Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Today we’re getting an update on the home energy efficiency journey of Possibly’s co-founder Stephen Porder.
We had reporter Sedi-Anne Blachford take a field trip to Stephen’s house to check it out.
Sedi-Anne Blachford: Hi Megan!
Megan Hall: Hi Sedi-Anne! So, Stephen has spent years trying to make his home more energy efficient.
Sedi-Anne Blachford: That’s right!
Stephen Porder: We’ve actually been before on Possibly to talk about heat pumps, to talk about electric cars, talk about lots of things, but today we’re here to talk about windows.
Megan Hall: Can you tell me a little bit about what makes Stephen’s windows so interesting?
Sedi-Anne Blachford: Sure Megan. Well first of all, they don’t look or sound like most of the windows you see around New England. Instead of two sections that slide past each other.
Stephen Porder: This is a window that looks more like a door.
Sedi-Anne Blachford: And rather than opening with a
[Sliding window sound]
Sedi-Anne Blachford: It’s more of a
[Opening window sound]
Stephen Porder: So that’s opening like a door. If you turn the handle all the way up, it actually turns toward you. And that’s really nice for venting.
Megan Hall: Ok, why does that matter? Does the way a window open really affect how good it is at keeping out the cold?
Sedi-Anne Blachford: It does actually! Because the tilt-turn windows in Stephen’s house don’t have a break in the middle, they’re much more air- and water-tight than traditional sliding windows. But it’s not just the shape of the window that’s different, it’s also the window itself.
Stephen Porder: It’s actually three panes of glass, but it looks like one.
Sedi-Anne Blachford: Those three panes of glass have special coatings and are separated by thin gaps filled with argon or krypton gas.
Megan Hall: Argon and Krypton? What do those do?
Sedi- Anne: They basically act as an extra layer of insulation. Kind of like one of those double walled glass mugs you might have seen, except Argon and Krypton do an even better job of stopping heat transfer than air.
Megan Hall: So, Stephen got new windows to keep heat from getting out of his house?
Sedi-Anne Blachford: Well, not exactly. When Stephen retrofitted his house to be more energy efficient he purposely didn’t get new windows installed.
Stephen Porder: Everyone always told me that windows don’t really pay for themselves in energy savings. They’re not that big a deal. Like it’s the last thing you should do. So I followed that advice, and it’s not bad advice.
Megan Hall: Is that true?
Sedi-Anne Blachford: In Stephen’s case, it definitely could be. It might take a long time for the money saved from these extra-efficient windows to be more than the cost of installing them.
Megan Hall: Alright, so then why the swap?
Sedi-Anne Blachford: Well as Stephen puts it,
Stephen Porder: I have a colleague at Brown who’s a real expert on building efficiency, and I was telling him about the windows, and he said, Yeah, new windows aren’t strictly necessary from an energy perspective in most cases, but they sure are nice to have. I kind of feel like that’s how I feel.
Sedi-Anne Blachford: He makes a good point. There are all sorts of testing and certification standards for how well windows perform from an energy standpoint. But, at the end of the day, Stephen and his wife were just getting sick of their old windows.
Stephen Porder: Finally when the fifth window broke and the ice was forming on the inside of the window, we were like, You know what? We just we’re going to do it for comfort. We’re not going to do it for energy savings. Probably it’s not going to pay for itself. But, like, you live in your house a lot, and it’s important and nice to have a comfortable house.
Megan Hall: So it really sounds like for Stephen, this decision was as much about basic comfort as anything else.
Sedi-Anne Blachford: Definitely. And the thing is, just because comfort is a harder thing to measure than cost or efficiency doesn’t mean it’s not important!
Megan Hall: I can totally agree with that! So what should I do first if I want to make my home more comfortable?
Sedi-Anne Blachford: A good first step is figuring out what changes might make the biggest difference. You can start by getting an energy evaluation of your home. You can hire a professional energy assessor, or go to the department of energy’s website to find instructions for a DIY home energy assessment.
Megan Hall: That sounds like a good plan. Thanks, Sedi-Anne!
That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at “askpossibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Ocean State Media and WBRU.
