John Clapp and his wife Dee (Diana) Boyle-Clapp live in Florence on the Clapp family farmstead, where five generations of John's ancestors lived before him. The dairy cows that were his family's livelihood in times past are now gone, but many things haven't changed. Bobcats, bear and moose still share the surrounding forest with the people and the air remains tinged with a hint of wood smoke.
John built his family's house, like his forebears, using timber from the property. There are no electrical lines buried in the ground underneath it. But that doesn't matter because the sun still shines here like it always has.
The Clapps' home is powered by photovoltaic panels on the south side of the house, poised like the upturned face of basking reptiles, gleaning energy from the sun. The panels provide nearly all the electricity needed to power a middle-class home like theirs with the usual appliances. When the sun shines, the panels fill a bank of 20 six-volt, deep-cycle batteries with electricity. When it doesn't, the Clapps fire up their gas-powered generator (though they burn just one or two gallons of gas per week during the winter months and none the rest of the year).
Theirs is a modest but spacious two-story, 2,400-square-foot home, ostensibly like any other. "It's a normal house besides the solar panels," says Clapp, 59, a bespectacled man with a salt-and-pepper beard and youthful face. Inside, the house is cozy and vibrant. Every wall and surface is adorned with art, much of it by Dee, 47, who has long brown hair and a round face behind her eyeglasses. "It's a combination of the artist in me and the builder in you," she says, looking at John.
The cathedral ceiling over the kitchen and dining/living room gives a feeling of openness to the house. This large space is heated by a greenhouse (adjacent to the dining area through a sliding glass door) and a wood stove in which they burn wood harvested from their property. When the stove is hot, a copper water pipe wrapped around the stove's smoke pipe heats their water.
They also have a flat-panel water heater, which consists of a series of water pipes fixed to a board outside, all painted black. A plate of greenhouse glass in front of the pipes captures the sun's heat and cycles the hot water through a 50-gallon tank. The Clapps usually have enough hot water for four showers a day plus after-dinner dishes. (They also have an auxiliary propane-powered water heater and refrigerator, as do each of the homes in this story.)
John, a builder by profession, constructed the water heaters from a design he saw in a Popular Mechanics article over 30 years ago. The article also described a solar-powered house much like the Clapps'. It inspired John to one day live off-grid.
John and Dee share their homestead with a menagerie of creatures including guineafowl, llamas, emu, goats, peacocks, a cat, a donkey and a black Lab, and their son Jarred, 14. Jarred listens to his iPod, plays the electric guitar and does his homework on the computer like all his classmates who live in conventional homes.
What do John and Dee gain by living off-grid? "We feel like we're doing our part," the couple answers immediately, almost in unison. (Indeed, buildings—both commercial and residential—consume nearly half the energy used in this country. Three-quarters of electricity nationwide is eaten up by buildings.)
And what do they sacrifice? John and Dee look at one another and then around their home as if searching for the answer, but they can't seem to produce one. The only reply comes from outside the house. It is the majestic, contented call of the peacock named Bob. The animal's wild cry seems to speak for its owners.
There's nothing different about living off-grid for the Clapps except that they sometimes choose to turn off the computer or the television instead of switching on the generator. But they are happy to make that decision when they have to. "Living off-grid isn't for everybody," John says. "It takes a lot of work, but it feels good to do it."
The couple enjoys teaching guests at their bed and breakfast, Starlight Llama—a three-room operation which they run out of their home—about living off-grid. "Our goal is to show people how easy it is to do this," Dee says. "People ask 'How did you figure this out?' We didn't have to. We got lots of help."
It's estimated that 350,000 households in the United States and around 75,000 in Britain (which has roughly one-fifth as many people as the U.S.) live off-grid. Not only individual homes but whole subdivisions are being built for life off-grid, like the Mount Shasta Forest Subdivision in California, which has its own wind generator, and Abundance Ecovillage in Iowa, which offers plots set up to receive free energy from a common wind and solar system.
