The national Green Open Homes network provides support for organisers, and a competition offering funding to help get events going. The network aims to support existing event organisers and to help more events take place in local communities, because they are an excellent way of encouraging people to make energy saving improvements to their own homes.
A large proportion of UK housing needs upgrading to become more energy efficient – to tackle people’s rising energy bills, make homes warmer, and reduce the nation’s carbon emissions. A number of successful Open Home days/weekends featuring low carbon measures have been held around the country in recent years. They typically feature householders opening their homes to the public to share their experience of different energy-saving measures such as internal wall and under-floor insulation, draft-proofing and solar energy.
A competition has so far helped about 30 groups with funding (totalling £140,000), but event organisers can still apply for grant awards of up to £2,000 to help with event costs, only available while there is still funding left in the pot, so apply soon! All the details and the application form are here.
There are many events happening around the country, with more being added to the dedicated Green Open Homes website all the time. If you’re interested in looking for an event to visit, or if you have a home that you’d like to open and want to find a group why not take a look and see if anything is happening near you. If you can’t find a local event then why not think about hosting one yourself? There’s a range of free resources to help organisers that give advice on getting started, insurance, marketing and recruiting hosts and volunteers. For more information contact the Green Open Homes team on communities@cse.org.uk or call 0117 934 1400.
Green Open Homes is funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and delivered by the Centre for Sustainable Energy in partnership with Bristol Green Doors. The network benefits from advisory support from Forum for the Future, the National Trust, Transition Network and the Association of Environmentally Conscious Builders.