Where to find an old fashioned windmill ?

Question

It used to be that most farmers had windmills - either to create electricity for their house or to pump water for their livestock. These days I only see those enormous and EXPENSIVE ones like on the new 'wind farms'. The OLD ones were VERY inexpensive to build and to maintain, plus - they lasted for years and years! It just seems to me that o-n-l-y very expensive options are available to us these days.

If we could find the old ones, many many many of us could use them.... I live on a cliff, beside a vacant field, with a well - where a windmill could be extremely useful to pump water AND/OR to power my house. There's NO WAY I can ever afford any of today's version of a windmill on my meager social security. It's a shame that so many inexpensive, tried and true methods have been eliminated.

Unemployment is so high, that some of you unemployed enterpreneurs should consider making the old fashioned AFFORDABLE-TO-ALL windmills available again

Back To Basics is a very 'green thing'

Answer 1

you should e-mail some folks in eastern europe who may still use them and let your imagination flow. built one, or pay someone to build one for you...you've got options, choose wisely

Answer 2

Build it yourself.  It should not be that hard with a friend or 2.  Just go to Home Depot and get some wood and deck screws and some tin planks and draw it out on paper (do a search for good plan first if you wish - sure you can find one on the internet) then get busy.  I am a 45 year old woman who has built my own entertainment center, dog house (big enough for 2 large dogs) and I like to work on my own car (small jobs).  If it was me I think I would try to do it myself.  Back in the old days that what farmers did.

Answer 3

Sounds like a good retirement hobby to me.   Wish I had the time to spend on something like that.

Answer 4

Actually they are NOT windmills.  Windmills were wind powered mills for grinding grain.

Wind pumps are still quite common, but prices have gone up quite a bit.  (These are High Torque types that are geared way down.)

Wind Generators can be bought, or built.  There are many plans available.  Some are high rpm but usually have a fairly low output, (500 watts at 12v is 41.6 amps, BUT after conversion to 120 v, without allowing for loss it is only 4.16 amps.)

The BIG commercial units generate high torque at low blade hub speeds and are then geared up to drive larger generators.)

AND of course they are expensive to buy, but then the materials are expensive also.  Additionaly,  they have to be designed for variable load since wind is a variable source.

Note: the best older wind generator was considered to be the Jacobs with output at 24v DC.  If you consider the original purchase price, adjusted for inflation to today's dollars, you will find that todays similar size units are very close to the same price!!