It's true... in the last 10 years living off the grid has become a real and viable alternative to divorcing the electric company. We decided to make the change to living off the grid well over 16 years ago and haven't looked back since.
We had several goals and the major one was to build most of our renewable energy system ourselves. That included the wind generators and solar panels.
The first thing we decided to do was to build a wind generator because it could produce more watts for less money. We knew that a 1000 watt wind generator costs around USD$2500 and we wanted to save at least 50% by building our own. In the end we ended up saving 94%! The total cost of our wind generator (including our plans) was just under $150. Many people don't believe us so I'll outline how much the parts cost.
The tower we got for free. It was quite by accidident because we were over at a friends house and saw he had an old TV tower and a satellite dish. I figured he'd be glad to get rid of it because they weren't using it any more. I asked him and he told me he'd give me $50 if i'd tote it away for him.
The motor we found on ebay. It's an ametek motor which cost us roughly $64. Sometimes it takes some searching to find them, but they are the best motor to use on the wind generator.
The blades are made from 8 inch blue sewer pipe. Many people don't believe this either, but it's true. You see, if you cut the pipe according to our plans then they turn into a nice aerodynamic shape. They're only about 80% efficient compared to commercial blades, but they didn't cost me anything because I got the pipe free from a construction site.
The tail was made from a piece of steel rod and a triangular cut piece of plastic. There are some more nuts and bolts you need which add up to about $75 - $80 to bring it all together. This includes a steel flange to mount the wind generator to the tower, a piece of insulated stove pipe to mount the motor, and some UV paint to coat the blades and tail so they don't become brittle from the suns rays.
The point is that with the right knowledge anyone can produce their own power and reduce their dependancy on the electric company. As is our motto "if we can do it, then so can you"
Andrew Oke is very interested in renewable energy.He has 16 years experience living off the grid, and has completely built his own renewable energy system. Visit his website at Living Off The Grid
