The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Making small home improvement projects accessible
A new loan fund aims to help Gunnison, Eagle and Pitkin County residents make energy improvements to their homes. The Office for Resource Efficiency (ORE) is partnering with a Boulder-based financial institution to offer loans between $1,000 and $25,000 for energy projects like replacing heating systems, insulating attics and crawl spaces, and replacing windows and doors.
ORE has set aside $985,000—the maximum it could allocate from its total $4.9 million in grant funding—in a revolving loan fund that will be administered by Funding Partners. As a non-profit community financial development institution, Funding Partners specializes in programs that reinvest in the community and, unlike banks, can take on programs that yield smaller profits.
“This funding pool will be available as equal opportunity for all three counties,” said ORE community energy coordinator Maya Silver. “It’s not a separate allocation; it’s first-come, first-served. The idea is to keep it going—all the money will go back into the fund and it will be a continually renewed pool of money.”
The hope, Silver said, is that homeowners will be able to pay back their loan with their energy savings. Qualified projects will have to include a reasonable energy improvement project, a reasonable payback period and a certain amount of energy savings associated with it. Renewable projects like solar panel installation will not necessarily be excluded, but the program will primarily focus on getting homes up to par on energy efficiency.
The advantage of the fund, Silver says, is that homeowners can get help financing projects that a bank might not consider.
“A homeowner could take out a super small loan to put insulation in the attic and pay it back over six months,” she said.
When it comes to approving the projects, ORE will evaluate the project and Funding Partners will evaluate and administer the loan. Homeowners can qualify in one of three tiers, which will determine the interest rate (between 3.75 percent and 6.75 percent) and maximum loan amount available, up to $25,000.
Silver says that ORE has sought to provide energy improvement financing for several years now. ORE had once hoped to offer PACE loans—property assessed clean energy loans—for energy improvement projects. But with the economic downturn, that loan program fell though in spite of having had voter approval. This new loan program helps restore ORE’s original vision and make home energy improves more accessible. Homeowners and their contractors can learn more about applying for funding at www.energysmartcolorado.com, gunnison@energysmartcolorado.com or (940) 641-7682.
