With the arrival of another home-heating season, federal funding has been renewed for an acknowledged statewide leader in training thousands of technicians to improve the energy efficiency, health, safety and comfort of their clients' homes and businesses.The Weatherization Training Center, part of the Pennsylvania Housing Resource Center based at Pennsylvania College of Technology, was granted $320,000 for the current academic year. The money, which has been allocated in varying amounts every year since the training center's creation in 1985, comes from the U.S. Department of Energy and is administered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Department of Community and Economic Development.
"There have been some major funding increases recently passed by Congress, with $250 million for DOE Weatherization Assistance and $2.5 billion for home energy assistance," said Bill R. Van der Meer, PHRC director. "This means that agencies must ramp up their capabilities to meet the increased need. WTC will, in turn, provide the educational resources and training necessary to provide the skills to a growing weatherization workforce in the commonwealth and the mid-Atlantic region."
In addition to its Reach Road facility a 6,000-square-foot lab complete with construction mock-ups, operating oil and gas furnaces, and a carpentry workshop the center has the capability to offer a variety of services, including in-field training to weatherization providers and others, professional consulting, and authoring of technical updates on topics ranging from blower-door testing and air leakage in recessed lighting to ventilation strategies and avoidance of moisture problems.
The WTC's widespread reputation is evident in Van de Meer's principal authorship of the revised "Weatherization Standards and Field Guide for Pennsylvania," a spiral-bound handbook published in September by Saturn Resource Management Inc., Helena, Mont.
"Developed in partnership with DCED, it brings all of the standards and applications into one portable guide that is used by agencies and distributed as the primary textbook in all of our WTC courses," he said.
More information about the Weatherization Training Center is available by visiting online, sending e-mail or calling (570) 327-4768.
For more about Penn College, visit on the Web, e-mail or call toll-free (800) 367-9222.
For more information about grant-funding opportunities, faculty and staff may contact the Grants and Contracts Office at ext. 7562 or through its Web portal.