Neighbor Warming Neighbor 2009 Important Save the Dates:

Kick-Off Meeting/Blower Door Training
Saturday, October 17 2 to 5 PM at Unity Community Center

Weatherization Training and Volunteer Dinner Tuesday, November 3 6 to 8 PM at the Unity Community Center

Neighbor Warming Neighbor Work Days
Saturday, November 7 and Saturday, November 14
8AM to 3PM

An Energy Plan for our Community

Participants: The Local Citizens with the help of Unity College, Time and Tide RC&D, Unity Barn Raisers, Mac’s Hardware, Unity Fire Department, and WaldoCAP

Why do we need this? If energy prices remain as high or climb higher than they are today, many local residents will be facing an emergency situation this coming heating season, and will have to make hard decisions about whether to spend money on heat, food, or needed medicines. Heating and personal transportation costs have increased 100% in the last five years and now consume over 10% of the average Mainer’s monthly income, up from just 5% only five years ago. (From the Governor’s Pre-Emergency Energy Task Force, November 16, 2007.)

Can one community INSULATE itself from high fuel prices? In this local area we have many resources, and the will, to help ourselves and our neighbors gain greater energy independence and stay warm this winter. Energizing a Community is an initiative involving short, intermediate and long term strategies driven by the interest of citizens.

Short Term Strategies

Provide energy related information and hands on activities as requested by folks attending the meetings. Panel discussions and presentations to date have centered on home energy conservation, energy audit tools, home weatherization, home health issues associated with the energy crisis and energy cost impacts on county and local governments. Topics identified but not yet planned include: public services and programs available and how to access them, renewable energy, transportation etc. Through these discussions Neighbor Warming Neighbor, a project designed to provide home weatherization assistance to the local community, is being formed.

Forums

September 17th- Unity Fire Chief Dennis Turner at Mac’s Hardware store speaking on the Safe Installation and Venting of Home Heating Systems. Immediately following at the Community Center our workgroup will learn details of an energy audit conducted on the Community Center and will view opportunities to address heat loss in this building.

Mid September to Mid October - Identify homes in the community where residents request assistance in weatherizing their homes. We will utilize a Habitat for Humanity type model, where anyone can participate, regardless of experience or physical ability. Those that are able to will be asked to contribute back to our effort in whatever way that they are able to.

Mid September to Mid October - Recruit 20-40 volunteers that will be trained and will be able to contribute 5 hours to this weatherization effort.

Mid September to Mid October- Our fundraising effort begins. Our target is 20 homes in Unity and the surrounding towns. We will need to assemble basic “house-buttoning” kits (film for windows, caulking, spray-in insulation, foam pipe wrap etc). We estimate the kits to cost approx. $50-60/each. Using the $50 figure we will need to raise a minimum of $1000. Not bad considering that we have the potential to purchase locally available materials to offset many fuel dollars that likely will leave our local economy.

October 1st (tentative) - Larry Horvath from WaldoCap will demonstrate the blower door test as a tool to assess heat loss in an existing residence and small business. A team of volunteers will work to address air leaks and we will re-test as a demo to see how effective we were.

October 18th- Formal weatherization training and building envelope assessment for volunteers

October 24th and 25th- Teams of 3-4 students/community members will participate in a home winterization weekend. After viewing a brief training video or refresher, teams of 3-4 will go to work on 20 homes in Unity and surrounding towns.

Intermediate Strategies

Promoting locally available and locally made energy saving products
Many energy saving products are available for purchase locally. In addition there are locally made window quilts, wood stoves and local expertise. Promote local purchasing and the resulting money that will be saved by driving elsewhere to obtain these items.

Energy Conservation
As requested we will assist property owners in locating the technical and financial assistance to identify and adequately address energy conservation improvements in all residences, businesses, farms, institutions and publically owned facilities that request this assistance.

Energy Resource Team
Create an energy resource team that helps to promote energy planning as a community and economic development tool. The team would serve as a conduit of information connecting local people with available resources, identify local needs and opportunities to promote energy conservation and development of renewable energy resources, make energy recommendations on publicly funded projects etc.

Long Term Strategies

The longer term strategy of Energizing a Community is to plan for the future energy security of our community. How can we as a community keep our buying dollar local while ensuring the health and well being of our citizens?

Building Community Awareness
Continue educational speaker series on energy topics. Develop local case studies, demonstrations and examples that will not only forward our efforts locally but will assist other towns in developing energy action groups similar to Neighbor Warming Neighbor.

Thermal Imaging Project
Work with the Fire Department and/or the Maine Energy Education Program to access heat loss in example buildings using Thermal Imaging technology to best target insulation efforts.

Community Owned Energy Projects
Explore the potential for developing renewable energy generating facilities that are locally/regionally owned and distributed. These facilities could offset energy costs for a group of homes, an institution, a municipality or all of these.

Aggregating/co-op buying of fuel
Some communities, neighborhood groups, private and non-profit entities have aggregated heating oil consumers and solicited bids for heating oil to supply all members of the group. In some situations a group purchase can help stabilize and possibly lower the cost of heating fuel if we can reduce the oil company’s delivery costs. We can explore grouping residents under a municipal-buying plan and/or working with local civic groups and churches to create buying co-ops.