Missoula News

homeword's 6th annual sustainabiity tour

This Saturday, Tour Missoula’s Greenest Homes

By Kaylee Porter, 6-12-08

Click the image for more information on the 6th annual Sustainability Tour

With energy costs across the country soaring, many homeowners want to save some green by going green. The 6th Annual Sustainability Tour, hosted by homeWORD, will highlight examples of green building around Missoula in hopes of inspiring people who want their homes to be more sustainable and cost efficient.

This year’s tour focuses on the “basics of sustainability,” says Sustainability Tour planner Kara Lawrence. “We’re steering away from all the new expensive green technology out there and focusing on what average people can do with an average income or lower to build more sustainably.”

The tour, taking place this Saturday, June 14, includes green building workshops and tours of 12 Missoula homes that demonstrate sustainable building. There will be guided bus, scooter and bike tours, as well as self-guided tours. The owners of the sustainable homes will be available to provide private tours and give first-hand information and suggestions.

Each house provides a different perspective on sustainability that attendees can apply to their own homes and building projects, Lawrence says.

“We chose the homes based on how they were able to reduce energy consumption, how they were able to reduce the amount of new materials used, and things like that,” Lawrence says.

One house, owned by architect Terre Meinershagen, illustrates that you don’t have to sacrifice design to have a sustainable home. Meinershagen used local wood products to reduce transportation costs and materials that are built to last.

Meinershagen says he designed his house to be comfortable and aesthetically pleasing, yet there is no wasted space and it is flexible depending on a household’s changing needs. 

“If something is pretty, but it doesn’t last and doesn’t work it’s not good design,” Meinershagen says. “I think one thing we are missing, particularly in residential construction, is the aspect of lasting not just structurally but in other aspects as well.”

Most of the homes in this year’s tour are located close to downtown, lowering the residents’ dependence on fossil fuels. One tour host, Lauren Caldwell, says this is an important part of being sustainable.

“One of the biggest things about my home is choice — I chose to buy a home that is close to my work, so I can walk and bike everywhere. I also chose to live in a small house. I like the idea that living small is living large.”

Other homes demonstrate green remodeling projects done on a tight budget. One house is a work in progress that is being gradually converted into a more sustainable structure one room at a time.

Features that have been added to this home include a wood pellet stove, photovoltaic cells, wheatboard walls and marmoleum floors. (Marmoleum is an all natural linoleum floor.) The garage has also been converted into an apartment and there is a garden equipped with a bee colony.

All the proceeds from the tour go directly to HomeWORD, a non-profit in Missoula that develops affordable housing and asset-building strategies for those in need through sustainable methods. Lawrence says around 200 people attended the tour last year and she expects a similar turn out this year.

Tickets are available at Rock’n Rudy’s, Burley’s Green Goods Mercantile and the homeWORD office, which is located at 127 N. Higgins, Suite 307. The self-guided and bike tours cost $10 and additional wristbands are $3.  Scooter tours are $25 and bus tours are $20.  For more information, including times and locations, visit the Sustainability Tour’s website.

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