361.52.  A savings of a whopping $332.65!

Of course when summer arrived they had to get “angry” at their new friend, and call the whole thing off.  Needless to say, a 450-pounder hanging around the house during the hot months would’ve erased all their wintertime progress.

But the couple is confident they’ll be able to recruit a new morbidly obese “friend” every winter, and continue to save themselves big money.

Although more difficult to control, this technique can also work in apartment buildings.

Take, for instance, the case of Arthur and Bea Findlay of Tuckahoe, NY.  After a family of post-morbids moved into the unit directly below theirs, they noticed an instant, sharp decline in heating costs.

Arthur explains:  “I don’t know what they do down there, I guess they just sit around with Arby’s bags and buckets of ‘The Colonel,’ and generate all that heat.  The older kid, the one they call Coco, is so fat his face is just a nose and some horizontal slits.  I’m sure glad I don’t have to look at him all the time, but he’s saving us hundreds.  That little bastard is like a Chinese heat pump that waddles!”

Arthur and Bea have a great relationship with their landlord, and he has vowed to move the large family along, once warm weather returns.  A friend indeed!

There are many creative ways to save energy, and our series will continue in this space next week.

We’ll see you then!