Thomas Gentry, a professor from UNC’s School of Architecture who lives in Concord, and Robert Co x, a professor from UNC’s College of Engineering, received the grant from the U.S. Department of Energy last year.

The $2 million grant will fund part of their efforts to do research in weatherization for low-income homes, assess and monitor energy use in the homes, make houses more energy efficient and educate homeowners on being more energy efficient in the future. This work will serve 800 homes in the state.

The grant is through the Department of Energy’s Weatherization Innovation Pilot Program (WIPP), and those who applied for the grant had to come up with innovative ideas that included the partnering with others and leveraging resources, Gentry said.

The work in the 800 homes is an $8 million project, and the remaining $6 million is covered by the donated labor of Habitat for Humanity Cabarrus County volunteers, funding from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency and discounted materials from Lowe’s, Gentry said.

Habitat Cabarrus staff members said they contacted Gentry and Cox about partnering after they read about the grant in the newspaper.

“(This) allows us to provide a program we would like to provide but don’t have the funds for,” said Dene Dawson, program manager for Habitat Cabarrus.

Habitat has been building houses in Cabarrus since 1989, but until 2004, the homes were not energy efficient, Dawson said.

There are about 70 homes that were built before 2004 and are eligible for these upgrades, Dawson said. Assuming that not every eligible homeowner may choose to participate, Habitat expects this could serve about 50 low-income homes in the county.

Having the Cabarrus Habitat chapter involved will allow Gentry and Cox to start and fine tune their effort locally before it moves to other counties, they said.

Three homes in Kannapolis have already been selected as the first for this effort. The homes have been audited to see what needs to be done, and soon volunteers will begin work on them to become more energy efficient, Cox said. He said the work will likely take place in early January.

Such improvements to these and other homes will include sealing attic insulation and installing programmable thermostats.

There will also be a focus on improving indoor air quality, Gentry said.

“I think, through this program, people are going to care about saving $10 or $20,” Cox said. “We’re trying to take tools and education and enable homeowners to make smarter decisions (about energy).”

He said that, once that happens, they can then introduce the homeowners to the ideas like a whole house fan instead of air-conditioning.

Ultimately, he and Gentry said they hope to create a model that could be successful across the country. And by having partners like Habitat for Humanity and Lowe’s, both of which have chapters and locations across the country, they said the model will be easy for others to replicate.