SMALL SCALE WIND TURBINE

[danville]

Does anyone have personal experience with a small scale wind turbine to provide electricity for personal use? What has to changed in the home? Appliances, ect.. Battery bank? I have very limited knowledge of this but am considering installing one for my home use. I could also go with solar or a combination of the two.I live on top of a mountain in WV where the wind blows all but a couple of days in the summer. Even then there is a breeze on those windless nights during the summer. No air conditioner is needed here. How tall is the lowest needed? How big are they? What would it take to run a home with two people? Our home is total electric and the average bill is $120/ month. I also have a propane fireplace with blower but haven't used it in four years because electric is much cheaper. Any thoughts or ideas?

[MadTripper]

You indeed have a lot of research to do. First thing is figure out how many kwh you use per month and move from there. Ideally, you'll want to bring that number down to the 500-700 kwh range. There are others who post that can give you far better info than I can.

Ini the mean time, I recently stumbled on this site which I found pretty interesting.

http://www.mdpub.com/Wind_Turbine/index.html

Tripper

Btw, a fireplace, be it propane or wood, is more for asthetics than anything. The efficiency of those units leaves a lot to be desired so perhaps you should look at an alternate system. They make some extremely efficient boilers upwards of 98% afue which should be much less to use than electric.

[machinemaker]

There are a lot of good books on wind turbines, you might want to check the local library system. A great DIY website is www.windstuffnow.com and also follow their links. I would advise reading one of Rex Ewing's books for an introduction. A little reading will start you in the right directions and answer a lot of questions. Rather than using a fireplace you might want to look into a good wood stove. there have been several discussions about wood stove here in the forum.
kent