Renovation Nation, the national TV show featuring the green home building movement, is coming to Boulder to film the new SmartHome project being built by Imagine!
The filming is scheduled for March 25-26 at the Bob & July Charles SmartHome, which is being built at 1806 Iris St. An older residence for Imagine! consumers was razed at the site to make way for the first of two energy-efficient SmartHomes planned by Imagine! The other SmartHome will be built in Longmont.
Imagine!, which serves people with cognitive disabilities, believes the SmartHome projects could set an example of a sustainable and tech-friendly group home for other organizations working with the disabled around the country.
The Boulder home will feature geothermal heat pumps for heating and cooling, low-water plumbing fixtures, Xeric landscaping, natural lighting and solar tubes, solar hot water panels and solar photovoltaic panels, Energy Star-rated appliances and low VOC paints among numerous green building ideas.
Steve Thomas, the former host of This Old House, will be working on several of the green building features during the filming.
The SmartHome also is being wired to accommodate numerous technologies to assist the home's residents. Kitchen countertops will adjust to wheelchair heights, sensors will provide alerts to caregivers and new Web-enable systems will let residents communicate with friends and family on the Internet, as well as operate TV, music and video conferencing.
Fund-raising is continuing for the projects, led by the Imagine! Foundation, on which I am a board member. Donations can be made online at their site. And you can see that I've set up a simple TipJoy donation box on my blog, where all donations will go to the SmartHome projects. TipJoy is a way for Web users to easily make "micro-payments," and although not too common right now, I believe this is a way more nonprofits will be able to reach donors.
Bob Charles, who helped start the Imagine! Foundation, and his wife Judy have been generous donors to the organization and recently made a large pledge at Imagine!'s annual Celebration dinner and auction in January.
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