Over the past several election cycles, progressive political candidates and organizations have developed and refined the concept of the online political house party. A house party is an event held in support of a political campaign at someone's house. The host invites friends, and possibly strangers, to meet and discuss the issues in the campaign, learn more about what's going on, and perhaps donate to the campaign. The concept of the house party is nothing new; what's new is the development of online tools to help a lot of people organize many house parties all at once, and to build community by helping campaign supporters find one another online.
This same idea, with a few tweaks, can be applied to help weatherize homes across the country. Imagine that some organization with national reach - for example, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, or even the White House - were to announce a national Weatherization Day, and to call on its supporters to volunteer to either host or attend a weatherization house party. Hosts would be responsible for assessing weatherization work needed at their home, purchasing supplies, and providing refreshments for their volunteers. Volunteers would be responsible to show up and pitch in a few hours of weatherizing work. And, perhaps, there would be an understanding that hosts should reciprocate the favor by volunteering for future house parties.
Anyone could participate in a weatherization house party, but that would probably require that the work carried out during these house parties would have to be very simple - caulking windows, installing storm windows, etc. Also, hosts would need to receive some support from trained professionals, who could help the host assess high priority weatherization tasks, select materials, help the host provide his or her volunteers with the training they need for a successful project, and so on.
Over time, these events could become more sophisticated, because they would slowly build up a corps of people who have the experience needed to assist with future weatherization projects. Moreover, these events are likely to whet the appetite of homeowners for future weatherization projects, which are perhaps out of range of the "low-hanging fruit" that volunteers can handle - for example, insulating a wall, fixing a leaky roof, or perhaps replacing an oil heater with a natural gas heater. The possibility of return business should help provide green contractors with proper incentives to offer their assessment and training services at a low cost.
This idea was inspired in large measure by the Cambridge, MA-based Home Energy Efficiency Team, which organizes exactly these kinds of events. HEET's model is to organize energy efficiency "barn raisings", at which groups of volunteers meet to weatherize a home, school, church, or another type of building. The volunteers divide into task forces; each task force has a leader who provides on-the-spot training and safety instruction. I've attended a HEET barnraising, and am training to help lead future barnraising task forces, and they are a lot of fun! Spreading this approach to weatherization will not only help us save energy, and help homeowners save money, it will also help build community.
