Few area places to visit on 'green' building tour

The Nashua area doesn’t have much representation this year in the Green Buildings Open House, an expanded version of the long-running, annual tour of solar-powered homes.

The open house is designed to show various “green energy” options in everyday action, ranging from solar power to geothermal heating to high-end insulation.

Home owners will be available to discuss costs, obstacles and benefits.

It runs from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday.

The closest tour locations to Nashua are a business in Lowell, Mass., a house in Manchester, and the solar-powered Lyndeborough home of Mark Weissflog, who owns a firm that does alternative-energy installation.

To get a taste of the options, head to Peterborough. It has four tour locations within a couple of miles, including the Nubanusit Neighborhood, a large “green” development that has drawn considerable attention.

For a list of homes, and more information, visit the Web site of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, www.nesea.org/. More than 600 locations in New England, as well as other Northeast states, are part of the tour.