Exciting Progress on Retrofitting the Gables

Your Inverness Association is rapidly moving forward to make the Gables (housing the Inverness Library) the first carbon emission free library in the State of California (as far as we know)! Parallel work is being done on the Jack Mason Museum annex behind the library. The IA owns both buildings.

So far, we have insulated the Gables attic, sealed 799 cracks in the outer skin of the building, installed updated and more efficient electrical panels, put in heat pumps, installed electrical hot water heating in the kitchen, as well as put in an emergency shut-off in the water line, to prevent an unexpected leak from causing a flood when no one is in the library.

Still to come are solar panels on the west side of the Gables, and two electrical storage batteries. When all these improvements are complete, the Gables will generate enough electricity to meet all its needs, and even provide some power back to the grid. The propane tank will soon be a thing of the past.

All these improvements will serve a variety of purposes.

The Inverness branch library presently has more electricity outages than any other Marin County branch library. This will come as no surprise to anyone living in Inverness. With these new systems, power outages will be a thing of the past!

With increasing global temperatures, Inverness is becoming warmer and warmer. The library must close when temperatures get too high, and even before that the library and reading room can become uncomfortably warm. The same problem occurs in the Museum Annex. The new heat pumps provide both heating and air conditioning, so overheating will no longer be a problem.

Severe heat events can cause illness and death, especially among older people. Very few houses in Inverness have air conditioning, and getting to Point Reyes is difficult for some. The library will now become a cooling center, which may be especially important to kids at Inverness School.

We also hope to put in electric car chargers at Plant Park, but that project is moving slowly. It is very expensive, but we are hoping to fully fund the project through a grant from PG&E.

All these improvements cost a lot. We are combining federal tax credits (available to nonprofits like ourselves) with a very generous grant from Marin County. This grant was made possible because our Supervisor, Dennis Rodoni, convinced his fellow supervisors to set up an infrastructure improvement fund for West Marin. Thank you, Dennis!

Even with these sources of funds, we still do not have enough to pay for the entire project. We have applied to the State of California for funding, and hope to hear in October. Even if we don’t get that grant, we have decided to proceed with completing the entire project. If the grant does not come through, we may ask the Inverness community to help us make up the shortfall.

You and your Inverness Association are doing our parts in making Inverness a better place to live, and fighting climate change.