wind energy for home

[occy30]

Any one here know of where a home owner would start in looking at wind energy to start to ease my electric bill? I live in Missouri in case it's a regional thing.

Also, any personal experience with this would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Occy30

[Peter Lindemann]

Start with Conservation

Any one here know of where a home owner would start in looking at wind energy to start to ease my electric bill? I live in Missouri in case it's a regional thing.

Also, any personal experience with this would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Occy30

Dear Occy30,

Adding a new source of renewable energy to your home is a great idea. It seems like it should be the first step in becoming energy self-sufficient. Unfortunately, this is a complete mistake.

The real place to start is to go back through all of the ways that you USE ENERGY and eliminate all of the ways that that energy is being WASTED before you get to use it.

The manual sold on this forum called Save on Home Energy shows you how to lower your energy use by 50%, using a combination of new technologies and properly installed "super insulation" to save 50% on your utility bills. These "fixes" usual pay for themselves in a very short time. Mind you, these "fixes" do not change either your comfort level or your life-style in any way. They just lower your costs!

AFTER you have eliminated most of the ways that you waste energy, THEN look into adding a new, renewable source of energy to your home.

Here is a simple example of why this method makes sense. Let's say that to provide all the energy you currently use, you would need to install a solar system that costs $20,000. Now, let's say that you can actually reduce your energy use by 50% for a conservation retrofit of insulation and new energy saving appliances for about $2,000. Now, you only need a $10,000 solar system to power your house. So, the first way costs $20,000 and the second way costs $12,000.

If you understand the truth, then you can see that you need to implement Conservation methods first, and new energy sources second.

Good luck,
Peter

[mbrownn]

As always peter is absolutely right.

Things you can do to reduce power consumption significantly are, in no particular order:-

Power factor correction, anything that uses an electric motor or coil can benefit from this.

High efficiency lighting such as LED lamps.

For heating use either a fuel directly such as burning wood etc as there are fewer energy losses, or consider using air conditioning units the wrong way round as they produce low grade heat far in excess of the input power.

For cooling consider evapourative cooling or a combination of evapourative cooling and air conditioning instead of just air conditioning. I have some experience with this as my main room required 2hp of air conditioning, with the addition of evapourative cooling the power consumption dropped by 20 to 30% depending upon humidity.

Put refrigerators and freezers in areas that need to be warmed and take them out of areas that need to be cooled.

Use passive heating and cooling systems to regulate house temperature where possible.

Believe me, massive savings can be made here and the amount you save will go a long way towards financing your solar/wind power system.

Remember with most solar systems, they cannot supply the power 100% of the time and usually their output is less than advertisers would have you believe. Consider using high efficiency systems for charging the batteries like Battery Chargers This way you will be helping one of the people that the alternative energy movement owes so much to.

Alternatively build your own system, I'm sure there are many here that will assist you with that.

[fredewir]

Just an idea

I know people have replied with what they think you should do first. They say to look at your energy use; I would like to give an idea I have which I am too poor to put to application, but you may like to try:

Air Conditioning units give of a lot of wind from the fan; If you were to be able to put a wind-energy device above it, you could utilize the units own wind to power it's self. Or, at the very least, utilize the power created for other uses.

I say a television program a while back where a guy had placed Vertical wind turbines on the roof of his apartment building. If people could make these to apply above the a/c fans, they could reduce power consumption.

Well, I am only some guy with crazy ideas. What do I know?

Note: I created an idea for a self-sustained isolated power unit that would regulate the temperature of the highways. Being poor, I attempted to get help by emailing a government official in Transportation Safety. After a few emails, I received no more replies. However, I heard from a family member, that in Iowa, or Idaho, they were attempting to apply a system which mirrors my idea.

Feel free to contact me for more crazy ideas.
Joe

[occy30]

Thanks guys for all of your suggestions.

I think that manual is a good first start as wasted energy is the same thing as wasted money. Plus, recovering energy from other systems would reduce the waste energy so that is something to look into

Thanks again fellas!!!

[wizofid]

Coming from Canada, we have some cold around here. I began with a retrotfit of the house. I pulled the outside walls of the house, and double walled the place, R20 added to the exiting walls. Doors, windows and Then went to the attic. That brought the walls to about R30 toR40.

I found that you could get styrofoam pellets for free, from a maker here in town. It was waste from the build process. But if you check, they are R2 to R6 per inch, depending on air and other factors of how they were made. In the end - after making sure that I had installed vents around the outside of the eves, I loaded the foam up to 20 to 24 inches across the whole roof. This adds up to [go conservative with the foam, R3 X 20 = R60 in the roof.

The year before- I had a power bill of $2800 per year. The next year, it was $1800. There were a few other things I could have done too, but that was a good start for me.

cheers - I have traveled around to look at houses being built, and they never put as much insulation, as I figure it should be based on where we live. I think that goes for those in the south - having to deal with heat too. A kilowatt burnt - is still burnt whether it is heating or cooling!

imho

[occy30]

I have a new home built last year so most things are newer here but I"m positive I can find many things to upgrade and save energy with!!!

[everyidea]

When you're ready for wind power, check out https://www.windbluepower.com

They've got good pricing and seam to know whats up. Plus, their alternators can work with hydro too, if you've got a head of water on your land.

I need to check out the book PL mentioned, sounds real good.

rw

[anut]

It is not difficult to make your own wind turbine from scratch. This forum is probably not the right place for you. I don't think all the folks in this forum are living off-grid. Perhaps, you need to look at other more informative websites , such as this one:

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Wind Turbine

You could buy one as well. But bear in mind that most commercially available alternators are not efficient in low wind speed.