Although weatherization certainly requires a lot of roll-up-your-sleeves, get-your-hands-dirty work, it's also a very data-intensive process.  Alongisde their expertise about such practical matters as the relative effectiveness of storm windows and rigid foam insulation, weatherizers must also be able to manage a lot of different kinds of data.  The way things are done today, a lot of that data is stored in someone's head, on a piece of paper, or possibly in an old legacy desktop application.  Using mobile applications on a smart phone, weatherizers could see dramatic improvements in their work processes, while making the weatherization process more accessible.

A weatherization project starts with an assessment, or energy audit, to identify problems that might cause a home or building to be inefficient.  For each problem the audit produces, there are usually at least a few different solutions which can be applied, with each solution having tradeoffs in terms of cost, efficiency improvements, and long-term effect on the "livability" of the house or building.  The weatherizer and building owner must come to an agreement about which problems will be fixed.  Prior to getting to work, the weatherizer must gather the tools, materials, and safety equipment needed for the work.  The weatherization project itsef often reveals further problems, or sometimes requires future maintenance and follow-up.  It's frequently important to keep track of heat and electric usage, both before and after the audit - both as a way of demonstrating the project's return on investment, and to validate that the work was completed correctly.  In many cases, the building owner or weatherizer must carefully track expenses in order to qualify for government or utility rebates.

At every step of this process, there's a lot of data to track.  That can be a stumbling block for many weatherization projects.  It can introduce errors, excess cost, and complexity that can make a weatherization project less effective at reducing energy use.

To solve these problems, we need good software that is closely integrated with the realities of weatherization work.  It needs to be lightweight, flexible, and mobile.  It needs to account for architectural techniques and possible sources of energy leaks in a wide variety of homes and buildings.  It needs to support rich record-keeping, integrating tightly with mobile cameras and utilizing voice annotations.  It needs to integrate with third-party data services, for retrieving and managing data like water and electricitiy usage.  And above all, it needs to be easy to use.

A mobile software platform like this could do much more than make life easier for weatherizers - although that would be an important goal in its own right.  Through distribution in venues like the Apple iPhone store, such a program could also inspire a wave of do-it-yourself weatherization, by dispersing weatherization know-how.  Moreover, such an application could also provide valuable feedback data to policymakers and utilities, helping them identify areas where more weatherization work, or more subsidies and other incentives, are needed.

There is already some energy audit software available, like the Department of Energy's Weatherization Assistant.  That is a good start, but the last release of the assistant was in September 2006.  We are long overdue for modernization of weatherization software.