The nearly completed Mountain Towns Housing Project home in Londonderry
Home at Last
Learn more at mountaintownshousing.org.
Mark Your Calendar This year’s Vermont Spring Home Show, scheduled for April 20 to 21 at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction, will feature more than 100 local and national vendors offering services in homebuilding, remodeling and design. Learn more at jenksproductions.com.
Eye for Design A Richmond home called Woodlands received an Honor Award at AIA Vermont’s annual design awards ceremony in December. The home, by Jeff McBride of Sidehill Design, hosts a multigenerational household in a forest setting. It uses no fossil fuels. Learn more at aiavt.org.
Dressed to Impress WindowDressers, a Maine nonprofit that organizes community groups to build energy-saving window inserts, is expanding rapidly in Vermont. The simple wood-andplastic inserts are tucked snugly inside window frames, adding insulation at little cost. WindowDressers estimates that each individual window insert saves about eight gallons of heating oil per year. The inserts sell for around $50, depending on size, or are free for low-income households that qualify for public assistance programs.
ANNE WALLACE ALLEN
A Londonderry family will move into a new house this winter thanks to the Mountain Towns Housing Project, a community group working to provide affordable housing options one home at a time. Having joined forces with a local housing trust, state housing organizations and several building companies, Mountain Towns will spend an estimated $425,000 gleaned from donations to build the house, which is nearly completed. Buyer Kara Corlew, who has two young children, will pay $200,000 for the home. Under the popular shared-equity model, Corlew will be required to pay the housing project a share of the money she makes when she sells it. According to Cynthia Gubb, one of the project’s organizers, a local couple started the process three years ago when they donated 1.8 acres worth $70,000. The Rotary Club gave the appliances, and local companies drilled the well and put in a septic field at no charge. A lawyer donated his services, and many community members volunteered money and time. “Countless hours of work have gone into this,” Gubb said. When Corlew buys the house, Gubb said, the project will have money to start on another. Organizers will be looking for ways to cut costs, perhaps by building a duplex or using a modular home.
Jack Sumberg in Craftsbury
“When it’s cold outside, there’s a lot of cold glass, and the heat is just going out the window,” Jack Sumberg said. A retired contractor, he
started coordinating an annual WindowDressers Community Build event in Glover in 2018. As at a barn raising, neighbors gather to assemble the inserts, which
are custom-made to fit each window and use a double layer of shrink-wrapped plastic to counteract heat loss. “I have them all over my house,” Sumberg said. Allison Pouliot, the nonprofit’s program manager for Vermont and western New Hampshire, said 22 Green Mountain State towns held similar events last year. She’s in touch with several local energy committees and Rotary Clubs about adding more. “It’s growing by word of mouth,” Pouliot said. “People participate, and then the next year they say they’d like this for their community.” Learn more at windowdressers.org. NEST WINTER 2024
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