For nearly 30 years, A. Tamasin Sterner has been a crusader for conserving energy, a professional pursuit that's taken her into more than 40,000 homes to advise residents on how to become more energy efficient.

Later this month, she will begin helping others embark on the same path through a continuing education course at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology.

The class she'll teach — BPI Home Performance Energy Evaluations — will meet 8 a.m.-4 p.m. on four Saturdays, Sept. 26-Oct. 24 (weekly except Oct. 3).

"I never thought I would see the day that people would be calling me and asking how to get into this business," Sterner said. "I was under the radar for decades."

That all started to change when the price of home-heating fuel began to shoot up, she said, abetted by warnings from PPL and other electric utilities about the higher rates consumers can expect when state regulatory caps come off in coming months.

"It started getting the busiest when the [federal] stimulus money was announced for a green work force," she said. "I get a call every day. ... They want to get into the business."

Those who attend Sterner's class should learn enough to pass the pair of two-hour tests required for certification by the Building Performance Institute — the BPI in the course's title.

Sterner's company, Pure Energy, is a BPI affiliate, and she is an accredited instructor.

The class is part of a series of six courses that make up Stevens College's new 18-credit Building Energy Technologies program.

The series, which began in January, was developed through a grant the college received last year from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry, said Mike Gerfin, the college's director of work force development and continuing education.

The college is expecting to receive another grant this fall — once the state budget is passed — so it can offer the courses for free.

Students who complete all six courses receive a program certificate, and Gerfin said he expects many of those who attended the first two courses early this year will want to follow through with the ones offered this fall.

But he also said he expects Sterner's course to draw additional students as a stand-alone class, in part because it's the one course that offers a direct avenue to employment through the BPI certification.

Many of the government-funded low-income weatherization programs are beginning to require BPI certification for their energy auditors, Sterner said.

The federal government has set aside $5 billion in economic stimulus money for the U.S. Department of Energy's weatherization assistance program, which should create even more of those jobs this year.

The course is also likely to appeal to any professional who already works with existing housing, such as remodeling and HVAC contractors, window and insulation installers, real estate agents and home inspectors, Sterner said.

They will learn how to diagnose structural problems and energy-use habits to determine if there is a potential for savings.

"I'm going to help them prioritize what they do," she said.

They will also learn how to use diagnostic equipment to pinpoint areas of energy loss and how to present their findings to their clients.

Sometimes the problem is the structure, Sterner said. Sometimes it's the things in the structure, including what she calls the electric base load — lighting, refrigerators, stoves and water heaters. And sometimes it's the residents' own wastefulness.

A typical energy audit takes two to six hours, "depending on the structure, the occupants and the diagnostics that would be useful," Sterner said.

She recalled a recent audit where the clients were already quite conservative about their energy use but had a major structural problem that she uncovered.

"The air leakage was three times higher than it could have been, predominantly from one main problem: a two-story laundry chute," she said.

The chute had no interior lining, she explained. It was just rough lumber with big gaps that allowed large amounts of air to circulate between the interior of the house, and its walls and attic.

Similar problems crop up with the space around chimneys and the uninsulated soffits above kitchen cabinets, Sterner said.

Often, the problems are worse than that.

"Around here, what we find is — in our low-income housing — almost half of the structures we go into and test have serious problems such as blocked chimneys, cracked heat exchangers, gas leaks," she said. "It's a phenomenal number, and it's not just low-income housing where we find this."

Students may encounter some of these problems while taking the course.

"One of the classes is in the field," Sterner added. "We'll go into a house and do an energy audit."

The first step in doing an audit, she said, is to analyze the utility bills for the previous 12 months to determine the potential for savings.

The next step is to discuss the initial analysis and tour the home with the occupants, looking both at the structure and how they use everything in it.

That's followed by an examination of such things as the attic, insulation and areas with potential for air leaks.

After that, the diagnostic equipment comes out, which can include a blower door to measure air flow within the house, infrared sensor to check for voids in insulation, gas sniffer to check for gas leaks and combustion analyzer to check the furnace or stoves.

"This is science," Sterner said. "We're going to apply God's laws — nature's laws — to buildings. They're [students] going to be taught physics as applied to structures."

To sign up for the course on home energy evaluations, call Stevens College's Office of Workforce Development, 391-3543.