A Profession Constructed on Serving to Others: Cory Chovanec’s Journey in Weatherization

Final Up to date on: thirteenth July 2025, 11:24 pm

NREL Researcher Makes use of His Area Expertise To Assist Enhance Power Affordability for People By means of the Weatherization Help Program

At 17 years outdated, NREL researcher Cory Chovanec was touring door to door in his hometown of Berlin, Wisconsin. His mission: to promote sufficient vacuum cleaners to qualify for an all-expenses-paid journey to Lake Tahoe. At round $1,000 {dollars} a pop and in a city of simply over 5,000 folks, it was no simple feat.

But he managed to promote all of them—sending each him and his sister on a free trip.

“I believe in case you can promote Kirby vacuums at that value within the ’90s, you are able to do absolutely anything,” Chovanec stated.

After following a profession path within the weatherization and residential efficiency business from entry degree to a place at a nationwide laboratory, Chovanec discovered that he actually may do absolutely anything—from crawling by chilly, uninsulated subspaces and sizzling attics to inspecting lots of of properties with superior diagnostic tools.

Now serving as weatherization workforce lead at NREL, Chovanec has labored in many alternative roles supporting the U.S. Division of Power (DOE) Weatherization Help Program (WAP). This system goals to cut back vitality prices for low-income households by growing house vitality effectivity. Weatherization saves cash for households and enhances well being, house consolation, and security.

In his practically 4 years at NREL, Chovanec has contributed to and led technical help, analysis, and useful resource improvement to help WAP, leveraging his intensive expertise to make sure these actions profit area employees and help of their work enhancing vitality affordability throughout the nation.

Bit by the Weatherization Bug

Chovanec didn’t even know what weatherization was till after highschool, when he began working for a neighborhood short-term employment company. Someday, they positioned him at a neighborhood motion company, the place he crammed in as a weatherization technician.

“I didn’t see this as a profession. I assumed these folks had been loopy, crawling round attics and all the things,” Chovanec stated.

Chovanec was in a Wisconsin farmhouse in the course of winter when he started to really feel the affect of the work “click on” for him. It was his first time insulating an attic on his personal, and the area was nearly unbearably sizzling due to the dearth of insulation. This meant that a considerable amount of warmth was escaping out from the residing area, in the end costing the sort, aged homeowners extra money to heat their house. As he carried out his work, blowing 13 to 14 inches of insulation over the attic flooring, he observed the attic change from sizzling to chilly. With much less warmth escaping into the attic, the homeowners would wish much less vitality to heat their house—drastically decreasing their vitality payments.

Chovanec was hooked. “It was then I may really really feel that this work actually does make a distinction,” he stated.

Employees within the business describe this sense as “getting bit by the weatherization bug.” The work is bodily taxing, however Chovanec feels the reward goes far past a paycheck. Weatherization technicians and vitality auditors are commonly uncovered to the acute warmth and chilly, exploring all of the unseen and probably hazardous locations in a house. But Chovanec believed strongly within the WAP mission, saving cash on vitality payments, and serving to folks be snug and secure of their properties.

With out prior information of constructing science or weatherization work, Chovanec discovered on the job. Absorbing expertise and information by each process and mentorship expertise, he accepted a full-time function and climbed the profession ladder on the neighborhood motion company, finally accepting a place at a weatherization coaching heart.

Weatherization coaching facilities present structured hands-on coaching alternatives to staff within the weatherization and residential efficiency business. Chovanec’s fundamental roles on the heart had been to offer constructing science coaching and carry out high quality management inspections for the state. These inspections assist make sure the appropriateness and high quality of the work accomplished on the house by installers and technicians. Chovanec estimates he visited all 72 counties of Wisconsin a minimum of as soon as to carry out inspections throughout his 10-plus years on the heart.

“The most effective issues was going again to do a post-weatherization inspection and listening to nothing however good issues,” Chovanec stated. “Their payments are taking place, their home is extra snug, they bodily really feel higher—it’s only a dose of fine information.”

For Chovanec, house vitality auditing is a ardour, not only a job. An vitality audit consists of an intensive examination to determine potential consolation or security issues and energy-saving alternatives. He works on his area expertise in his free time, taking the four-hour vitality auditor recertification area examination each three years. He has now handed the examination 5 occasions and enjoys offering house assessments for his family and friends.

Whereas an vitality audit may present householders with essentially the most complete have a look at methods to chop vitality prices of their house, Chovanec emphasised that there are easy steps folks can take to attenuate vitality use and decrease payments. Even simply making certain that lights are off in empty rooms and the thermostat is adjusted when you’re out of the home could make a distinction.

“If you had been a child and your dad and mom instructed you to show the sunshine off while you’re not within the room: That’s actual, and it helps,” Chovanec stated. “All of us have management over small issues like that, and if we wish to avoid wasting cash on a utility invoice, we will obtain that with out intensive coaching.”

Translating Area Expertise Into Helpful Workforce Assets

In line with his distinctive potential to simplify advanced ideas, Chovanec’s favourite tasks study essentially the most technical elements of weatherization work to streamline them or make them simpler to know.

One among these tasks consists of the event of two interactive 3D homes, offering digital examples of a single-family and manufactured house. These studying instruments enable customers to discover related retrofit methods and customary weatherization measures for various areas of the house, all with a couple of clicks of their mouse. Chovanec used his area expertise to precisely signify the areas.

“When fascinated about creating sources for the weatherization community, you must take into consideration the way it will look within the arms of the folks really doing the work,” Chovanec stated.

Chovanec additionally assists volunteer professional committees with updating job process analyses for vitality auditor and high quality management inspector certification schemes, the function that launched him to NREL when he volunteered to serve on the replace committee as a subject professional. These sources are up to date roughly each 5 years with weatherization business suggestions.

“We’re actually working to enhance the foundational elements of credentials by every replace cycle, and that is clear with every iteration,” Chovanec stated. “This system is all the time evolving in a method that places an emphasis on high-quality work that saves folks cash.”

Over time, Chovanec has seen WAP develop in a wide range of methods, offering extra sturdy, formalized schooling and incorporating new applied sciences as they emerge, like infrared imaging, which helps determine air leaks and thermal anomalies in properties. As analysis continues, Chovanec is aware of that there’ll all the time be one thing new to enhance properties and lives, and he’s excited that NREL can play a key half in these discoveries and enhancements.

When reflecting on his profession journey—from his first WAP company to NREL—Chovanec stated you will need to attain out and grasp alternatives as they arrive.

“The stepping stones are there, you simply must comply with the trail: volunteer for these committees, go to further trainings, attempt to take advantage of it,” Chovanec stated. “It doesn’t matter what my function was, I simply felt actually lucky to work in WAP and have been mentored by so many unimaginable and good folks, a few of whom had been round when this system first started in 1976. It’s a privilege to proceed to help this program.”

Article from NREL. By Julia Medeiros Coad.