From the Winter 2025 print newsletter (PDF): Although spring is still months away, Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity is already preparing to landscape our new homes – and staff at Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) are vital partners in this process. Lisa Pace, water conservation lead at CSU, has worked with our construction team to develop waterwise landscaping […]
Why We Use Wood Instead of Steel in Our Home Frames
Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity is always trying to build more energy-efficient, sustainable homes — both because this keeps costs down for our homeowners and because we feel called to be responsible with our finite resources. When we frame our homes, one step we take that might seem counter-intuitive is using wood, rather than steel […]
ICYMI: Companies Donate Roofs to Faith Builds
(From the Fall 2024 print newsletter) On two successive Mondays in September, roofing crews were hard at work at The Ridge at Sand Creek, installing roofs for Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity’s two faith builds—the Apostles Build and 4th Interfaith Build for Unity (IBU) homes. GAF donated the materials through a partnership with Habitat for […]
ICYMI: Energy Star Rating Confirms Efficiency of New Homes
(From the summer 2024 print newsletter) Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity recently celebrated a milestone in our ongoing efforts to make our homes more energy-efficient and cost-effective for homeowners: receiving certification through the Energy Star Residential New Construction program. “Since we are all electric, and we are and have been building our houses so tightly […]
Shifting to an Electric Future
Since the start of 2023, Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity has successfully transitioned to building all-electric houses in our development at The Ridge at Sand Creek. Previously, a few appliances such as ovens, furnaces, and water heaters in our homes used natural gas. Benefits to this shift away from natural gas include saving homeowners on […]
Making and Keeping Electricity
At Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity, we’ve transitioned to building homes that are fully electric (rather than relying on a combination of electricity and natural gas). We’ve made this shift for multiple reasons–to make homes safer, keep utility bills lower for our homeowners, and focus on more sustainable energy. But that raises questions Pikes Peak […]
ICYMI: Beloved Construction Supervisor Gary Blake Retires
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 print newsletter. This spring, Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity is saying a bittersweet farewell to construction supervisor Gary Blake, who has been with the organization since 2010. Blake is retiring — and moving out of state — so while we wish him and his wife the best […]
Catching up with Karmen
When Colorado Springs Utilities staff volunteered to landscape two Pikes Peak Habitat homes recently, they were joined by a future Pikes Peak homeowner who will be living next door to the yard she was helping beautify! Karmen, our 4th Veterans Build homeowner, was working on sweat equity hours that day. Her own home […]
Colorado Springs Utilities Partners with Pikes Peak Habitat for Water-wise Landscaping
On May 20, employees from Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) came out to the Pikes Peak Habitat construction site at The Ridge at Sand Creek for a special volunteer day. “Not only did they help us come up with some great alternatives for landscaping,” says Eric Wells, Pikes Peak Habitat’s construction superintendent, “but they want to […]
Team Depot in Action
Volunteers from The Home Depot Foundation got busy this week and built a new playground for Abrams Elementary on Fort Carson with KaBOOM!, a nonprofit that provides playgrounds to schools nationwide. Not only did they build a playground created with input from students and designed to meet handicapped-accessible standards under the Americans with Disabilities Act, […]