Marin Green Home Tour - Huge Success!
Marin Green Home Tour Virtual Presentation - Day One
The first ever Marin Green Home Tour was considered a big success by all involved. The virtual event took place on Wednesday, October 19 and Thursday, October 20 from 6 - 8 PM. 879 free tickets were distributed and nearly 500 homes tuned in over the two days. 86% of the people who attended the event said that they were more likely to pursue green home upgrades after seeing what their neighbors had accomplished. The event consisted of pre-recorded tours of 10 homes, led by the owners. These ranged from a highly efficient green home built from the ground up in Novato, to a multi-family senior housing facility in San Rafael getting huge energy and water savings through Marin Clean Energy and Affordable Community Energy. While some were quite extensive (and expensive!), others were simple retrofits, such as using a grey water system to divert washing machine water to back yard fruit trees. Community food swaps, back yard bee hives, and re-purposing an old barn door to create a kitchen island all qualified as green upgrades, while some things, like working with a homeowners association to provide electric vehicle chargers to condo owners, represented some admirable out-of-the-box thinking.
After each tour, attendees participated in a live Q&A session with the homeowners. 181 people asked questions while live “chat ambassadors” moderated the discussions and responded via the chat fields. The tour also included presentations like Heating, Cooling and Breathing Easy with a Heat Pump, by the Marin/Sonoma Building Electrification Squad and Making Your Home Upgrades Affordable with Resources and Rebates by the Marin Sustainability Team.
Respondents reported that the most popular features by far were heat pumps (for heating, cooling and water heating) and induction cooktops. Other features mentioned multiple times in the post-event surveys were greywater and rainwater cachement systems, EV chargers, upgraded windows, insulation, and rooftop solar. If you are wondering what green upgrades you could do to improve your quality of life AND appeal to future homeowners, it would be worth it to watch the tour! The full tour is available on the Marin Green Home Tour archives page. Click the links below to view.
“Thank you and all who conceived of, organized, participated and produced this fabulous program. We watched every minute of both nights, and have already made three appointments with two of your sponsors to kick-start our action!”
“The whole event was so informative and well choreographed. I love the way it was structured, with diverse “bundles” of information, clearly and succinctly shared. It was very inspiring and made things seem “doable” and within reach financially... Really looking forward to tomorrow evening— an even more diverse lineup it looks like with respect to housing types and living configurations. I think Zoom was even better than live, as we were able to learn so much in a short time, from the comfort of our own homes.”
I was so proud to be part of such an auspicious group of sponsors!
