Life off the grid

The Frenches make the rustic life work. Could you?

By Doug Hubley

Would you give up your toaster to help save the world?

All right, so scaling back your energy habit is a little more complicated than simply tossing the toaster. But neither is it the end of civilization. Look at Bob and Shirley French, two eminently civilized people who live in Tenants Harbor.

When the Frenches were planning their retirement home in Tenants Harbor, they decided to keep it “off the grid,” independent of Maine’s electrical utilities. In a nation of energy junkies, that’s a scary notion — and it’s true that in a house powered by sunshine, wood and some fossil fuel, the Frenches live a life slightly less convenient and exciting than yours or mine.

The lighting is drab. There’s no home theater, electric can opener, or plug-in room deodorizers. But the worst drawback, it seems, is the lack of a toaster. “My wife keeps reminding me, because she likes toast,” Bob French says with a smile. “But you get a black iron pan and you fry the toast up, and it tastes pretty good.”

So, yes, the Frenches have lowered themselves to a standard of comfort that only several billion people around the world could envy. Still, they’re warm and snug even on the coldest winter nights. They enjoy their television and a stereo, a computer, a vacuum cleaner and a washer. And see what they’ve gained: The security of self-sufficiency. The satisfaction of doing something good for the planet. And perhaps best of all, the sheer pleasure of walking away from the fantasyland of U.S. energy policy.

Amidst all the discussion about that policy (if only all that hot air could drive turbines), it may come as a relief to meet people who actually take re-

sponsibility for their energy consumption. French, who retired from the University of Southern Maine as a

geography professor in 1995, feels strongly about the issue. He calls the Bush-Cheney energy proposals “scary” and says bluntly that Americans are pampering themselves into mediocrity – “a nation turning soft, demanding of convenience and notoriously self-serving.” He says, “I encouraged energy conservation and that sort of thing while I was teaching. And when I had the opportunity, when I retired, to build a house, I said, ‘I’d better put my money where my mouth is.’ ”

A SIMPLE ADORNMENT: the Frenches’ solar panels are pretty inconspicuous, really.

The result is a comfortable 1700-square-foot Cape-style home heated by wood from the Frenches’ 25-plus acres, supplemented by propane, and electrified by photovoltaic panels on the roof. The Frenches hired Peter Talmage, a Kennebunkport man who is one of Maine’s best-known solar engineers, to design their generating system, and a friend in the building trade helped with construction. But Bob and Shirley did most of the design and building themselves, completing the house five years ago.

French is short in stature but powerfully built. He talks about himself modestly, almost diffidently, but at the same time is obviously proud of his house and lifestyle. (And, naturally, as a geographer, he gives precise directions to a house not otherwise easy to find.) “I think there’s so many opportunities to conserve energy,” he says, pointing to the eight percent reduction in electrical use that power-strapped California recently achieved through conservation. “I can’t understand why anybody in Maine would ever need air conditioning,” he says, by way of example. “We have windows — that’s what they’re for, to let the breeze in.”

It’s tough to determine just how many homes in Maine rely wholly or in part upon alternative energy sources. Not even the head of the Maine Solar Energy Association knows for sure: Richard Komp, who has been living off the grid in Jonesport since 1988, reckons that about 2000 homes in Maine use solar electricity, but he has heard other estimates twice as high. Many of these residences are camps with minimal solar generation. Others use both photovoltaic (PV) systems and the grid, whereby their owners can reduce their power bill by selling surplus juice to the utilities.

Like Bob French, most homeowners who divorce the utilities are motivated first and foremost by green ideology. As Peter Talmage puts it, “Clean energy is its own justification.” Good thing, since the financial payback is questionable unless, as in the Frenches’ case, it’s necessary to run power lines and poles any distance in from the existing service. That can hit the tens of thousands of dollars. As for paying off your solar infrastructure by making utility bills go away, though, it’s not likely. Although the PV panels last forever, the accompanying storage batteries do wear out and have to be replaced; French will face about a $1200 bill for a new set in the near future.

Conflict of interests? In retirement, Bob French is writing poetry and trying his hand at fiction. He also continues to pursue a hobby of long standing: collecting antique road maps, an interest that makes perfect sense for a geographer at the start of the automobile’s second century. In fact, French’s expertise in road maps led the Osher Map Library at the University of Southern Maine to enlist him as curator of an exhibit that’s running all year at the map center. “Road Maps: The American Way” reveals more about this country than you’d think road maps could, from its attitudes toward minorities to the history of the pop song “Route 66.” Of course, in its heyday the great American road map was more than anything a marketing tool for purveyors of gasoline and oil — the very energy industry at which, today, the solar-powered French is thumbing his nose. But he sees no conflict between these two interests. For French, the roadmap symbolizes the peculiarly American romance of the open road. “The pre-World War 2 roadmaps, the ones that most interest me, celebrate the love of the auto, not energy consumption, during an era when driving was both privilege and pleasure,” French writes in an email. “Then, most of us commuted by public transportation, shopped in the local stores, and took the train on long journeys. Cars then were special and used with discretion — a Sunday outing, a drive to the beach with one’s girlfriend in an open convertible.” Today, he continues, the automobile is “just another appliance. Imagine, using two and half tons of wheel and steel plus a gallon of gas to fetch a loaf of bread!” He laments, “I’m afraid the romance is gone.” —DLH

