Coastal Enterprises offering free online courses for weatherization business owners

PORTLAND (WGME) — The snow is falling and it’s time to get your home buttoned up.

And if you’re a small business owner in the weatherization industry, Coastal Enterprises is offering some help.

“The goal is to really try to get business advising like marketing, how to do cash flow projections, how to hire, how to maintain your employee base,” Coastal Enterprises Program Director Emily Wood said.

The classes are online, so anyone can join. The group says they are open to anyone, from experienced contractors to someone new to the field.

“It’s the people that are doing energy audits for homes to see where those drafts are or where the heats escaping and it’s the people that come in and blow in installation into your building to make it more airtight,” Wood said.

The non-profit just got a grant to offer two more groups of classes. Each group is seven weeks and has seven classes.

“The first step in building efficiency, before you add solar or heat pumps or electrification, is making sure that your building envelope is sealed so that you’re not wasting money on any of these other improvements to your home,” Wood said.

Enrolling is as easy as filling out an application online.

Coastal Enterprises reviews all the applications, they say so far nobody has been denied.

“We just want to know your name, kind of where you are in the business, are you new, do you have a business, what do you specialize in. Are you an installer, an energy auditor, what kind of installation you guys use? So it’s kind of just fundamental questions,” Wood said.

To stay up to date on when you can sign up for future classes, you can head to their website.