subject: Home Wind Turbine: 3 Reasons One May Not Work For You [print this page] The home wind turbine can be the perfect way to reduce your energy costs, but this device can be a flop if you don't manage your expectations. There's nothing worse than investing a lot of money and then finding out that you cannot take advantage of the technology that you just work so hard to purchase.
These are the reasons the home wind turbine may not be your cup of tea...
You don't have the wind resources to pull a home wind turbine off - This is the primary problem that many people have. With the current state of technology, we need at least 6 miles an hour to make it a generic go for most any project. If you don't have enough wind energy on your property to average 6 mph, then you are going to have a hard time justifying buying just any old wind turbine for your home and have it work out ok. There are those out there that can produce power quite well in very low wind environments, but you have to really look for them to find them and they are typically a lot more expensive than units that will make power at higher wind velocities.
Your neighborhood just flat won't allow one - Some people are very adamant about not having home wind turbine devices near them and in their neighborhoods. There are many communities that just will not allow a wind turbine to be mounted anywhere on an individual's property. That is not say however that you can't have a wind turbine on your property even under those conditions. You just have to be very selective and make sure that your local permitting process will allow the type of wind turbine that you are trying to install. However, if you don't get this part right, you are going to have to take your wind turbine down and that will cost you a lot more money than a little upfront research will.
You do not have the capital to buy the right wind turbine kit - Sometimes in those conditions, the wind turbine that you end up getting can be very expensive. While you can certainly buy a wind energy device for less than $500, many times at the higher end of the spectrum where you need a low velocity device, the prices are much higher, sometimes order $40,000 or more.
In summary, the home wind turbine can be the best thing there is or it can be a disaster if you are not careful with the analysis on the initial inspection of the concept for your house.
