Marko Spiegel wants to help people design houses that are heated with one watt of energy per square foot of space - a mere tenth of what's normally needed.

That means the energy equivalent of three 100-watt light bulbs could heat your 300-square-foot living room on a very cold day.

Spiegel, an engineer based in LaFox, will talk about his One-Watt-House at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at the Sixth Annual Illinois Renewable Energy and Sustainable Lifestyle Fair, which will continue Aug. 12 in Oregon, Ill., southwest of Rockford.

These homes currently cost 10 percent to 40 percent more than regular construction, Spiegel said.

He emphasizes that the homes are not only less expensive to operate, but are more comfortable and healthier, too.

One-Watt-Houses are so energy efficient that they do not require conventional furnaces, said Spiegel, and these homes use one-tenth the energy of an average Midwest building.

Consumers are ready to build energy-efficient houses, said the engineer, because energy is becoming more expensive and people are learning how pollution damages the earth.

Zaderej, a mechanical engineer, hopes to develop modular systems for the key elements of the house.

This could reduce the costs of the house by as much as 40 percent, he said.

Like Zaderej's home, these houses would be built with structured insulating panels, which are a sandwich of a boardlike material with solid foam insulation in the middle.

Homes and components would be designed to fit with standard items like windows.

Although existing buildings cannot be retrofitted to the same energy standards as new construction, auditing the energy lost from buildings and designing solutions is part of Spiegel's business.
While One-Watt-Houses can be built with a variety of styles and materials, there are minimal standards and characteristics.

• The home design is simpler and compact.

• Walls and foundation are super-insulated and spots that leak cold or heat are eliminated as much as possible.

The walls' R-value, a measure of resistance to heat flow, is about 40, compared with up to 28 recommended by the Energy Star program, a federally sponsored system to let consumers know how efficient products are.

• Windows have three panes and are gas filled and are very efficient. The home's north side has fewer windows.

Other features of these well-engineered houses include being airtight and a heat transferring ventilation system.

Methods that can be used to heat the house include a hot-water heater, bringing in air heated or cooled from underground, solar power, wood-pellet ovens or geothermal systems. Backup air conditioning should be provided by the smallest unit possible, he said.

One of the features Zaderej is testing on the Oregon house is a metal roof that acts as a solar collector to help warm part of the building.

Metal roofing also reduces air-conditioning needs, he said.

The house is heated with an electric hot water heater and also has a basement designed to pre-heat or pre-cool air for the home.

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