How much are you willing to spend and how clear is the area where you want to put it?jeff_t said:Can anybody point me to some good resources, forum and otherwise? Anyone with personal experience, please enlighten me.
Just starting to think about it. I think I have a good location.
fossil said:
mbcijim said:fossil said:
I own one of these and they do not stand behind what they built.
jharkin said:Builditsolar has some pages on wind.I have no personal experience to judge how good they are...
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Wind/wind.htm
GaryGary said:Hi,
The thing you want to start with is determining if you have enough wind to make it worthwhile -- most places don't. Even places that get high winds may not be a good bet in that you need a good high average wind speed.
Since I do the BuildItSolar page, I'll mention a couple things on it that I think would be good places to start -- all on this page: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Wind/wind.htm
The stuff listed under "Got Wind?" will get you started on evaluating your location for wind potential. This is a must do first step.
The "Wind Power for Dummies" book that is listed is very good. Its by Ian Woofenden, the Home Power wind editor -- he knows wind very well and lives in an off grid, wind powered home. Its available from Amazon.com etc.
When you are trying to sort out wind power generation claims by the various commercial turbines, the little graph at the very top of the page is helpful in that it gives an idea how much yearly power generation you should expect for your average wind speed as a function of turbine diameter. If you see claims that differ much from what the graph says, beware. A lot of the wind turbine makers quote their power output at very high wind speeds -- even if you are in a good location, you won't see these speed very often at all - so ignore those and look for the power output at your average wind speed.
If you are looking to build your own wind turbine, the Scoraig Wind site and the book "Homebrew Wind Power" by the two Dan's (who are from Otherpower.com), and the Otherpower.com forum are all very good.
Gary
So can a drain heat recovery system. Depends on how your drain & water heater are set up but it can be as easy as some copper tubing wrapped around the drain pipe before going to the water heater inlet. Build-it-solar has instructions.BeGreen said:Do you already have a low-flow waterhead on the shower? That can help. So can a water timer for the shower.
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