Building Bridges for Efficiency

Stay Cool, Chicago: Thermal resilience benefits of city-wide weatherization

• 

  Eric Wilson

  Senior Research Engineer
  National Renewable Energy Laboratory
  Golden, Colorado

In the summer of 1995, Chicago experienced the deadliest heat wave ever recorded in the U.S. Most of the 739 victims were elderly and poor. Can widespread weatherization of a city’s housing stock help prevent heat- and cold-related deaths, or does it make things worse? Focusing on power outages related to events like Chicago’s 1995 heat wave or the 2014 polar vortex in the Northeast U.S., this presentation covers preliminary results from an evaluation of the potential thermal resilience benefits of weatherization across a city's housing stock.

Learning Objectives:

• Upon completion, session attendees will be able to describe one metric associated with heat stress.
• Upon completion, session attendees will understand how a home's characteristics can affect its indoor temperature during a power outage.
• Upon completion, session attendees will understand some of the important factors affecting our homes perform during heat waves.