110 Degrees

Brad Lancaster: Free, Ever-Dependable Power

Brad Lancaster and his brother Rodd "disconnected" their adobe house near Downtown Tucson from conventional, nonrenewable power sources in May 2004 and now power their home solely with solar energy. Lancaster's book, "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands," which elaborates on some of the topics below, will be published later this year.

I don't like the idea of having to pay a bill every month. Also, I don't like the idea of my energy consumption feeding the worsening of other people's environments. Tucson gets the majority of its power from burning coal, and the bulk of the coal is from the Four Corners area, the Hopi and the Navajo lands. Peabody Coal Corp. is the major supplier. It is the major contributor to the depletion and arbitration of the traditional Hopi springs and some of the Navajo springs. Peabody sends its coal to different areas in big pipes filled with water. When I found that out, every time I turned on the light switch I was thinking: "Wow, I am contributing to the destruction of the Hopi lands and water. I am buying power and making money for the people who provide that power who are directly damaging that land and those people." I also did some research and found that because of the process it takes to transport the coal, burn the coal and make the electricity in Tucson, for every kilowatt-hour we use, we're consuming about a half-gallon of water. So then I thought, "Every time I turn on the light, stereo . . . I am contributing to the consumption of water." Since we live in a dry-land environment where water's really precious, I want to do all I can to reduce my consumption. With the solar system, I am not consuming any water - well, very little water. I have to put some distilled water into my battery once every two months, but that's only about a pint of water. The whole system cost $10,000, but we had to spend only $1,500. We qualified for a city grant for low-income house improvement. Our neighborhood got money to create that opportunity through the Back to Basics grant. I am very active in my neighborhood association. I really fought to make sure that could be used not only for a roof repair or repairing windows, but also to create systems to reduce the cost of living, and so solar worked perfectly. This way we could actually make the house a producer of energy instead of a consumer of energy. We wanted to make the system more affordable in the beginning. Before we got the system, we never had an electric bill over $20 each month because we reduced our consumption. We have a lot of different light fixtures, a stereo, fans for cooling, a refrigerator, a blender, lots of power tools, a washing machine, a battery recharger. We stopped using a toaster. We got rid of that, thinking that would take too much power, but now we have a surplus of power, so we might get a new toaster. A long time ago, we stopped using hair dryers and that kind of stuff. We also got rid of our evaporative cooler. We set up our home so we would never need an air conditioner or a conventional heater. We use our south-facing windows to heat the house, so we use passive solar. We have a wood stove as a backup in cold weather, and the only things we burn in our stove are prunings from our yard. We made sure all our windows could be opened and closed. We put screens on all the windows and all the doors, so at night in the summer we can open up and let the hot air out of the house and the cool air in. During the day, we close all the windows and doors. Our main system of cooling is passive ventilation. We painted our house white so it would reflect heat and not absorb it. We extended the overhang on our roof so that in the summer, when the sun is higher in the horizon, the whole wall will be in the shade. But in the winter, when the sun is lower, we get full sun hitting the south-facing wall. We grow a vine on that trellis on the south-facing windows in the hot months, and in the cold winter months the vine dies back so we get the sun back again. On the east, west and north sides of the house, we shade it as much as we can with vines, trees and shade cloth, so that way we're getting all the winter sun when we want it and we're shading the summer sun. We stripped our water heater of all its insulation and wiring, and painted it black. And then we built a box with a glass covering to act like a greenhouse, so heat goes in, heats up the black tank and heats the water. That's our only source of hot water, so that has also affected our lifestyle. If I hear a weather report and rain's coming, I take a shower. I don't take showers in the morning anymore. It's saving me money and reducing my negative impact in the world and reducing pollution. Solar power has freed me from monthly bills. It has connected me a lot more with the natural environment that we all live in but often forget about. I am very aware of when the sun's out and when it's not. We have a rule that we don't do laundry when there's no sunshine. So instead of waiting for the clothes to pile up in a humongous mass in my closet, now I say, "Wow, the sun's out!" Then I do a load. We turned our washing machine into a neighborhood laundromat. People can come and use it for free, but only when the sun is out.