1. Call me in for a site consultation.

2. You get my quote and report, ask questions, and we agree on the price.

   

3. I do it.

4. You pay me.

5. We exchange christmas cards because it does just what I said it would do.

And for those who want to apply elbow grease, save a bundle and get your plans and permits to create and maintain your own system, read on. We suggest you do the research to find out which method is best for you, your region and budget.

As a retired law clerk, I am always for public action, assembly, cameras at Board meetings, public access TV to broadcast the decisions politicians made and putting so much heat on political offices their toilets boil - literally. Nothing is finer than to see a large group of citizens educate a political body with facts and not some blind dogma from some 'expert agency' and then one educated, to see the politicians make sweeping changes that benefit the citizens they serve.

If you want a first step in almost any new venture that is under the watchful eye of government, get organized; make flyers, hold private meetings, develop a strategy and make sure everyone goes to those meetings and is heard and bring a video camera and make sure the tape makes it to public broadcast so everyone in the region can see how the politicians voted. That to me, is the first step.

Organize your community.

Here are the 10 steps in order. That order may vary, depending on your political climate and how many of the do-it-yourself tasks you farm out to 'experts';

1. If your political scene prohibits home-built gens or using inverters to drive a freezer, you are going to have to get your neighbors together and educate them en-masse on the benefits of wind power. Or you are going to have to install an illegal operation, which may cost you more than just paying for the power.

   If your political climate is favorable and you can get permits for home built wind power, then you are in luck; you can spend your money on a 1000-2500 watt generator and a good 3000 watt inverter, 500-100 ah of batteries and make your airfoils yourself. That saves you a ton of money and even the rebates and reward programs of government don't offer a cheaper way to start.

2. Once you have collected your gear (battery, inverter, cable and gen), you need to either learn how to make airfoils or buy them already done. If you are going to make them start small. High Piggot's site has classes, as does the www.windgenzen.com website - lots of them there.

   I suggest you start with a cheap 4 foot doug fir blade. It is easy to make and will give you the skills to make larger airfoils out of better wood. Once you can make a nice 4, a good 5 and a very nice 6, you can try your hand at the 7s, 10s and 12 foot diameter airfoils and your blades will look good, run right, be balanced and be quiet. If you jump right in with larger blades, you are almost sure to mess one of those key aspects up and that can be a disaster; large unbalanced blades can kill and at best, will never make the power of a good airfoil you knew how to make.

3. If you are going to buy your blades already done, you can start bigger sooner. Consider a 7 or 10 foot airfoil and a 1500-3000 watt gen.

4. Once you have your first gen working, whether it is a 4 foot blade or a 10 foot blade, you will have learned how to connect a wind generator to the battery bank and inverter, and how to dedicate a circuit to drive those 24/7 appliances.

   You will have learned the basics without spending an arm and a leg for the education.

   You will have also learned how much power your region/site can actually make with that gen, without spending $20,000.00 - $50,000.00 for a gen that sits idle most of the time.

5. Now it's time to plan for bigger and better things. Your first gen works, you got the kinks and bugs out of your system, hopefully the building and planning guys approved your wiring and it's time to erect a 2nd tower or put a larger blade on the first one.

6. Once you have a 2nd tower up, it is time to add a few more batteries or another inverter and add a circuit to your subpanel that can drive a few more appliances, lights and outlets.

7. Once you have a 2nd gen up you are well on your way to becoming self-sufficient. If you have good wind and you are flying 10 or 12 foot diameter airfoils, in fact you are probably more than half-way home.

   If you live in a place like Hawaii with great wind, you are darn near done. Two large 10 foot generators and a steady supply of wind power can easily take a family that conserves off the grid for most, if not all of the year. Trade winds are a beautiful thing indeed.

8. If you have to add another gen or two, you have the skills to do it and if you bought your airfoils, perhaps now is a good time to learn to carve your own. I know many of you don't want to do this, but it really is easy (taken in small steps) to make a great blade and it sure cuts the overall price of each gen down considerably. It also means if for any reason you need a new airfoil, you can make one for less than $50.00 for great hardwood or less than $20.00 for good old douglas fir, which can make a very light, fast, powerful blade.

9. If you have enough power to drive 24/7 appliances like a freezer, and enough for much of your night-time activities, such as a reading light, and a microwave, as you expand our electric generating capabilities, you will want to also expand your water heating capability. Simple black copper pipe on sheet metal in an insulated frame will do it and this will eliminate any natural gas feed you had for heat, or any bills for electric water heating. While many people want to heat water with electricity, and if it is cold/snowy where you live you may have to do that, for most folks a black pipe system is the best and cheapest way to go.

10. Got enough power to cover all your needs? Got hot water too? And during the windless days, does your fossil fuel generator cover you or have you installed solar PV panels so that you have power 365 days a year? If so, you have two options:
    1. Unplug and enjoy it or

    2. Get a grid tie and sell it back to the utility company.

    Option 2 requires a substantial investment into a piece of gear that can and does fry. I have seen many expensive grid-ties cook when there was a surge in the system or some home owner was tinkering and arced a wire and took out a $3000.00 piece of gear. Personally, if I had all the power I could use and wanted to sell the excess, I would install a dedicated system for that and never let it have anything to do with my home. When I needed power I'd charge my batteries from the grid, from a fossil fuel gen or from solar PV panels.

    Want to sell power? Fine...develop a circuit that does that job and leaves your home pretty much out of that equation.

    If your home goes a full year on your system and your utility expense is a flat-zero, it's time to consider going offline permanently. This means you should have that backup gas/diesel gen and if you have the money, a few extra solar PV panels and batteries, a spare inverter, brushes for the gen and parts for the towers and mounts; in short, you want to regroup and get the maintenance issues of your system all squared away before unplugging and finding out one gen was worn out and you didn't make it a month before having to rely on your gas fired generator.

    Make sure your system is absolutely bullet-proof, works 24/7/365 days a year and you understand every component. If you built it yourself, you will and that, in my mind, makes it 100% safer than anything else you could possibly buy.

11. Got the spare parts and plenty of power? You might want to upgrade the controller or spend some money getting more energy efficient lights and appliances. This will give you even more power to burn for garage tools and that 'spa' you always wanted to install, but were afraid due to the high costs of running a pool pump motor. As your system evolves and meets your consumption you will find out how much conservation you need to do so you can enjoy using some of that spare power in other places. For some it means more table saw time. For others it means another faster, more powerful computer or larger entertainment center.

And with that knowledge, your payback period for each new gen/component is only a year or two instead of 5-10 or 20 years as most systems require. That means you learned to produce electricity for less cost than a multi-million dollar mega-watt tower; you learned a lot. Hopefully your local politicians learned something along the way too.

This means you have an opportunity to educate your neighbors and community with your photos and stats and that is the last step...bring more people into alternative energy, show them it is affordable and safe and practical, that wind generators won't burn a place down or fall on a roof if set up correctly and that anyone, even folks with tiny budgets, can do this if they are simply willing to supply some elbow grease.

And for those of you who noticed there are 11 steps in this list, need I remind you of the old saying '...the best laid plans of mice and men...'