The Indoor Climate Research and Training program, an organization focused on education about the importance of weatherization, opened its new training facility in the University’s Research Park on Tuesday.

Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon kicked off the event by cutting the ceremonial ribbon.

The program is part of the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, which is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University. The facility, located at 2111 S. Oak St., Suite 106, is the only one in the state providing classrooms and training opportunities for the home performance industry, according to a news release.

The program is devoted to training those involved in the Illinois Home Weatherization Assistance Program. Weatherization is both about reducing the energy needed to insulate a home and how to efficiently supply the energy the house needs.

“There’s been a lot that’s had to go into pulling it all together,” said Paul Francisco, coordinator and research engineer at ICRT. “It (has) been quite the project.”

The new facility has been in the making for about a year. The building includes classrooms and office spaces, along with a heating, ventilation and air conditioning lab and shop area for demonstrative purposes. The shop area and HVAC lab will have furnaces, water heaters, air conditioners and other props to exhibit air-sealing techniques for attics.

Francisco said the facility makes training easier, especially for those who have not had a lot of time in the classroom recently.

“We get to have it be a much more involved experience — the kind of experience that we believe will help them to not just see it, but really learn it and understand it and have a much stronger sense of how to do it,” he said.

ICRT held its first class in the new facility last November, but the organization hasn’t had “quite the level of props” that they would have liked until the facility was fully functional, Francisco said.

Guest speaker Randy Bennett, who has worked in weatherization since the 1970s, said there is still a lot of work to do.

“We haven’t scratched the surface,” Bennet said. “There’s still a lot of low-income families who need our assistance.”

Francisco said weatherization is all about the most cost-effective ways to save homeowners money. He said it can be a lot more cost-effective to add insulation, seal leaks and install a good heating system than to replace windows. These kinds of cost-effective solutions are especially useful for low-income weatherization, which is what ICRT concentrates on.

“Long term, we want to have this place be used for training people that are not just focused on low-income (housing),” Francisco said. “Energy efficiency is a good idea for everybody.”

Aside from saving homeowners money, John Hamilton, director of the Community & Economic Development Association of Cook County, said weatherization has the ability to impact climate change. It affects total energy usage in the home, typically achieving reductions between 15 and 30 percent, depending on the building, he said.

“You are reducing your carbon emission by the same amount on every single home that gets weatherized,” Hamilton said. “When you talk about that improvement being extended to housing across the nation, the savings are enormous.”

Tyler can be reached at [email protected].