Mar 3, 2008

Going green beyond solar

Atherton resident saves energy using bubble wrap

By Banks Albach / Daily News Staff Writer

Saving energy registers high on Ross Koningstein's lifestyle meter, and he's doing so in part with 5,000 square feet of bubble wrap.

Every wall, rooftop, nook and cranny of his Atherton home is covered in a double layer of the material, also known as a radiant barrier, which looks just like the well-known packaging material but with a thin aluminum layer.

The Google engineer says the barrier, which is inside the walls, blocks 95 percent of heat, meaning it stops warm air from entering the house in the summer and prevents it from escaping during the winter.

"That's the difference between needing an air conditioner and not needing an air conditioner," Koningstein said in the future kitchen of his 3,500-square-foot house on Selby Lane. "It's possibly the cheapest building material you can buy."

Koningstein's efforts to design an energy-efficient home, however, don't stop with thousands of tiny bubbles.

He's using water through an intricate network of hydronic pipes to heat and cool the house. A flip of a switch will bring in either water heated by solar heat panels on his garage, or cool water from a 15,000-gallon storage tank under his driveway.

The garage also has a three-kilowatt solar system to help reduce his electricity bill. For lighting, Koningstein is installing lights with nine tiny LEDs that use one-sixth the power of a normal light bulb. Instead of dimmers, which can actually draw more juice in order to dim, Koningstein said he designed and built 400 circuit boards that can increase or decrease lighting simply by someone touching the metal fixture around the switch.

He dug his wine cellar nearly four feet deeper than is standard, which means his collection will be cooled by the earth, not air conditioning. And all of that warm water going down the drain during a shower? Koningstein is harnessing it and using it to warm up unused water on the way to the shower head.

To be sure it's all working, Koningstein installed 15,000 temperature-reading sensors throughout the house that will send numbers to a tiny computer in the basement. To figure out how much air is escaping through the walls, he set up 10 larger sensors that can read the actual heat transfer.

"I'm doing that as a scientific experiment," Koningstein said. "I want to know how much of a difference this is making."

All of these energy-saving measures come at a cost, of course. The solar panels for heating and electricity top the list at about $33,000. The hydronic plumbing cost about $12,000. His shower re-heating system was $300. And all of that aluminum and plastic bubble wrap cost around $2,000.

"It's an up-front cost with long-term savings," Koningstein said. "But not installing an air conditioner, I'm actually saving money. I'm not trying to be insane about energy efficiency, but I am trying to build a comfortable home. "

Without the hydronic system, Koningstein said his home would need a $6,000 air heating system at minimum anyway, and probably a $6,000 air conditioning unit as well. And the cost of heating or cooling a conventional home? Koningstein guessed it would cost him between $300 and $400 per month in the peak seasons. But since his home is so well-insulated, Koningstein also said he needed to install a circulation unit that can move 50 cubic feet of air per minute.

His energy-saving efforts have slowly snowballed since he and his wife bought the 1928 home. It started with an idea to heat the family room with water and evolved to the point where he'll be able to monitor water temperature throughout the house. His plans have caught the eye of Atherton City Council Member Charles Marsala, who has tapped Koningstein to hold an open house on April 21, the eve of Earth Day. Koningstein said most of the work should be done by then. He's hoping he, his wife and daughter Isabella can move in by July.

Marsala said he would like to see more Atherton residents take the same route as Koningstein.

"I want residents and builders to see how easy it is to build green, energy-efficient homes," Marsala said. "He demonstrates techniques that should just become standard for building homes,"

To learn more about Koningstein's home, visit www.greenerhouse.info.



E-mail Banks Albach at

balbach@dailynewsgroup.com.