Post by peterj on Feb 15, 2007 23:09:32 GMT 1
That could be an advantage of homemade, as a fully specced commercial unit might not be so easily/cheaply modified. I would think that in most cases though that the weak point would be the tower rather than the generator (which always needs to be taken out of the wind by one means or another long before destruction speeds). I would guess that most homemade designs would be the guyed type and it's fairly cheap and easy to increase the size and/or number of guy wires, and the strength/size of anchors.
I totally agree with Fiona Chaff as well about making the most of efficiency in insulation etc. Just as an example, the flat we've just rented is pretty modern, and well fitted with nice stuff like compact flouro lights and the like. I did notice in the first day or two that the electric water heater was on (it's fairly noisy) a lot of the time, and that it was unusually warm on top. We decided to try and see what difference it would make to the electricity consumption if it wasn't switched on all day. For the last week, we've been switching off the main heater (there's also a small undersink one for the kitchen) after baths/showers are finished in the morning and leaving it off until the next morning. The result (no other changes I'm aware of, similar weather etc) was that our electricity consumption dropped by over 50% compared to the previous week.
While this is an extreme example of a non obvious inefficiency, I'm fairly sure that similar types of energy inefficiency could be found in the majority of households.
I suspect that doing this first (not switching off water heaters necessarily, just energy auditing in general) would pay most folk considerably better than building or buying any alternative energy generator.
I still fancy building a windylight sometime though - not sure whare I wid pit wan joost noo though.
I totally agree with Fiona Chaff as well about making the most of efficiency in insulation etc. Just as an example, the flat we've just rented is pretty modern, and well fitted with nice stuff like compact flouro lights and the like. I did notice in the first day or two that the electric water heater was on (it's fairly noisy) a lot of the time, and that it was unusually warm on top. We decided to try and see what difference it would make to the electricity consumption if it wasn't switched on all day. For the last week, we've been switching off the main heater (there's also a small undersink one for the kitchen) after baths/showers are finished in the morning and leaving it off until the next morning. The result (no other changes I'm aware of, similar weather etc) was that our electricity consumption dropped by over 50% compared to the previous week.
While this is an extreme example of a non obvious inefficiency, I'm fairly sure that similar types of energy inefficiency could be found in the majority of households.
I suspect that doing this first (not switching off water heaters necessarily, just energy auditing in general) would pay most folk considerably better than building or buying any alternative energy generator.
I still fancy building a windylight sometime though - not sure whare I wid pit wan joost noo though.