Home Efficiency Tips from the U.S. Secretary of Energy

Households in the United States consume nearly a quarter of the nation's energy - 23 percent.

When President Obama spoke about domestic energy production and energy efficiency in his State of the Union address last week - "the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy," he said - the cameras briefly panned to Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. He was smiling slightly and nodding.

Before becoming energy secretary in 2009, Chu directed the Energy Department's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, known for its work on energy.

Chu was in Philadelphia recently to receive the Franklin Founders Award, given each year on Benjamin Franklin's birthday to someone who has advanced one of Franklin's interests, including energy.

He spoke with Inquirer environment reporter Sandy Bauers about what he's doing to make his own home more energy-efficient.

Question: How have you made your home more energy-efficient?

Steven Chu: First, I got some sealant. The most important things you can do to a home are to seal up the air spaces. These are the living air spaces, leaky doors, windows.

And the air ducts. We have a forced-air and cooling system in our home. So if the ductwork is leaking, the heat spills out into places you don't want. . . . So I got this material. Usually one gets what's called duct tape. But duct tape isn't as good as some of the other materials. There is a material you can actually paint on. That makes a much tighter seal.

I added more insulation into the attic. That was pretty gruesome. I'm getting old. I've been doing this in all the houses except one that was very well-insulated. And so crawling in the attic and laying insulation, with your little dust mask. You've got to have long-sleeve shirts. You don't want to be breathing in the little fiberglass, and stuff gets in your skin, and you're wearing gloves.

Q: And this makes a difference?

Chu: It makes a big difference. The biggest difference it made was in an older home that had very little insulation, where it literally cut the bill by more than half.

Q: What's one of your biggest challenges in making your home energy-efficient?

Chu: [The mail slot in the front door is] a double thing, but there's no insulation between that, and if the latch doesn't fully close, you can actually feel the cold air blowing through. So I take this very attractive little quilt that I nail onto the mailbox door [laughter] on the inside, so when the mailman slides the mail through, it's this quilted blanket, if you will, that . . . keeps the mailbox closed. [My wife] thinks it's ugly. I think it's beautiful.

Q: What about your lightbulbs?

Chu: Virtually all the lights are compact fluorescent lights. There are a few LEDs, but right now these are very expensive. So as an early adopter, I'll buy them and we'll have them here and there.

But the CFLs, the color's gotten much better. They used to be whitish bluish, and now they're very good.

Q: Within the broader energy picture for the United States, how important is household energy-efficiency?

Chu: It's very important. Forty percent of the energy is used in buildings and homes . . . You can have better windows. The insulation can be better. The doors can be better. The heating and ventilation systems are getting more and more efficient.

So, to have as a goal something like dropping the heating and energy use in buildings and homes by two times is not crazy.

There was a report on homes that if you add when you build a new home - you added insulation, and how much would that be, about $1,000 worth of labor and material, mostly labor - that would pay for itself in most parts of the United States in one year.

Q: It appears that energy use in the transportation and industrial sectors has recently trended down. Commercial energy use may have leveled off. But household energy use has tweaked up. Is that significant, or just a blip?

Chu: No, that's not a blip. As people get more wealthy, and as populations migrate, you're going to see more air-conditioning. And air-conditioning is a big energy use.

Now, the good news is we can make the air-conditioners far more efficient than before. In the summertime, if you think way back when, we had fans and we just got hot. And now there's air-conditioning.

Q: In D.C., do you use air-conditioning?

Chu: I installed two ceiling fans in places where we spend the most time - in the bedroom and in the kitchen. I wanted to install three, but my wife freaked out when I wanted to install one in the living room.

But we have little floor guys about this big. A very very gentle breeze means you can set the thermostat at 76, 77, even 78, and it's quite pleasant.

Without a fan, 78 in Washington is not pleasant because there is higher humidity.

Q: It seems like you enjoy all this.

Chu: I do. I enjoy the idea of taking a $200-$300 air-conditioning bill and making it $100. That's a lot of fun. Per month.

The original article can be found here.

Contact staff writer Sandy Bauers at 215-854-5147, sbauers@phillynews.com, or @sbauers on Twitter. Visit her blog at philly.com/greenspace