By Laurie O’Neill — Correspondent
A while back, Kim Slack and his partner Amanda Mujica wanted “to live as sustainably as possible to help create a safer environment for our daughter and her generation.” The couple chose to live in Concord in part because they were impressed by its sustainability efforts.
Slack, a part-time heating and cooling coach at Concord Municipal Light Plant, and Mujica, a teacher, set about modifying their 1950s Cape-style home to be more energy efficient, adding solar panels, installing heat pumps, improving insulation, adding an induction stove, and putting in an electric car charger for their EV.
“All of these investments have had fairly good economic returns,” said Slack, a part-time heating and cooling coach for Concord Municipal Light Plant who has helped hundreds of Concordians “transition to cleaner energy.” He is also an organic gardener.
Slack and Mujica’s home was one of three featured on the first of two Green Home Tour dates on March 9, for which more than 140 people registered.
The second tour date is March 23, when three more homes will be open to visitors. Concord’s Climate Action Committee is hosting the events with CMLP and its home heating coaches and the Concord chapter of Mothers Out Front, a group of local volunteers working to implement just solutions to the climate crisis.
The tour’s purpose is to enable people to “see firsthand what their early-adopting neighbors have done,” said Brad Hubbard-Nelson, chair of the Climate Action Committee. “Thankfully, more and more people are starting to take action in their homes and lives to lower their climate impact.”
The homes on the tours are “everyday Concord houses of different ages which have been retrofitted with energy-efficient and cost-effective heating and cooling,” said Hubbard-Nelson, and one is a newer net-zero geothermal home that might inspire those considering new builds.
Homeowners on the tours share their experiences modifying their spaces and describe what it is like to live in a greener home. They find out how to do the work affordably and how to take advantage of CMLP’s electrification rebates, and they can ask questions of coaches and EV specialists.
Besides Kim Slack and Amanda Mujica, Laura Davis, and Jeff Eiden and Eliza Epstein, opened their homes to visitors.
The March 23 tour is free, refreshments will be served, and visitors can stop by the homes between 2 and 4 p.m. Register and select which homes to tour via bit.ly/GHT-2024.
