Going 'green' a way of life for Keljo

Reynoldsburg resident Kurt Keljo's home has solar panels for electricity and a backyard sauna with a roof made of soil, grass and wildflowers.

Even so, he said "going green" is not all about saving money.

Keljo and his wife, Susan, have lived in the house at 1306 N. Jackson Ave. for 15 years. In 2005, he said, they decided to begin doing something about conserving energy and possibly saving money also.

He said he first installed 16 175-watt solar panels in his backyard in an effort to generate electricity for his home. Although the panels reduce his electric bills by about a third, Keljo said the most important thing is that they help reduce Ohio's reliance on coal.

Keljo said the panels are connected to a solar inverter, which powers the house. There are no batteries in the system, so when the sun goes down, the house runs off the AEP grid.

"Solar power doesn't pay itself back financially very quickly, so for us, it's primarily to reduce our impact on the earth," Keljo said. "We wanted to try to reduce our carbon footprints and use less carbons since most of our electricity, particularly in Ohio, is produced by burning fossil fuels, particularly coal."

The 16 solar panels are attached to a pergola, which is attached to a deck made from 100-percent recycled plastics.

"The deck is another way of trying to reduce our waste, and rather than putting those plastic bottles back in the landfill somewhere, I'm reusing them," he said.

Next to the deck sits a sauna with walls made of a tree that once stood in the Keljos front yard. The "living roof" on the sauna features prairie grasses and wildflowers covering about 98 percent of its surface.

"Basically, I have a layer of soil in which there are plants growing," he explained. "It does a variety of things. First, it reduces the heat that comes off of the roof and also, when it rains, all of the water just doesn't rush off immediately. It's absorbed by the soil.

"That reduces the impact on streams so you don't have all the water rushing off the roofs and causing our streams to rise quickly," he said. "With a green roof, it's more like the water falls on it rather than having it fall on an impervious surface, and it can also become a habitat because it has creatures living there."

Keljo said the solar panels and installation cost about $28,000: He paid half and the other half was funded through a state grant he received through the Ohio Office of Energy Efficiency.

"The grant program is available to businesses and residences for people who want to produce renewable energy," he said.

Keljo said the solar panels generate electricity for use only during the daylight hours.

He said he does not have a battery back-up system because that would cost more and efficiency would be lost because of the need to store energy that is produced.

"And the electricity I don't use goes back out onto the grid for my neighbors to use," Keljo said. "When I'm producing more than I'm using, there is a little generator there that's producing power that goes out onto the lines and feeds to other homes.

"I've become a local generator, if you will. In other words, I'm like a mini power plant in Reynoldsburg," he said. "I can't tell you how many homes it feeds, but all I can say is the power is not wasted and it reduces the load on AEP."

Keljo said power did not go out in his neighborhood during September's record windstorm, but if it had, he, too, would have lost power.

"When the lines go down, my power shuts off, too, so that no one, like AEP crews, can get hurt," he said.

Keljo is a 1977 graduate of the University of Michigan with a degree in zoology. He is a former university pastor at Capital University, where he currently teaches a course on youth ministry and Christian education. In addition, he is close to finishing work on his master's degree in environmental science at The Ohio State University

He said doing things to preserve the earth's resources is something he has thought about his whole life. Last Saturday, the Keljo home was included in the sixth annual Ohio Solar Tour of selected solar homes in Columbus, Bexley, Reynoldsburg and Gahanna, sponsored by Green Energy Ohio.

Tour organizer Mark Waite said Green Energy Ohio "is all about promoting clean energy and helping to mainstream it and helping to make it easier for people to better achieve energy efficiency and also to see what they can do with renewable energy"

dowen@thisweeknews.com