Historic Ithaca, a member of the Ithaca 2030 District, has taken the bold step to join the Electrify Ithaca campaign, working with BlocPower to completely electrify its heating and cooling systems for the offices and nonprofit Significant Elements store.
Contracts to carry out the work were signed late last month, reports Executive Director Susan Holland. The main showroom will have air conditioning for the first time as well as improved heating. The staff and customers will be much happier and hopefully the latter will spend a longer time in the architectural salvage store.
BlocPower also brought their team into the two buildings this summer to weatherize them. “They did an amazing job, all in one day,” says Holland, who is also a member of the Ithaca 2030 District advisory board.
According to her, two key incentives help make the retrofit project possible: 1) the older model furnaces could’ve failed at any time and replacing them would have been quite costly; and 2) NYSEG offered an outstanding program that fit very well, the Economic Development Heat Pump Incentive for Non-residential Buildings in Gas Constrained Areas.
The savings were more than 50% off the original price, which made it affordable. The other big plus is what Holland calls a “mission-marriage” for Historic Ithaca: educating others, sharing the knowledge, being sustainable, and preserving buildings, all at the same time.
Existing building owners should check out the Energy Retrofit Toolkit on Historic Ithaca’s website. In addition, Historic Ithaca/Significant Elements provides young adults with barriers to employment learn about the world of work, introducing them in the Work Preserve program to opportunities in the green economy trades through observation and on-site learning.