Enhancing Home Efficiency & Health in Missoula County
Missoula County’s Department of Ecology & Extension is proud to offer a new initiative centered on improving the health and efficiency of homes throughout the county. The Home Upgrade Hub (HUH), Missoula County’s resource for healthy and efficient homes, guides and educates homeowners and renters on retrofit measures to improve their homes' indoor air quality, and comfort, and result in utility cost savings.
The five main goals of the Home Upgrade Hub are:
- Provide customized whole-home prescriptions to fully decarbonized, healthy, and safe homes to every participant, including connections to funding and financing opportunities.
- Substantially reduce the reliance on fossil fuel-sourced energy within both affordable and market-rate single-family and multifamily buildings in Missoula County, expanding access to increasing the uptake of energy-efficient appliances, cold climate heat pumps, and climate-resilient landscaping.
- Educate residents and contractors about decarbonization and clean energy solutions for home improvement.
- Eliminate disproportionate energy burdens for low-income and rural residents, inclusive of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities.
- Support the just transition to local renewable energy.
Funded by a one million dollar grant through the Environmental Protection Agency, the HUH hopes to support approximately 250 residents in 2025, host over a dozen public educational events, and continue to gather momentum with the help of our six project partners: All Nations Health Center, Clearwater Credit Union, Climate Smart Missoula, Human Resource Council, NeighborWorks Montana, City of Missoula’s Department of Community Planning Development & Innovation, and Missoula County Department of Planning Development and Sustainability.
The Home Upgrade Hub stems from years-long community need for a centralized “one-stop-shop” where anyone can seek help navigating the plethora of information on energy-efficient appliances, tax credits and incentives, local contractors and installers, and how to plan a retrofit project. It also stems from relevant data we know of the county:
An analysis of Missoula County’s housing stock shows the county has approximately forty-five thousand households at an ownership rate of 58%. According to the Department of Energy’s LEAD tool, most of the owner-occupied housing is heavily concentrated in single family homes at 78%, while renter-occupied housing is heavily concentrated in in multi-family housing. Over half of Missoula County’s housing stock was built before 1980. Twenty-four percent was built between 1980- 1999, with the remaining 23% built after 2000.
Also, forty-two percent of households in Missoula County live at or below 80% of the Area Median income. This indicates that a significant portion of households will be eligible for available grants, incentives, and other support to aid in their journeys towards decarbonization.
Lastly, data released through Electrify Missoula related to Missoula’s CO2 emissions show 31% comes from natural gas and 59% from electricity, and 10% from methane released from the landfill. Given these effective ages of Missoula County’s housing stock paired with sources of CO2 emissions, there is tremendous opportunity for energy savings in retrofits and decarbonization efforts.
The Home Upgrade Hub invites residents to utilize our services to analyze their home’s energy sources, consumption trends, housing envelope, and overall energy needs to sustain their lifestyles while adding comfort, improved indoor air quality, and level of resiliency outside of their home (landscaping & defensible space).
The HUH will also offers public programming events! Our first event, An Intro to The Home Upgrade Hub, scheduled for the evening of February 20th and will guide attendees through offered services as well as give a crash course on home energy efficiency retrofits.
In March, join us for a free home energy efficiency home retrofit series every Thursday, March 6th – 27th from 5:30 – 7:00pm at the G. W. Marks Exploration Center.
We also invite you to visit us in-person any time and meet Callye, the Climate Resiliency Educator, and Corey the Home Energy Retrofit Project Manager!
