Windmills for Home Use

The history of windmills can be traced back to the 7th century, wherein these machines were used to grind corn and draw water. As time elapsed, the crude machines went through a great deal of change to become the wind turbines - as we know them today. (That, however, hasn't stopped people from referring to these machines as windmills.) Basically, these windmills harness the kinetic energy of the wind and convert it to electricity. While huge wind farms cater the energy requirements of the entire state or nation, a single windmill is enough to power your home (but only when favorable conditions exist). Resorting to renewable energy source can help you save a significant amount of money, which you would otherwise spend on paying your electricity bills. Wondering how do you go about it? It's pretty simple, you can either build a windmill on your own or buy small windmills for home use from some authorized dealer.

Homemade Windmills for Electricity

When building a windmill to generate electricity for home use, you need to take a few factors, including wind speed in your region and obstruction in form of buildings or mountains, into consideration. In order to harness wind energy, the wind speed has to be at least 10 mph. You will also have to make sure that there are no obstructions for wind movement in the area wherein you plan to build the windmill. In order to make the blades for your windmill, you will require some strong material, such as the PVC pipe, which will withstand harsh weather. Similarly, a coat of UV resistant paint will keep these blades safe from the Sun's radiations.

You can start by creating an outline of windmill blades on the PVC pipe, and cut them to make your windmill blades. The next step is to drill two holes at the end of these blades to connect it to the hub in which the DC motor is located. You need to make sure that the DC motor fits properly in the hub. In order to complete the assembly of windmill blades, you will have to attach these blades to the DC motor shaft. You can use a pulley to connect these blades to the hub, so that the motor comes into action when the blades start rotating. Make sure that the pulley is connected to the DC motor shaft properly, failing which the motor will not rotate freely. Place the entire assembly in a protective covering, and attach it to the tower. You can also make decorative windmills for homes by doing something creative to it.

When the blades will rotate due to the flow of wind, it will make the DC motor rotate. The rotation of DC motor will produce Direct Current (DC). You can store this direct current in batteries, and divert it to your home after converting it to Alternating Current (AC) using an inverter. You need to understand that sometimes the windmill can develop tremendous amount of power, to an extent that it can overcharge and damage to the batteries as well as the windmill itself. In order to avoid any such problems you can use a controller in your windmill, which will continuously monitors the battery voltage and if the voltage reaches the maximum limit, it will automatically dissipate it.

Buying Windmills for Home Electricity

If you think building windmill is a cumbersome task, buying one would be a better option for you. You can buy a windmill from various companies dealing in such products. Before you decide to buy one though, you will have to do some research to assess the feasibility of the project in your area. The foremost thing to do would be to check whether there are any rules and regulations about erecting such structures to harness wind energy. Secondly, you will have to check the speed of wind in your region. It has to be at least 10 mph. Even though the wind power is pretty inexpensive source of power, the initial investment required for building it can be quite high enough. As far as home windmills cost is concerned, the lower end model will cost you around $800-$1000, while the higher end models can cost up to $30,000.

Wind energy has several advantages over conventional as well as alternative energy sources, owing to which it is being considered to be an apt replacement for fossil fuels. Resorting to this source of energy has various advantages. You can save energy, stop environmental pollution, etc. The most tempting benefit of resorting to homemade windmills, however, would be the fact that it will help you cut down on your electricity bills - in times marked by financial crisis this will surely come as a blessing in disguise.