Coastside Solar Home Tour coming May 13

The Coastside’s first tour of solar-powered and energy efficient homes will take place on May 13th.  The project, spearheaded by Coastside residents Dennis Paull, Jeff Gilmore, John Wilmes and Shari Deghi, is designed to encourage Coastside homeowners to consider installing solar themselves, by talking to locals who have already done it.

The event starts at 1:00 PM with a gathering in the Cunha Middle School multi-purpose room, where visitors can speak to local and regional contractors who are experienced in upgrading homes for solar electricity, solar water heating, and passive solar home design.  A series of speakers will also cover topics relevant to home energy efficiency and production.

Starting at 2:00 PM, attendees can strike out on their own with a map of 10 nearby solar homes.  At these sites, they can view information about the systems and their economic and environmental benefits, see the installations, and ask questions of the homeowners.

"Solar has become a mainstream technology and solid investment" says organizer Gilmore.  "Many of these systems on the tour are poised to pay back their investment in six or seven years.  Since the life span of a system is 20 to 30 years, that means the owners are getting many years of free electricity.  When you can save hard cash by doing something that is beneficial to the environment, improves national security, and even helps maintain the power grid by contributing the most power when demand is highest, it is hard to understand why solar is not on every house.  When you can have all that for less than you might pay for granite countertops, then it seems to me that we just need to let people know about it.  That is why we are holding the tour."

The event is being organized under the umbrella of NeighborShare, a local group working on issues of sustainability, re-localization of energy, food and livelihood, and community cohesiveness.  NeighborShare currently organizes affinity groups for home food gardening and solar energy and holds educational events.

Coastside Solar Home Tour
Saturday May 13
Tour Central: Cunha Middle School, 600 Church at Kelly, downtown Half Moon Bay 1:00-3:00
Home tours: 2:00-4:30 at homes around the Coastside.  Maps available at Tour Central or on the web the day of the tour.
For more info, go to http://neighborshare.org/solar or call Dennis Paull at 712-0498.

Click for more photos.

Urs Williman

Jeff Gilmore