Douglas Island waterfront trailer park see first AK Carbon Reduction Fund heat pump project! Thunder Mountain Park to add three more Fund heat pumps!
“Looks like a trailer, feels like a palace.” That’s how A.F. described her North Douglas trailer after her new AK Carbon Reduction Fund (formerly the Juneau Carbon Offset Fund, JCOF) heat pump was fired up. Granted, A.F. was deep into a full rebuild of the trailer so improvements were aplenty. But, the addition of the heat pump, which replaced the aging, expensive, and dysfunctional oil-hog of a furnace, tipped the balance. “Warm dry heat, air conditioning, less moisture…what’s not to love about this thing?” A.F. asked to me during my post-install visit.
Before we go too much further with this blog, a friendly reminder that the Juneau Carbon Offset Fund will slowly be experiencing a name change and will be known as the Alaska Carbon Reduction Fund (AKCRF). Over the next few weeks, updates to this website and other materials will slowly be made. The logo is essentially be the same so that part of the Fund’s brand should look familiar.
A.F.’s heat pump was the Fund’s first lower-income home, no-cost heat pump installation at the North Douglas trailer park. It seems that all of Juneau’s trailer parks have something uniquely Alaskan about them – towering peaks above, views of glaciers, lush rich forest. In the case of the North Douglas park, expansive views and waterfront seem abundant, especially for those homes on the perimeter. We assume we’ll see more applicants from the North Douglas park as word spreads of the benefit that A.F. has received. And word does spread! Across the channel and towards the glacier, JCOF installed its first heat pump in the Thunder Mountain park a few years back. Since that project, people started talking. Two more have installations have been completed. At the time of this post, another three Fund heat pump installations are queued up for the Thunder Mountain park. Three additional AKCRF applications have been approved and contractors are lined up to install heat pumps and wire them to new electrical circuits!
The word is out and the power of neighbor to neighbor marketing is strong in Juneau! These next three projects will bring the Fund’s Thunder Mountain total project count up to six and the Fund’s overall project total to 44 heat pump installations. 44 heat pumps at an average oil elimination of 500 gallons means that 22,000 gallons of heating oil are no longer needed at these 44 homes! That’s 550 barrels of oil, a huge cut in emissions – 492,800 pounds per year, and 44 families saving hundreds, some over $1,000, every year.
A special thanks to our supportive partners in this endeavor! We couldn’t do this work without their support and the support of all of the individuals who let us help them with their carbon impacts. Until we are all living carbon neutral lives, which is virtually impossible, especially in Alaska, Fund’s like the Alaska Carbon Reduction Fund are an easy place to turn for help. If you’ve got carbon on your conscience, look around this site to see what we can do for you.
