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The Windmill Project

I have a seed of thought in me that I don’t think will go away anytime soon. Because my wife and I live on a ridge on the side of a valley, we get really high winds. I sometimes joke how our house creaks and groans like an old pirate ship on the gustier days.

So, thinking of a way to put this to good use, and after an extended conversation with a crazy-like-a-fox-not-like-Ted-Bundy chimney sweep (long story), I’ve come to a decision. I really want to put a windmill somewhere on my property as an alternative source of energy.

According to my a crazy-like-a-fox-not-like-Ted-Bundy chimney sweep, a supplemental windmill energy kit can be put together with relative ease and to a modest expense given the relative size and selection of the components. But there seems to be significant expense involved in tying the extra juice to the existing power.

But this is where it gets really good. That expense could be negated over time since the power company is required by law to send contributors a check for any additional juice pumped into the power grid. As far as I can see, there’s no down side to this.

So, since I’m really just in a phase of discovery in this project, I was wondering if anybody out there knows anything more about it. Can you share your personal knowledge or even stories about friends or relatives that have tried alternative energy for there homes? Is it a pipe dream? Is it practical? Is it a waste of time?

Somebody let me know, because I’m really getting curious. I may not do this tomorrow, but eventually I want to make it happen if it sounds like it’s possible.

Excellent idea! I’ve blogged about Passive Solar Living and Deep Lake Water Cooling. I also was considering building an earth-berm home. I cam across a pretty extensive site OurCoolHouse.com which showcases how this homeowner went about building his home, positioning, heating, cooling, ect. Lots of info there.

I was also reading up on wind power and saw that you can purchase different models of turbines for different wind environments. You’ll want to do a good bit of research like finding out what the average windspeed is around your home and making sure there won’t be any interference from trees. From what I read, you want at least one year of documentation to average this out. The power from the turbine actually flows onto the grid but through a meter, this way the electric company deducts what you generate from your bill (I believe they only pay you a small amount per KWH). My thought were to have some sort of switch hooked up so that if the power went off, the power the turbine generates would flow directly to my house keeping everything running. Hope this info helps you out a little.

No, that’s fantastic info. If it’s possible, can you send me any links you might have accumulated in your research? I’ve found some very sparse info, but there’s gotta be more out there. I’m probably not using the right keywords or something.

It sounds like a fair bit of research on my part is going to be in order. But that’s okay. This is one home project I consider to be a little more important than the usual cosmetic overhaul and I’m looking to really do someting about it over the next couple of years, not weeks.

Thanks! And if anybody else can contribute anything at all (even if you think it’s small), I’d appreciate the info.

This article is pretty inspiring:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2004/12/03/grid.html

Awesome. Yeah, I would consider solar power too, but the wind seems to be beckoning me to take it on in an obvious way. That’s the whole point, though, achieving energy independence. Though, it seems a degree in engineering might help a lot.

There have also been a few articles in the paper about these kinds of homes. One was just a month or two ago. It seems that radiant heating seems to be a big thing in this area. The designs of these houses have large south-facing windows with tile floors which absorb the solar heat throughout the day and slowly release that heat back into the room throughout several hours at night. Combine this with an in-floor pipe system with heated liquid and you can substantially lower your heating costs. That liquid can be heated via solar or outside woodstove.

Living completely off the grid can be very difficult, but implimenting technology to help reduce costs is very do-able. I’ll see if I can dig up more links and send them to you. More people should be doing things like this.

I’ve got a comment.

You are a nut.

But only a nut pays an electric bill.