14 | City of Missoula
Engen. “If we did nothing else, but help bet-
ter insulate their homes, it would still make
a difference.” More than 300 homes partici-
pated in the audits and some households
have achieved monthly savings of $100 off
their former heating bills, enabling them to
utilize those funds for other needs. As Engen
says, “We’re saving energy, but we’re saving
dignity in other cases because having an ex-
tra $100 per month can make the difference
in buying food, or medicine, or paying down
on some other bill.”
The audits and weatherization upgrades
have ultimately helped save more than
122,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annu-
ally. The City also partnered with industry
leader Johnson Controls to identify further
savings which could be realized by improve-
ments in municipal infrastructure. As for fu-
ture plans, Chase Jones indicates that a vari-
ety of improvements are in the works, from
lighting and building retrofits at City facili-
ties and water conservation projects at many
of Missoula’s Park and Recreation sites, to
the incorporation of more hybrid-electrical
vehicles into city fleet, and more. “We’ll be
