Waterbury LEAP seeks volunteers for Nov. window insulation project
October 4, 2024 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
Volunteers take a break at a WindowDresser building event in Burlington. Photo by Allison Pouliot
Volunteers with Waterbury LEAP will spend a week in early November working with a team in Waitsfield to construct energy-efficient window inserts under the direction of a regional nonprofit organization called WindowDressers.
More helping hands are needed for the project, Nov. 7-13, that will train volunteers to assemble dozens of inserts that have been ordered this year in order to be ready in time for home winter-proofing.
Based in Rockland, Maine, WindowDressers is a grassroots, volunteer-driven nonprofit that trains, supplies, and supports teams of community volunteers who conduct community workshops to create insulating window inserts for homeowners and renters.
Community Builds take place over 5-7 days and can involve over 100 volunteers who attend to learn the construction process for assembling the inserts. They then complete around 250 inserts bound for 30-40 households who have requested them.
“It’s like an old-fashioned barn-raising for window insulation!” said Allison Pouliot, WindowDresser program manager for Vermont and western New Hampshire.
The inserts come with either pine or white wooden frames and are priced according to three size ranges – small, medium, and large – that range in price from about $36 to $88 each. Approximately one-third of families participating are low-income, and their inserts are provided at no cost or on a sliding scale, Pouliot said.
Once a potential customer expresses interest and orders inserts, a WindowDresser representative visits their home to take exact measurements. The resulting inserts are custom-made and fit snugly, Pouliot explained. They are reusable for multiple years and could be re-wrapped in fresh plastic if needed. Their design makes them more attractive, efficient and quicker to install and remove than typical do-it-yourself plastic window insulation sheets, she pointed out.
At a Community Build event in Bellows Falls, volunteers work together to build a WindowDresser window insert. Photo by Allison Pouliot
Waterbury LEAP volunteer Kit Walker noted that the WindowDresser design results in two layers of plastic. “It creates an air gap of extra protection. This provides most of the insulation,” she said.
WindowDressers was founded in 2010 from a project to insulate windows in a church. Since then, it's grown and expanded across Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire involving thousands of volunteers. It tallied 10,000 inserts made in 2023 and just over 68,000 since 2010. The organization’s website estimates that the inserts have saved nearly 3.3 million gallons of heating oil and prevented more than 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide pollution.
This fall WindowDressers has 58 community builds scheduled in northern New England for making inserts – 24 in Vermont, 28 in Maine, and six in New Hampshire, according to the organization’s website.
WindowDressers brings community volunteers of all economic and social backgrounds together to improve the warmth and comfort of interior spaces, lower heating costs, and reduce carbon-dioxide pollution by producing low-cost insulating window inserts that function as custom, interior-mounted storm windows, Pouliot explained.
WindowDresser workshop volunteers in Maine. Courtesy photo
Walker coordinated the WindowDresser information and local sign-ups in Waterbury including at the LEAP Energy Fair in April at Crossett Brook Middle School. She said work orders are full for the November Community Build event. Anyone interested in ordering inserts can be put on a list for 2025, she added.
More volunteers are still needed, however. Pouloit and Walker stress that no special skills are needed to participate in the building event. Those signing up to work on the project will get training and all materials and tools will be provided. The building event will take place at the Waitsfield United Church of Christ in collaboration with a Mad River Valley team of volunteers who have participated in past WindowDresser Community Builds.
More information and the Waitsfield Community Build sign up are online at WindowDressers.org.