Area homeowners are familiar with this story… Young couple buys old farmhouse while in graduate school. The place needs work, but the beautiful landscapes of the Town of Caroline seem like a wonderful place to raise a family. Then a few bitter winters reveal just how inadequate the insulation really is. Watch the Jensens tell their story.

For the Jensens, the insulation in their 1860 home wasn’t just inadequate – it was missing! An energy audit found 8″ of empty airspace between the walls and the siding. No wonder there was frost every day in one corner of their dining room. With two small children in the house now, they were suffering from the high electricity costs of running space heaters in the children’s rooms and cold drafty rooms throughout the house.

Tompkins Community Action got in touch with the Finger Lakes Climate Fund on behalf of Nathan and Jen and little Cora and Silas. Shortly afterward, the Jensens received the twelfth climate fund grant of $2,283 to cover the 114 tons of emission reductions resulting from insulating the attic, floor, and walls and sealing up the rim joists in the basement as well.