Living in a green house

Switching to energy-saving light bulbs, turning off appliances at night and collecting rainwater, RUSS HORNSTEIN explains to Veronica Stivala how every drop counts in saving energy and money.

When one thinks of an eco-house, the pictures that come to mind aren’t always positive. This type of house may conjure up images of a house made of plastic bottles, of stinky piles of compost in the garden and of noisy wind turbines whirring near the building.

Walking into Russ Hornstein’s house, which is in the process of becoming self-sustaining, one would never realise that anything out of the ordinary has been done to the building. On the contrary, the renovated Maltese townhouse, situated in the heart of Floriana, is a gem of a stylish abode that elegantly fuses the old with the modern.

A delicate gilded mirror adorns the hall, as does a pretty wrought iron table with leaf detail painted in white. Comfortable sofas lie between the cool, whitewashed walls of the spacious living room and pale curtains sway in a breezy bedroom with a four-poster bed.

Indeed, cool and fresh are two adjectives that describe this house to a tee. But the Hornsteins rarely turn on their air conditioner – even in the height of a sweltering August.

The trick: double glazing, double walls, weather stripping seals and passive cooling. The latter is a simple concept that makes use of hot and cold air currents. Closing all the windows and doors, the Hornsteins open up the roof windows and the hatch that comes from the cellar below. The hot air is replaced by cool, fresh air from the cellar. Simple.

Much of the house works on such uncomplicated, but effective, ecological and economical concepts. When Russ and his wife, Fiona, came across the house five years ago, they fell in love with it and started thinking of ways of making the most of the house.

“With electricity and water bills going up, we wanted to be as ecological as possible. We started thinking creatively about how we could do that,” explains Russ.

Double walls more than a metre thick help keep out heat and noise.

“You can hear some traffic but we’re about to replace our antiporti (secondary outside doors) with double glazing so they will block out sound and insulate against heat losses,” he points out.

The couple also discovered they had two cisterns under the house and are storing rainwater there. They pass the water through two filters before using it in the bathrooms.

They came up with a system that gives preference to the cistern water over government water. It’s a nomaintenance, automatic system where the roof tank has two float valves. The valve for the well has a short arm and is activated before the long armed government water valve.

They also have a reverse osmosis system. The disadvantage of such a system is that you end up with many litres of ‘waste’ water for every litre that you make. Rather than throwing it away, this water goes down into the well with the rainwater and they then use it to flush the toilets and to have showers with.

“We’re trying to stretch and save every bit of water as much as we can,” says Russ.

Even when they are having a shower and need hot water, they collect the cold water in a bucket before the hot water arrives and then use it to flush the toilet.

“It’s simple things which add up. For example, in the morning when my wife and I use the toilet, we just flush once. We like to abide by the saying ‘if it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down’. We do that to a certain extent, obviously not to the point where it becomes disgusting,” he chuckles.

With a solar water heater, the Hornsteins hardly have to pay for hot water. They have one electric water heater in the kitchen because it’s not practical to run it from the roof to the kitchen (the house is five storeys high). But then they don’t have to pay for hot water for their three bathrooms. When the sun isn’t out, the couple turn the electric core heater on manually.

A clever idea in saving energy was to actually become aware of the energy the couple was consuming.

Investing in an energy monitor, Russ realised he could cut down on wasted energy. Their average is four units a day.

They have installed a timer for their wi-fi so it’s only on during the times when they’re awake. The same goes for cordless telephones: they don’t have to be plugged in all the time to be working. It’s only the answering machine that needs to be plugged in; the others are just chargers.

When their government grant comes through, the Hornsteins hope to install photovoltaic panels (PVPs). That system is supposed to make eight units a day, however with the feed-in tariff system, they can actually use 12.5 units and still have no electric bills. Any electricity they don’t use goes back onto the electric grid and Enemalta sells it to someone else.

“This is a great idea which means that not only will we get free electricity, but theoretically we’ll be making money. That means we’ll get the €3,000 investment back that we paid for the panels in about four years. It’s nice that there are these incentives to produce your own electricity,” says Russ.

Currently, to get PVPs, one has to fork out on average some €6,000. The government will in turn refund €3,000. However, not many people have the whole sum in hand at one go.

As a solution to this, Russ suggests interest-free loans be offered. For example, a tenant who would normally pay Enemalta €50 a month for electricity could get an interest-free loan for the same amount rather than forking out such a huge sum at one go. This would encourage many more people to invest in PVPs.

The Hornsteins are also prepared for the day when electric vehicles become more popular. They have installed a power point behind a locked hatch outside their house in order to be able to charge their electric cars when they get them – hopefully they’ll find parking places.

Russ doesn’t see wind energy as a suitable source of alternative energy. When you look at the amount of wind you need in order to create a good amount of electricity, Malta doesn’t fit the bill very well, he explains.

There is most demand for electricity when people have air conditioners on, during the day, when it’s hot. But Russ argues that it is during the day in summer when there is the least amount of wind. In order to create enough energy, you also need very powerful and sustained winds which Malta doesn’t see much of.

It’s much easier to make use of the sun that is present so much more often than the wind.

“We haven’t been very extreme with our design. In most cases if you look around the house it looks like any other house. But the way we’ve designed some of the things are quietly clever and save us a lot of money. Resource management is an issue that all of us in Malta have to face, given the high costs of electricity and water, and I would hope that our story inspires others to try to reduce consumption and when possible even give something back.”

Take a look at Russ’ DIY design for an indoor clothesline. It is a clever use of two pulleys and a rope for when you can’t dry your clothes outside. It’s a great eco-friendly alternative to running the electric clothes dryer.

See also

http://myoocreate.com/challenges/care-to-air-design-challenge/entries/397