Every Day is Earth Day at Community Environmental Center

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

LONG ISLAND CITY, NY (April 21, 2009) – The trucks roll out of the garage at 9 a.m., filled with the tools of the green building trade: solar thermal panels, hoses for wet-spraying cellulose, fiberglass framed windows.

This is the world of Community Environmental Center (CEC), a Queens-based not-for-profit dedicated to providing affordable green building solutions and lessening global warming.

Every morning, Monday through Friday, CEC’s workers drive to homes and buildings in Brooklyn and Queens, to install the material that will make low-income residences energy efficient.

“We try to reduce people’s energy costs, the electric bills, and also help the environment,” says 20-year-old Kellon Williams. Born in Trinidad, but living in the U.S. for 16 years, Williams is a paid intern with CEC from Manhattan Comprehensive High School.

Weatherization is the word on everyone’s lips these days, as President Obama’s stimulus package goes into action.

The stimulus bill calls for $5 billion in weatherization assistance funds, and $403 million of that goes to New York State. Community Environmental Center, which was founded in 1994, is the state’s largest contractor for weatherization services.

But how many of us really know what this national weatherization program calls for? What do we know about the materials, the techniques, and the hands-on skills required?

Williams himself had to learn. “When I first started to work here last October,” he says, “I did house inspections. We went to houses to see what the problem is and tested how much air was being leaked out form inside the home. How much cold air was coming in. They showed me the things that would happen to a boiler. Like, is it efficient enough, is it keeping the house warm.”

Gradually Williams learned enough to work side-by-side with CEC’s regular crew: blowing “dense-pack” cellulose insulation into the walls of a house; checking pipes and cracks for leaks, and sealing them; installing high-tech condensing boilers, which are more energy efficient than conventional ones.

Now, when the trucks trundle back to CEC’s garage around 4 p.m., Williams feels he has acquired skills that he can use when he goes looking for a permanent job. “I even did a couple of repairs in my home,” he says. “And I fixed the boiler in my grandmother’s house.

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Weatherization Assistance Program
for 1-4 Family Homes and Apartment Buildings

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Solar Thermal Installations

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