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Illinois received $97 million in stimulus funding this year to weatherize low-income homes - with $145 million more to come. So, if you could feel the wind howling through your apartment this morning, despite the windows and doors being closed, you may be eligible. With $5 billion going out to states nationwide, the federal government is spending about as much as it’s spent total on weatherization since the 1970s, according to the Chicago Tribune. With the money, Illinois will be able to weatherize approximately 22,000 homes, compared to only 7,800 last year. In Chicago, the increased funding will benefit nearly 9,000 homes - brick makes Chicago buildings some of the least energy efficient in the country.
According to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, weatherization involves “sealing cracks with weatherstrip and caulk, insulating attics and walls, repairing windows and doors, and replacing windows” and making sure heating systems are in working order. These fixes help use energy more efficiently, but also help keep homeowners warmer and save them money.
Eligible households earn no more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which would work out to be $21,600 for one person, $29,140 for two, and $44,100 for four. To apply in Cook County, contact the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County or view the Illinois DCEO site for more details. And, if you’re not eligible, the U.S. Department of Energy has some energy-saving tips.
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There's nothing energy inefficient about brick. I don't know what the writer was smoking. You can't stuff as much insulation in there, but it's a solid wall.
I dont know what BWChicago is smoking but the brick has very little resistance to conductive heat loss. Chicago has a long heating season (high number of heating degree days as it is called in HVAC)and having a building with solid brick walls is like walking around in a t-shirt in the middle of winter.
R-value of brick is .2 per inch so a typical Chicago masonry biulding with 8"thick walls has roughly R value of 1.6. Compare that to a framed house with possibilty to dense pack the wall cavities with cellulose and achieve R-value of 20.
Do a calculation for entire wall surface and see how much energy is wasted.
I'll take an old brick home over an old frame home any day. The market proves it. And why are Chicago's brick homes worse than Milwaukee's or Cleveland? The fellows that wrote that statement were just sloppy in their words and thinking.
And I can find a private contractor to do the same work for half the price. Why wouldn't the feds just issue vouchers to the low income people and let the free market take over?
All brick homes wherever they are bleed BTUs like crazy. People will take a marble countertop over attic insulation too, but that doesn't mean it is good for energy conservation or the environment.
Free market is taking over because all the actual work is done by the private contractors that are state certified to do quality work.
The article claims Chicago has some sort of a record for bad brick homes.
And the edge might be an architect with his knowledge of physical properties of materials and the terminology.
JAWilson,
I am an engineer who works in the HVAC and energy industry so I still stand behind the article statement, but I think you are misinterpreting it to mean that Chicago has bad brick homes. It means that due to the low R-value of brick and a LONG heating season, a huge amount of energy we spend heating our brick homes makes the energy use very inefficient. A brick wall is just a bit better than glass in terms of containing heat (and that is a scientific fact, even though the brick wall is solid).
The weatherization program aims to retrofit the existing housing stock to improve the energy use and with a large number of homes that are 60+ years old that had no insulation installed at all, there is a great potential to make a difference. We should be building new homes with energy conservation in mind as some European countries have been doing for a while. The demand for residental energy can only grow with increasing population so doing cheap retrofits is smarter in the long run.
All I know is my old brick house built in the 1920s is drafty as all hell in the winter.
You ever slept in a frame house built in the twenties? If they have insulation, it's dust now. The statement still is sloppy and lame.
I don't know what TheEdge is smoking, thinking he can bring a scientific discussion of thermodynamics using examples of actual calculated values of the materials in question to an internet comment board. To hell with you and your fuzzy math ... I've got lolcats to go check out.
"brick makes Chicago buildings some of the least energy efficient in the country."
That is a pretty strange comment to explain with any scientific terminology. I still contend that it's an incompetent statement.