home wind mills

[bruce]

does anyone have one that they can speak of the goods and bads?

 

[mikeathens]

I considered one, but we are ending up with a 4 kW soalar array. I live in a valley, here's what I know about wind:

-Wind patterns vary by region/location. Depending on where you are, might not be worthwhile (Great lakes: Good Athens, OH: OK). I live in a valley, and wind patterns are scattered due to the topography. No good where I live.

-Wind is around (can be around) 24/7, so it's more reliable on a 24-hour basis. I didn't get into too much research on this since it wouldn't be good at my place, but I think generation varies with seasons. Solar is productive (obviously) only during the day, and efficiency goes down with high temps.

-Wind is generally cheaper than solar, but to get the same output as my 4kW solar, it would take a pretty big turbine.

 

[Telco]

Go to NAWS for solar with a kind of negative slant on wind, or otherpower.com for the wind nuts that go so far as to hand wind copper wire to make the alternators. NAWS is a very professionally run place, with a lot of good, solid information and no hate. Kinda like this place, for solar. They go into the reasons why wind is a lesser choice than solar, rather than just slam it because it ain't solar, well worth the read if you want a windmill. They also have info on brands to get vs brands to avoid, if you insist on wind. Personally I view a vertical windmill stack as a complimentary piece of a well rounded self-generation system.

 

[Mike Wilson]

I had one for the boat which I mounted on the house for a while to see how she worked at home. One major issue here was blade noise. It will drive you crazy. This thing had carbon fiber blades, and when it rotated made a constant swooshing noise, just like on the boat (which is why I took it off... too noisy). I suppose if you put one up on a large tower, and had three large, slow spinning blades, the noise might be reduced. Other issue is maintenance... the things are outside in the weather, have moving parts, and electrical components... a certain combination for disaster. Finally, as noted, it depends what wind zone you are in. I had mine mounted on a 15' pole on the house, which is right on the water on a bluff, so we have plenty of wind. Overall, I'd go solar, less problematic, less maintenance, more juice.

-- MW

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Like Mike said, noise can be a problem. However, this can be overcome because I talked to many out in Arizona who had them mounted on or beside their motor homes or trailers. Those who just braced them on the trailer with nothing to dampen the noise hated them.

Contrary to theory, yes, the wind can and does blow some at night but experience says most nights the wind dies. Perhaps not totally, but enough that you would not get much juice from a wind machine. Also, on high winds, these things have brakes so that the high rotation doesn't break things. Brake on, no voltage produced.

We did a lot of research when we were in Arizona and finally went with solar rather than wind. It worked nicely down there. Here in Michigan I believe the average is 70% clouds so solar works sometimes but not all the time. For instance, annually we can figure from about Thanksgiving until February we just are not going to see much sunshine. No sun, no, or very little solar power. Also, batteries are expensive and are taking another big jump in price. We used golf cart batteries (6 volt). Back in the mid 90's we could buy them for $50. Now you can't touch them for $100, but I haven't checked lately because we no longer need them.

 

[MainePellethead]

I have an older hippie friend of mine that had one for years. He has 60 acres of land in Kennebunkport Maine(not on the coastline) on the highest peak in the town. He mounted his on an old radio tower he modified etc so he could easily winch it down to work on. He used it for years but now he is 62 and is hard for him or his long time girlfriend(35 years) to maintain etc. He hasnt used a power line at his house for 40 years lol. He bought his land right after the Carter Admin. ended for 1,000 an acre. He just recently put his whole place up for sale for 1.6 mil. lol But anyway....he is a very mechanically inclined guy and they loved their windmill.

 

[Telco]

The vertical windmills don't have a lot of the problems of the horizontal ones. The electrical gear can be on the ground in a protected shed, with just a pole through the roof for the blades. The blades are always oriented correctly for the wind. They can't overspeed, as the faster they go the more they appear to be a solid mass to the wind (note: a mesh satellite antenna will allow free passage of air, but over about 60MPH it will appear as a solid piece to the wind, not a mesh piece). As such, once they are autoprotecting as the wind can't make it overspin. This feature also means that the faster it goes, the more likely birds are to see it as an obstacle, unlike horizontal jobs. Finally, the verticals are supposed to be far quieter than the verticals. All this comes from web research, sadly not direct experience.

Even though I really like the vertical jobs, given a finite amount of money I'd spend on solar first, backup generator second, wind third.

 

[d.n.f.]

I am looking into them.

Don't expect them to give you the power they say. Unless you live in Grand Prairie or on the windy coast.

I bought a home weather station with an anemometer. Just put it up to record average wind speeds. Most people I talked to say do this for a year and see what you get.

There is some web sites where you can plug in your zip code and it will tell you what your wind/solar should be. On Mother Earth News. Doesn't work in Canada. I plugged in a zip which is south of me (I am in Nelson BC) and it told me I would have a 152 year payback on my solar investment. Funny.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/2008-04-01/Choosing-Renewable-Energy.aspx?page=7

I think location for both is critical. Just cause you feel wind doesn't mean there is enough to turn your windmill. Generally min 10 mph is needed. Low winds like that give you squat for power. Look at some power charts. If the manufacturer doesn't have them on their site I would be hesitant.

 

[Mike Wilson]

Like Mike said, noise can be a problem. However, this can be overcome because I talked to many out in Arizona who had them mounted on or beside their motor homes or trailers. Those who just braced them on the trailer with nothing to dampen the noise hated them.

Interesting, I never had "direct" noise from the fact that it was mounted on a mast on the house. I was referring to blade noise from the wind. The whooshing is really very annoying. It's louder than you think.

-- MW