Nick Rosen, author of How to Live Off-Grid, estimates that in the U.S. the number will grow by as much as 30 percent a year now that the era of cheap oil is clearly over.
For those who, like the Clapps, have already disconnected from the system, living off-grid has been a boon financially. The Clapps estimate that the $11,000 photovoltaic system has more than paid for itself over the last 10 years. And the cost of connecting to the grid can be high for homeowners in remote areas. John built his sister's home—also off-grid and solar-powered—on an adjacent plot of the farmstead. The cost of connecting her home to the grid alone would have equaled the price of the photovoltaic system.
If past trends are any indication, powering off-grid homes should become increasingly economical. The market for green home technology, currently just a $2-billion-a-year industry, is projected to grow to nearly $4 billion annually for the next five years. During that time, the cost of photovoltaic systems could decrease as much as 60 percent.
The Clapps also receive an income tax break for generating electricity. But the financial reward isn't the reason they choose this lifestyle. The Clapps, like many Valley residents, are concerned about climate change and energy independence, though there are reasons that hit even closer to the homestead.
The family says that living off-grid is just another way of taking care of their land, which they have placed under conservation easement to ensure its safekeeping over the long haul.
A handsome black cat named Casper scratches at the front door as the sun sinks below the tree line. "We'd better let him in," says John. The Clapps have lost two cats and two peacocks over the years to coyotes and foxes. "I feel bad about losing those animals," John says. "But I feel even worse about the wild animals out there. We're living on their land."
Mark Allman, a matter-of-fact man with graying hair, stands in the dewy grass by the south side of his family's home in Charlemont wearing a wool sweater. On this cold spring morning, the sun has not yet reached the hollow where he lives with his wife, Amy Wales, and their two teenagers. Like the Clapps, they have several solar panels mounted to the house, ready to make electricity when the sun does come. But unlike the Clapp residence, there are no peacocks or emus or llamas here.
In fact, there's nothing extraneous about this home whatsoever. Every detail has been contemplated, calculated and streamlined. Form follows function on this homestead, and the function adheres to one strict guideline: efficiency.
The wall at which Mark is looking faces due south. Its many windows comprise precisely 10 percent of the total square footage of the house, a ratio that maximizes solar radiation over heat loss. Conversely, the north side of the house has almost no windows whatsoever.
The floors, siding and trim are all made from trees cut from the property. The rest of the lumber used is local, rough sawn and air-dried. The whole place is nearly devoid of plywood. The walls and ceiling are well insulated and the ceiling insulation consists of one continuous layer. The photovoltaic panels are mounted to the south side of the house (not to the roof) for two reasons.
First, this eliminated the necessity of drilling holes—thereby creating cold spots—in the metal roof. Secondly—well, this requires pencil and paper. Mark sketches a simple diagram of the south side of his home, being careful to draw the panels and eave to scale. Above the house are two suns, one labeled S (for summer), and one labeled W (for winter).
"The panels are the same length and angle as the overhang," Mark explains, pointing to the panels on the diagram with the tip of his pencil. The panels act as a sunshade from the higher summer sun, but allow full exposure to the sun in the winter. "The house actually has less solar gain in the summer, which makes it easier to cool."
The ingenuity doesn't stop there. The 2,200-square-foot saltbox was designed so that rising heat from the wood stove—located in the basement—could heat the entire house efficiently. The central feature of the home's interior is a wooden staircase with spaces between the steps—much like an outdoor staircase—which allows the warm air to move upwards, unhindered by doors or walls.
The wood stove has an intake pipe that pulls in air from outside. This prevents the stove from drawing cold air into the house through the doorways and windows to feed the fire. The house isn't rigged with heat recovery ventilation because electric fans are required for that.
This hyperefficiency might seem a stretch for some, but to Allman it's just plain practical. "It boggles my mind when people don't build this way," he says.
Like the Clapps, Allman and his family derive a sense of satisfaction from not being wasteful, yet they don't deprive themselves of anything. They have a computer, television, food processor, washing machine and hair dryer—and they use them, Allman says. (They also have only compact fluorescent light bulbs, and no clothes drier). "But we don't take our electricity for granted," he says.
