SEON Is Hosting its Third Annual Sustainable Home Tour

Duffy/Lundgren residence, Londonderry, VT.

George Harvey

The Sustainable Energy Outreach Network (SEON) is deeply involved in the building trade and related areas of work in the built environment. Some of the members are architects, some are contractors, some provide services, some supply products for homes, and at least one, BuildingGreen, is a publisher. The members are mainly local to southern Vermont, southern New Hampshire, and western Massachusetts, but a few come from much farther away; one has its headquarters in Oshkosh.

SEON provides a lot of informational services to its members. This is especially important in the building professions, because they are undergoing very rapid evolution. Resilient and sustainable systems that are needed to reduce our energy needs and provide durable structures were hard to imagine only a few decades ago. Also, the need to live sustainable lifestyles is becoming ever greater.

The services SEON offers are not limited to its members, however. As part of its outreach, it is having its third Annual Home Tour on September 29, 2018. Six houses in southwestern Vermont are open for registered tour visitors. The self-guided tour is from 10 am to 4 pm. Tickets will be available on the SEON Home Tour website, beginning September 1. (www.seon.info/hometour).

The homes on display show off work and products of SEON’s members. Each tour house provides examples of a number of technologies that interested people might wish to see.

Paggi/Nadeau residence, Marlboro, VT.

Readers of Green Energy Times may recognize the names of SEON’s members whose work is on display. For example, home number 4 on the tour is the Duffy/Lundgren residence in Londonderry, Vermont. It is was built in 1796 and has been upgraded with a view to make it as energy efficient and comfortable as possible. The project was done under the guidance of the owners, with a 15-kilowatt solar system installed by Integrated Solar Applications and insulation by Vermont Foam. The home has heat pumps for both hot water and general heating.

The number 5 house on the tour, the Brennan Residence in Westminster West, Vermont, is an extensive retrofit of a home built in 1848. The work on this house was done by Mindel & Morse Builders, of Brattleboro, Vermont. The upgrade was completed ten years ago, and so the home illustrates the durability possible in high-quality sustainable systems. Along with other upgrades, it was furnished with a Stiebel Eltron SOL 25 Plus collection system for a solar water heating system. This was described in GET in 2012. (http://bit.ly/Stiebel-Eltron-SOL-25)

SEON has an informative web page covering all the homes in the tour, complete with descriptions of their energy and efficiency systems, names of the companies and people who did the work, and photographs.

SEON’s website is www.seon.info.