DURHAM, N.C. – American Efficient, one of America’s largest aggregators of energy efficiency resources, today announced that it is launching a new awareness and education campaign to spur homeowners to air seal their homes. The campaign has two goals. The first is to engage homeowners with humor and alert them to a problem that impacts 90% of U.S. homes. The second is to inform homeowners about easy, inexpensive actions they can take to address the problem while improving the comfort, air quality and efficiency of their homes.
The EPA estimates that up to 40% of the energy used to heat and cool homes in the U.S. is simply lost from air escaping via holes and cracks in a typical home’s thermal seal. The U.S. residential sector accounts for 22% of primary energy consumption. Given that heating and cooling represent over half of a typical home’s overall energy use and most U.S. houses have this issue, residential air leakage is a significant, costly, and unnecessary contributor to climate change at a national scale.
“Air leaks in American homes represent a pervasive and costly problem that most homeowners do not even realize they have. The good news is that there is an easy fix to the problem,” said Pete Curtice, CEO of American Efficient. “By implementing a few simple, do-it-yourself (DIY) air sealing measures, a homeowner can significantly benefit their home experience. When that effort is then replicated across millions of homes over time, the aggregate energy savings impact on the U.S. electric grid is huge.”
To elaborate on this point, Curtice further explained. “Over the past decade, millions of U.S. homeowners collectively have saved terawatts of electricity and billions of dollars on their utility bills simply by swapping out incandescent bulbs with more efficient LEDs. Given that a home’s HVAC system uses more energy than lighting, widespread implementation of residential home air-sealing measures offers a savings opportunity comparable to the DIY savings generated by installing LEDs in homes.” In conclusion, Curtice observed, “The benefits of implementing residential air-sealing measures are now widely proven and documented — the main obstacle remaining is getting homeowners to understand how easy and effective air-sealing is.”
Creating this understanding is the impetus behind the campaign ‘See it. Feel it. Seal it.’ The tagline refers to three key messages: See the Health Benefits, Feel the Comfort, and Seal in Energy. Through various digital ads and influencer content, homeowners nationwide will be directed to visit SeeFeelSeal.com where they will learn more about why air sealing is important, how to spot the signs they might need to air seal their homes and how to get the job done without hiring a pro. The goal is to drive awareness and ultimately motivate consumers to air seal their home. “It’s so easy that even a seal could do it.”
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About American Efficient
American Efficient was founded in 2013 and is based in Durham, North Carolina. The company partners with major manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to facilitate the adoption of energy efficient products. American Efficient aggregates, measures, verifies and delivers their energy savings for wholesale energy markets, resulting in lower cost, more reliable power. Its programs also reduce the need to build new carbon-intensive energy generation infrastructure. For more information, visit AmericanEfficient.com.
About See It. Feel it. Seal it.
‘See it. Feel it. Seal it.’ is a first-of-its-kind, public service announcement (PSA)-style campaign being used by American Efficient to promote Do-It-Yourself (DIY) air sealing, a type of weatherization, in a fun and engaging way. The campaign is intentionally brand-agnostic and emphasizes how easy it is to have a global impact by implementing individual DIY air seal measures to improve the residential living experience. For more information, visit SeeFeelSeal.com.