Want a wind turbine for your home? You’re in luck, because you have several options available – and because these days it’s easier than ever before to go off the grid and power your house entirely with clean energy.
Here are the 3 main options you have:
Option 1: Buy a Professionally-Produced Wind Turbine
The easiest option, if you don’t have much time, is to simply buy a wind turbine from a large company. Depending on your location and the wind speeds in your area, it might cost between $5,000 and $20,000 to completely power your house like this and eliminate your electricity bill.
If you have that kind of money to invest and don’t like to build things yourself, this is your best option – but be aware that it is most effective if you’re in the Midwest or near the ocean, where there is sufficient wind to make the investment worthwhile.
Advantages: Requires minimal time; no potential to mess up your wiring or electricity
Disadvantages: Very expensive; not worth it unless you have very strong winds in your area
Option 2: Acquire or Find a Broken or Not Fully Functional Wind Turbine
This is another option that most people completely overlook – rather than buying or building a wind turbine, why not just get a broken one from a neighbor or from a company looking to get rid of some of their windmills?
The only problem here is that it’s a little unreliable to do this, and you never know what you’re getting with a broken wind turbine – it might collapse in a week, leaving you without power. But it’s the cheapest option if you’re up for a challenge.
Advantages: Cheapest option; requires less time than building your own wind turbine
Disadvantages: Unreliable; may not last very long; may be difficult to find broken turbine depending on your location
Option 3: Build Your Own Wind Turbine
This is the alternative that you’re probably the most interested in – building your own wind turbine. If you like to get your hands dirty and have a few days to spare, you can power your home – or at least greatly reduce your electricity bill – for a few hundred dollars and several days worth of work.
The main problem is that not everyone is comfortable doing this, and you may not get good results if you live in an area without much wind.
Advantages: Relatively inexpensive; only requires a few days worth of work; can be “worth it” even if you don’t have strong winds in your area
Disadvantages: Requires some familiarity with cutting metal and assembling machines; may get unpredictable results if it’s your first time
So you’ve just followed my basic tutorial for building your own wind turbine, and you’re now powering your house with clean energy. Congratulations! Most people never even make it this far.
But if you want your DIY wind turbine to last well into the future, you’ll need to take good care of it and make sure it’s properly maintained – otherwise you’ll have to start all over again in a few months to a year when it breaks down due to the sun and environmental damage.
Here are the most important points to keep in mind for wind turbine maintenance:
- Before you even set up your own DIY wind turbine, make sure that you coat the pipes you’re using for your blades and any parts you’re making out of plywood with UV inhibitor – these materials were never meant to be used outside, so you need to make sure the sun doesn’t wear them down. If you’ve forgotten to do this, simply apply the UV protector ASAP, and try to re-apply it at least a few times per year to protect against damage.
- Always check the electrical parts of your wind turbine – the battery, DC motor, charge controller, dump load, and inverter – for rust, dust, and water leaks. If you keep these outside, you’ll want to clean them out, inspect them, and replace them if necessary at least 2-3 times per year. UV protector won’t help too much, but your main concern is not sun damage – it’s water damage and rust. You can also cover these with protective flexi-glass or other materials.
- Maintain your blades – you want to make sure that the edges are still properly rounded, and that each of the 3 blades attached to your wind turbine is the same weight. You can inspect the edges for proper rounding yourself, and use sandpaper and a metal edge to shave off metal if necessary. To check for equal weighting, number the blades, and spin them around a few times to make sure the same blade does not always end up at the bottom – if it does, then you need to shave metal off the shaft connecting it to your hub.
- Secure fastening: with a wind turbine, you absolutely need to make sure all the parts are securely fastened – but especially the blades, hub, and tail shaft. You can check for this every few months, and if the parts are growing loose, you can tighten them by re-drilling and re-aligning the holes. If the tail shaft becomes loose, you can use something as simple as bungee cord to fix it, tie a few loops to the tower, and make sure it stays in place.
- General cleaning – there’s nothing too special here. Unlike with DIY solar panels, you’re not too concerned with dust because it won’t build up on blades that are constantly moving – instead, you should worry about rust buildups and possible water damage.
Those are the 5 main points you need to be concerned with when it comes to wind turbine maintenance – the most important part is to make sure your wind turbines are properly set up in the first place, because if you don’t use UV protector or forget to securely fasten everything in the beginning, you’re sure to encounter problems later on.