In sum, Komp estimates that solar electricity in Maine typically averages out to 19 or 20 cents per kilowatt, compared to the 12 to 14 cents that Maine’s major utilities charge. But let’s stop being so American for a second and forget about our wallets: As Talmage says, that sort of calculation does not consider the hidden costs of utility power, such as environmental degradation from oil and coal extraction, not to mention the utilities’ contribution to air pollution and what many consider its most frightening consequence, global warming.

When the Frenches first undertook this project, Talmage guided them through an “energy audit” of their prospective home. According to Paul Morrissey, an energy systems engineer with the Energy Conservation Division of the state economic development office, the average American home uses 833 kilowatt hours per month. The average Maine home, Talmage estimates, uses about 500 kilowatt hours — but he stresses that that figure is the product of wildly diverse usage rates. A typical solar-electrical home in Maine, Komp says, uses more like 150.

With Talmage’s guidance, the Frenches calculated that they could shrink their monthly consumption to 40 or 50 kilowatt hours. A big cut came from eliminating “resistance heating” devices — things like a hot water heater, an electric range and, yes, a toaster. In winter, the Frenches’ woodstove heats the water that warms the home and runs from the kitchen and bathroom taps. A propane water heater serves as backup in winter and takes the full load in summer. The Frenches cook on a small antique propane stove.

The Sun Frost refrigerator and Staber washer are both extra-high efficiency (and as such, more costly than mainstream equivalents). The lights are compact fluorescents, which cast a pallid white glow. The television is a small black & white. There are no “phantom” power drains, such as a VCR with its glowing clock or an “instant-on” TV, that can add more than 10 percent to a household’s consumption.

Bob French estimates that his solar system costs upwards of $12,000, out of labor and materials totaling $50,000 for the whole house — not bad considering the structure’s simple appeal, with its vintage stoves, ample sunlight, and a location overlooking the fittingly named Watts Cove. Like the living spaces, the mechanical systems too are appealingly simple, blending 19th- and late-20th-century technologies.

Looking surprisingly small on the roof of the house are the 12 photovoltaic panels, each producing 65 watts per panel at peak. Under the eves is the bank of 10 deep-cycle batteries — weighing more than half a ton — that store the panels’ output. Usually there’s plenty of juice. But “in the wintertime, when you have three or four cloudy days in a row and the low sun and so forth, you have to struggle to make it through,” French allows, and at those times he plugs a gasoline generator into the house. “And what it costs us is two or three gallons of gas each winter.”

Sharing the electrical room with the batteries is equipment that turns the raw juice into electricity the household can use. Heavy-duty circuit breakers, a voltage regulator, and a charger produce groaning electronic signals French can hear from his adjacent study. Because the PV panels produce direct current (DC) — one flavor of electricity, so to speak — there’s also a box that converts the electricity into alternating current (AC), the flavor most electrical devices prefer. In fact, one of the additional expenses in going solar was installing two complete wiring systems, one for DC and one for AC, because the Frenches have appliances using both.

The Frenches’ interior heating system is as cool as it is warm, if you’ll pardon the pun. The water heated by the woodstove and the propane heater circulates under the ceramic floor tiles through loops of plastic hose. The resulting radiant heat is cozy and efficient. More heat comes off the woodstove and water tank, which live in the kitchen. A large stone hearth-and-chimney core at the center of the house serves as a heat sink. In the living room, large windows trap the sun’s warmth and a small woodstove augments the main system. There’s no heat source upstairs, and no need for one, French says.

French estimates that he pays about $600 annually for propane and burns a couple cords of his own wood each winter. The rest of his power, in a matter of speaking, is just salvaged, energy that happens to land here on its way to infinity. In this age of giant vehicles and giant houses and Enterprise-viewscreen TVs, the Frenches’ can-do spirit and thriftiness seem as bedrock-timeless as their solar technology is contemporary.

In an email follow-up to our first meeting, French contrasts the current political temper with the “ask not what your country can do for you” philosophy of President John F. Kennedy. You can guess which he favors. “During the recent presidential campaigns, each candidate tried to outdo the other in promises of giveaways, tax cuts,” and so forth, French writes. “Neither called for any sacrifice on our part. This is not the inspirational type of leadership that will change public attitudes.”

“History reveals that fat times produce fat people,” he writes. “Times of sacrifice and giving produce great people and great nations.”

Doug Hubley can be reached at doug.hubley@worldnet.att.net.