In October, the Southface Energy Institute opened a new facility on its campus in Atlanta to add substantial capacity to its offering of weatherization, energy efficiency retrofitting, building science, and green building training programs. The Southeast Weatherization and Energy Efficiency Training (SWEET) Center, a renovated building that once housed a diaper laundry, increases Southface’s training capacity by more than 40 percent.
Southface was able to build the $600,000 SWEET Center thanks to American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding and a grant from the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority.
In addition to its classroom space, the SWEET Center’s main warehouse provides a variety of tools and training components—HVAC mechanicals, ductwork runs, attic mock-ups—that provide hands-on learning experiences working with real-world situations without the real-world safety risks, including a cabin designed for training in diagnostic testing. The training programs were up and running nearly a year before the center was complete, and to date they have trained 700-plus residential and commercial weatherization professionals throughout Georgia, benefiting nearly 3,500 households.
A variety of building science-based training classes and workshops will be held at the SWEET Center, but Southface also has launched a mobile classroom series and soon will develop Web-based distance learning courses to accompany SWEET’s in-house programs. According to Judy Knight, Southface’s marketing and public relations manager, the organization already has booked about 360 days of classroom training for next year.
Visit www.southface.org for a complete schedule of course offerings.