The kids have learned how important it is to be energy-wise, too, he adds. "Sure, they take long showers sometimes, but they also brag to their friends about living in an off-grid house."
The family has a running joke they like to use when people ask about their home. Yes, of course we have a clothes drier, they'll say. It's powered by a nuclear energy source which we keep at a safe distance of 93 million miles.
Deb Habib and Ricky Baruc live in Orange, just a few miles from towering smokestacks and a once-polluted river, soon to be vestiges of an unsustainable way of life. They live not far from this old paradigm, but out on their farm they're closer still to something new.
Their land is renascent with spring growth. Waist-high ferns sprout from damp soil under the bright new leaves of hardwoods. Garlic scapes and salad greens push upwards in neat rows. Everywhere there is green, green, green.
Their stucco farmhouse, which sits amongst several hoophouses (arched tunnels of clear plastic), has the usual signatures of an off-grid dwelling. They have begun to seem almost familiar: solar panels, south-facing windows, flat-panel water heater, wood stove. Inside, the house has an earthy, comfortable feel. Like the other homes, it was built by the owners with on-site lumber.
A small, charming pond in front of the home, with goldfish and lily pads, serves as a filter for gray water discharged from the house. The family (Habib and Baruc have one son, Levi) has also hatched plans for a small hydroelectric system on a nearby brook.
Habib and Baruc, both 45, with olive skin and perpetual smiles, sell the garlic and greens to restaurants and food co-ops. Their farm, Seeds of Solidarity, doubles as a non-profit educational center where they teach teens about sustainability and agriculture.
It's an ideal classroom. The vegetables are organic, the fields are irrigated with solar power and they have a biodiesel farm truck. (Their personal vehicle is biodiesel-powered, too.)
The couple also runs an annual solar-powered event for local artists, musicians and farmers called the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival. Sustainability is at the core of their lives. Each project is an outgrowth of this single focus.
The seeds of all this, so to speak, were planted 25 years ago at the New Alchemy Institute—a now-defunct sustainability research center—where the couple met. There, Habib says, they gained the inspiration and experience to live off-grid. Since then, they've created a seamless marriage of their lifestyle, livelihood and beliefs.
Habib says that a lack of education is a major obstacle to proliferating sustainability. Without it, people will remain skeptical and uninformed. "'How could this work if nobody told me that it works?'" she says, voicing their thoughts.
Over the years, they seem to have heard many of the same questions—there are always the same misconceptions to dismantle. Habib offers the answer to a question she's heard all too many times: Is it a sacrifice? "Look at the root of the word sacrifice," she says. "It's sacred. It makes the experience of living more sacred. It makes our life more full& We just use a little less [energy] and enjoy the process."
Now Baruc repeats a question he's heard before. "People ask, 'Do you get enough energy from the sun?'" he says. He shakes his head in utter disbelief. "And I think, 'Did they really just say that?'" He pauses a second, speechless. Behind him, the dense forest reaches upwards. In the other direction, thick carpets of ripe greens blanket the soil. He gestures almost as if to say, "Hello!"
Baruc isn't afraid to get a little philosophical about his views. He quotes Albert Einstein: "Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them." Einstein wasn't talking about sustainability, but it's a useful thing for any movement to bear in mind. Yet this quote does not suggest that something entirely novel and groundbreaking is needed for a solution.
"Civilizations have lived this way forever," he says. He's talking about living simply, using only what you need. "We got off track somewhere."
In the farmhouse's mud room are photos of Martin Luther King, Jr., Che Guevara, Subcomandante Marcos. A bumper sticker tacked to the wall urges: Support Your Local Revolution. Outside, the hoophouses are named for Cesar Chavez and Ghandi. But to think that there is anything remotely revolutionary happening here is wrong, Habib says.
"People talk about alternative energy like it's some kind of revolution." She flips her hands palm up, looking incredulous. "What's alternative about using the sun?"
