Were drafty windows one of the causes of high heating bills this past winter? If so, custom-made insulating inserts from non-profit WindowDressers of Maine might be able to help lower your energy costs. Two local nonprofits, Kearsarge Neighborhood Partners (KNP) and Kearsarge Climate Action (KCA), are teaming up with WindowDressers in a nine-town project to increase building energy efficiency by producing insulating window inserts.
The local team is just getting started. WindowDressers held a volunteer training session via Zoom on May 23 to offer instructions for visiting, assessing, and measuring the windows of those who sign up for low-cost insulating inserts. Now, the local team is looking for interested clients from the participating towns of Andover, Bradford, Newbury, New London, Sunapee, Springfield, Sutton, Warner, and Wilmot.
For information on how to sign up to receive inserts, residents and owners of businesses within the nine towns included in the project are invited to contact KCA’s Joe Kubit, at jgkubit70@nullgmail.com or 603 748-4404.
Those who sign up will receive a visit from a member of the measuring team beginning in June. Sign-ups will continue until early fall. The measurements will be sent to WindowDressers headquarters in Rockland, Maine. There, insert-framing materials will be cut and provided for final assembly by additional volunteers at the community build event to be held at St. Andrews Church in New London in November.
The WindowDressers program is, in part, an energy-saving initiative and, in part, a community-building event. All who order inserts are required to volunteer in some capacity with the local WindowDressers team. This is the reason the insert costs can be kept low.
As noted in the April Beacon, the project goal is 200 inserts for about 30 area families and businesses. The cost per insert is roughly between $30 and $100, depending on size and construction material. KCA/KNP fundraising will enable the project to offer up to ten window inserts at a significant discount to residents experiencing economic hardship.
To find out more about volunteer opportunities or for general information about the project, contact local coordinator, and Andover resident, Lori Cox at lorilaicox@nullgmail.com. Information about Window Dressers can also be found at windowdressers.org.
WindowDressers is a volunteer-driven non-profit organization dedicated to helping Northern New England residents reduce heating costs, fossil fuel consumption, and CO-2 emissions by lowering the amount of heat loss through windows.