With the recent economic hardships affecting Americans everywhere, it makes sense that there should be a renewed national impulse towards thriftiness. And what is more thrifty than a localized recycling of goods? For the seller, yard sales offer a low-overhead, non-taxable income source. For the buyer, they are the perfect way to pick up everyday household consumer products at bargain basement prices. And for the environment, yard sales provide a means of saving the landfills and reducing the heavy, fossil-fuel laden footprint of global manufacturing and shipping.

Nevertheless, the skeptic can’t help wondering: do we as Americans really have it in our national spirit to spend our holiday weekends cruising the land for used mattresses and old stereo equipment? Will the easy consumption of big box stores prevail, endlessly spewing out more Chinese-manufactured cheap plastic goods, destined for the landfill in less than three years’ time? In my home state of New Hampshire, I took to the back roads on a sunny Memorial Day afternoon to investigate.

“Nobody’s around”, said Tim Baker of Albany, New Hampshire. “The parking lots are empty. If people don’t travel, money doesn’t flow.” As we chatted, a man approached with a large plastic wall clock bearing the logo for Schlitz beer. He liked the clock, but didn’t have enough cash with him to pay the twenty dollar asking price. “How much you got?” Tim asked. “Twelve dollars? Fine. It’s yours. Hey, you interested in this garage tent?”

Just a little way up the road in North Conway, Bob and Jackie Goode had several tables of items set up on their driveway. Jackie offered a more nuanced analysis of the market: “It’s been hit or miss… There are some low bids, but then other folks will come along and pay the price.” Jackie said they held a yard sale twice a year, each spring and fall. Were yard sales going out of fashion? “Not in this day and age!” Jackie responded. As proof of the flourishing yard sale economy, she pointed to the success of internet sites like eBay and Craig’s List.

The couple’s children had all moved out, so yard sales made practical sense as a means to downsize the family clutter. But it was also clear that Jackie loved the thrill of the bargain hunt. “These days, people are digging for good deals. If you keep looking, you can find anything. See that hat?” She gestured to a friend wearing a handsome leather cowboy hat. “I found that for three dollars at the flea market in Old Orchard Beach last weekend – three dollars!”, she told me proudly.

Others, I soon discovered, see the yard sale business as a sheer philanthropic necessity. Later that afternoon, I followed signs advertising a “Huge Lawn Sale” down a dead-end street with cracked pavement. I parked my truck in front of a driveway packed with dusty piles of children’s clothes, boxes of books, and tables of electronic goods. A man with a far-away look in his eyes and an impressive tattoo of a Scottish coat-of-arms on his neck greeted me.

“Do you need a stroller or any baby clothes?” he asked. He didn’t wait for a response, but kept right on talking in soft, slightly resigned mono-tone statements. I don’t think he was being rude or impatient – it just seemed that he could tell at a glance that I probably wasn’t going to take any of the junk he had neatly arrayed around him.

The weekend had been pretty good, he said. “This has been my first lawn sale in two years, and I got plenty of stuff to get rid of.” In fact, most of the stuff he would give away, for free. He just wanted to make sure that it got used. Times were hard and he knew there were people who couldn’t afford things. He began to point out various items he had saved: Four baby strollers, a walker, a couple of boxes of Christmas decorations.

Ron, as he eventually introduced himself, just couldn’t stand throwing away items that were still useful. As a last resort, he would take things to the thrift store at the local dump, but they often charged him 5 dollars to leave a working refrigerator or lawn mower. “How about that?” he asked. “Having to pay somebody else to take your stuff…” He shook his head sadly.

In all, Ron said that he had probably made around forty dollars that weekend. But financial success was a secondary concern. Ron had two rented storage units filled with more stuff that he was going to clean out that week. If he didn’t get rid of the stuff in his garage this weekend, he would have no place to put the new junk coming in from the storage units.

“I just don’t understand it… I’m willing to give this stuff away, and people still won’t take it.” His voice drifted off. I stood there in silence with him for a few moments, then took my leave. The drive home took me past the local Wal-Mart, and I couldn’t help noticing that the parking lot was full, bustling with eager Memorial Day shoppers.

