Saturday October 5th was the 5th Annual high performance home tour put on by SEON – Sustainable Energy Outreach Network,

The mission of SEON is to create an interrelated network of local businesses, educational institutions, and public sector participants dedicated to providing educational resources to improve the economic sustainability of the SE Vermont Region.

SEONs vision is for Southeastern Vermont and neighboring regions to become one of the foremost centers of sustainable energy and resiliency in rural America.

One of the activities of SEON is a monthly open meeting focusing on building science issues. Stay tuned for a meeting/presentation cover PGH2.0 - Pretty Good House….actually I should write another post about that.

I had a few houses on the tour but I spent the day at the Sugar Bush House project which is under construction. Things got a bit out of hand. I didn’t get many photos during the event. We had so many visitors that we didn’t necessarily manage to record them all. And they all wanted to discuss the design and construction at length. The hosts were myself plus Josh and Gero of Mindel and Morse Builders. We talked to people who had built before, people who were considering building, other builders, realtors, nosy neighbors, architects and random people who thought that touring a bunch of homes in Southeast Vermont would be a fun way to spend the day.

(Over)hearing the builders wax poetic about design issues was a pleasure. They also found it self-enlightening to describe the construction which, for them is super simple, clear and obvious but for many other builders is new and different.

We have continued to show the project to a trickle of other folks, many of whom have been following it on social media. Fine Homebuilding Magazine picked up the project and shared on their social media channels and I spent a few days responding to a steady stream of questions. Fun Stuff!