Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman. This post originally appeared on the Hawthorne Voices Blog, and is reprinted here at the request of CEE.
Earlier this year, the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council and Community Energy Services jointly sponsored two workshops to get residents energy-efficient and environmentally friendly home upgrades. The home visit and materials are valued at $400, and require a $20 co-pay. But the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council has offered to cover the co-pay for the first 150 residents who sign up. There's still plenty of space left for the materials and visits to be completely free to you!
Here's the catch: to qualify, you must be an owner-occupant of the Hawthorne neighborhood, and you must attend a CES workshop. The next workshop is set to take place on Tuesday, June 29th, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. (they usually finish earlier) at Farview Park. If you are interested in attending, contact Kyle Boehm at 612-219-7334 or kboehm@mncee.org.
Pictured above are some photos from the home visit done with Hawthorne board member and blogger John Hoff.
Do not click "read more," but do contact Kyle to sign up!
7 comments:
Where can someone get incandescnent light bulbs around here?
I have some of those cfl bulbs but they don't illuminate worth a darn. I also just had one break and I don't want to have more mercury rolling about in my NoMi home.
Why do you discriminate against renters? Every citizen living in Hawthorne should have the opportunity to receive this benefit?
Couldn't tell ya, Anon 11:40. But thanks for bringing that up, as I should clarify one thing. The bulbs in this photo were ones REMOVED FROM John's house, not distributed through this program.
I agree that the lighting from CFL's can be inferior, but I consider the trade-off to be worth it.
What are the benefits of cfl, Hawkman. The ones I have don't last as long as they claim to and let off a horrendous toxic stink when they break.
I have kids and I don't want them anywhere near those things.
the mercury kind of freaks me out a bit. and the lighting is terribly harsh but if you stop by the light bulb section of a hardware store, especially the big chain ones, you can see the constant updates - they're trying to make the lighting better and more appealing. i like LED bulbs the best, in terms of an efficient option.
Anon 4:53, the owner-occupant requirement was set by CES and their partners (such as Xcel) in part due to considerations that permitted access to owner-occupied houses would be easier to verify.
Frankly, with the high percentage of rental houses in Hawthorne, I expect the program to be somewhat under-utilized. If we get a second round of funding, I hope we can find a way around that particular requirement. We'll reach more people and possibly folks who need the lower energy bills even more.
To me, the benefit of CFL lighting primarily revolves around the lower energy costs and longer life span of the bulb. The mercury is rather minimal, although worries about children's exposure I can understand, and proper disposal is an issue.
I couldn't say where to buy incandescents because I have CFL's and won't need to replace them for quite some time.
If the goal is to get people to upgrade homes and reduce energy consumption in aggregate, rather than just change people's habits, there is no reason to not do some kind of program for landlords/tenants. I can see the argument that landlords should be doing it anyway, on their own dime, that they can deduct from their business expenses but we are talking about a group of landlords who would rather not have the hassle and expense when they are dealing with other issues, (or in the case of crappy ones, not even dealing with basic issues let alone something like this). If you want to get rental housing involved, you will probably have to market it differently.
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