With winter around the corner, some homeowners may be thinking about plugging all the leaks in their homes to make them less drafty. Imagine if every homeowner in the country did that: How much energy could be saved? Using physics-based modeling of the U.S. housing stock, researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) found in a new study that upgrading airtightness to a uniform level could achieve as much as $33 billion in annual energy savings.

“Currently people who weatherize can get their homes about 20- to 30-percent tighter,” says Berkeley Lab scientist Jennifer Logue. “But they’re not sealing all the cracks. There’s still quite a bit left on the table, and those extra leaks and cracks could potentially save a lot of energy.” Logue is lead author of the study, “Energy impacts of envelope tightening and mechanical ventilation for the U.S. residential sector,” which was recently published online in the journal Energy and Buildings. Her co-authors were Berkeley Lab scientists Max Sherman, Iain Walker, and Brett Singer.

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