Home Wind Generators – Building DIY Wind Turbines

DIY Wind Turbine Guide

Green is the color to be and if you want to get with the program and start using alternative energy then a DIY wind turbine is the perfect solution. As the oil supply gets more and more volatile and unpredictable, the cost of traditional energy for homeowners is on the rise so home wind generators start to make practical sense. You can escape these rising costs with a one time investment in a DIY wind turbine that will provide you with free electricity for years to come. And the best thing is that even after the sun sets on all those solar panels, the wind is still blowing all night long.

Deciding to create your own home wind generator using a DIY wind turbine does not mean you have to go totally off the power grid although it is a great choice if are away from civilization. For those who are on the grid, you can use home wind generators to supplement your power supply and lower your energy bill. Depending on your power use and the size of the home wind generator you build, it will probably not be enough to power all of the needs of your home but it will be a big help. Being on the grid also gives you another option when the wind is not blowing and you cannot generate your own power.

DIY Wind Turbines – Further Information

I use a DIY wind turbine for the horse barn on my property. It would be expensive to run wire to tie it into the grid, but with the wind turbine I built myself and a small battery bank, I have all the power I need for lights and a few slow turning fans.

There are a variety of designs for different DIY wind turbines and you need to choose the most practical solution for your particular circumstances and situation. With a good set of directions and a few helping hands, building your own home wind generator is within the capabilities of the average handy individual.

The first thing you need to decide before you begin to build your home wind generator is where you are going to put it. You want a spot that is close to the house, or wherever you need the power, but it also needs to be located where it will not be sheered from the wind in any direction. This usually means that DIY wind turbines are either mounted to the roof of the house  or to their own stand-alone towers.

Do some research with your energy bill to get an idea of what your energy usage is on average. You can then use these figures to help decide how big a DIY wind turbine you should be building. If you are tying into the grid, there is no problem with it being too big because in most places if you make extra electricity you can sell it back to the grid. This helps to offset the times when there is no breeze and you have to buy power.

When you have settled on a basic design, it is time to start gathering supplies. Here is a sample list of items that are part of the design that I used for my own home wind generator project but you may find that your particular needs dictate that you use different components. Start with a 260 Volt DC 20 Amp treadmill motor. I found mine on ebay for $20 including shipping. This motor works best with a vertical axis type design of DIY wind turbines where you can increase the RPMs with gearing. Instead of this you can use any permanent magnet DC motor that puts out a minimum of 1 Volt per 25 RPMs and can deal with 10 Amps of current. The size of the motor you use will determine the size of the hubs and blades that you choose. The larger the motor you use, the bigger the hub and blades you will need as well. Some experimenting with the design of different DIY wind turbines will help you determine what combination gives you the optimal output and which will be best for you.

A circular saw blade makes a convenient and sturdy hub for a DIY wind turbine. For the blades, the best thing I have found is PVC pipe. You will need a section of eight inch PVC pipe to cut the blades from. The blades are cut in a right triangle shape. The ones I made are 24 inches long and 5 inches wide at the base. I was able to get 8 blades out of the piece of pipe I had so I have plenty of spares. You start by cutting the pipe the long way into 5 inch wide sections. Then cut each section in half diagonally to produce two blades. The longest edge you want to leave sharp but the opposite side should be sanded to a rounded shape as it is the leading edge. Think of an airplane wing. That is the shape you are going for. The blades are then mounted to the hub which is in turn attached to the motor shaft with washers and a nut.

Then you need to make a tail for your DIY wind turbine so that it will always point into the wind. The tail needs to be about one square foot of surface area in order to do its job but it can be any shape you want it to be. Once the tail is attached to the motor body then the entire assembly needs to be attached to a swivel so that it can turn. I used part of a heavy duty castor wheel that I purchased at the local hardware store. It attaches to the motor body and to the pole I am using as a tower for my turbine.

To build that tower I used 1 ½ steel pipe. My tower is twenty feet tall and has guy wires made from wire attached at 15 ft up to support it. The guy wires are attached to ground screws that are 10 feet away from the tower. The taller your tower is, the more wind it will reach, but the more support it will need for the weight of the turbine. The higher the guy wires attach, the further they need to be secured away from the base of the tower. The distance should be no less than half the height to be stable. This is important when you are choosing a spot for your tower because you need to have room for the supports as well.

We’ve reviewed the majority of the guides available at the moment which give information and instructions about home wind generators in general and DIY wind turbines in particular. By far the most comprehensive and detailed is the Earth4Energy Guide and you will find lots more information about this on our Earth4Energy Review page (and we’ve also included Earth4Energy Questions and Earth4Energy Customer Feedback). If you have any further questions about home wind generators in general or building DIY wind turbines in particular, please contact us – we’d be happy to help.

Whichever design you choose for your home wind generator, we wish you all  the best with your DIY wind turbine project – it’s a great feeling to generate power from a renewable energy source and definitely worth your while finding out as much about this as you can so that the choice you make for your home is a great success.

Home Wind Generators – Further Information