One thing’s for certain: the yard sale economy has plenty of room to grow.

Originally published on the Huffington Post on June 6th, 2008.

Don’t get me wrong: Steve isn’t a blue-suit corporate type. He’s the kind of guy who rolls up his sleeves and get dirty. For three generations, the small fleet of trucks belonging to Frechette Oil and Backhoe Service have been a familiar sight around the towns and villages of Carroll County, chortling off purposefully to do their work of keeping the community warm all winter long. When his grandfather first got into the business, they delivered coal. In 1967, his father decided to make the change to oil. And now, some 41 years later, Steve’s moving the family business into solar heating. Like most Yankees, it’s important to him that he practices what he preaches. Steve’s first gig? Installing a solar water heater at his own home.

Steve’s decision couldn’t be more timely. The region currently faces nothing less than a full blown crisis driven by heating oil prices that have nearly doubled in the past 12 months. Last year, the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program provided 25 million dollars to 33,000 New Hampshire families. At a meeting of New England governors in Boston last week, New Hampshire Governor John Lynch said that double that amount was needed for the coming winter. Even if Washington provides that much funding, the crunch will be acutely felt — especially by middle class families who don’t qualify for federal assistance. Might solar be the answer?

While we waited for the concrete truck to arrive and pour the footings, Steve led me into his basement, bounding down the stairs two at a time. He dove into the basics of the system. An eight foot by five foot solar collector made up of evacuated tubes captures energy from the sun and uses it to heat a closed loop system that is pumped to a heat exchanger in his basement, where it warms the household supply of potable water. A computerized controller regulates the temperature and flow through the use of pumps, and an electric heater stores the hot water and functions as a back up. “In summer, this will produce 100 percent of our hot water, and in winter, probably about 80 percent,” Steve told me. Ironically, the biggest problem is having too much hot water, which must be drained off via a relief valve.

Steve estimates that his solar water system will save around 250 gallons of heating oil a year (heating oil currently costs $4.69 in the area… you do the math). Depending on the size of the house, a system runs between 7,000 and 11,000 dollars. “BUT — that’s before the tax rebates”, Steve added with the mischievous sparkle of a salesman. Considering the federal tax incentive (a 30 percent rebate), and many state rebates stacked on top of that (in NH, another 25 percent), a system might pay for itself in only three or four years.

Even to someone who sells oil, this makes a lot of sense. Of course, Steve also sees business opportunity: nobody else in the local community installs solar water systems like this. I asked Steve why more people in the industry haven’t come around to solar technology. “I think a lot of guys were skeptical when it first became available, back in the late 70′s and 80′s,” he answered. “And that was bad technology, with lots of maintenance involved.” He adds that many tradesmen are still wary of installing new, unproven technology — and then backing their work with a twenty or thirty year guarantee. Furthermore, new systems mean taking time off from work to learn how to properly install and maintain them. And finally, you have to be able to sell them. That’s no sure thing in rural New England, where the average income is 37,000 dollars.

Five dollar a gallon gas might be the best thing to ever happen to the green revolution, but there are still plenty of reasons to stay on the sidelines, especially if you happen to be a rural tradesman trying to support a family in middle of the worst economic slump in a generation. Why stick your neck out and make the leap to alternative energy? Steve may be the most optimistic guy in the whole county. And winning the hearts and minds of more guys like Steve — the heating experts who keep you warm, the electricians who wire your house, the mechanics who fix your car — should be the green revolution’s top priority.

As for Steve, he cautions that solar water systems like the one he’s installing can only do so much. “Some of these 5,000 – 6,000 square foot homes that are being built are ridiculous. Even 3,000 square feet is pretty big. People need to start building smaller, and they need to build for maximum southern exposure, not the best view.”

Of course if you’re not interested, Steve will be happy to sell you heating oil, delivered right to your door step, at the going rate of 4.69 a gallon.

Originally published on the Huffington Post on July 13th, 2009.