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?