subject: Wind Turbine Plans - What Are My Alternatives? [print this page] In the final analysis, there are two ways that you can get the benefit of wind energy on your property - purchase a wind turbine from a dealer and let them do all the work or, purchase a set of wind generator plans on the Internet and do the project yourself. There will be a vast difference in the amount of money you spend if you choose to do one over the other.
The reason for that is manufactures build a tremendous margin in for themselves, of course. Therefore, if you are willing to fill that gap and do the parts selection, purchasing, and assembly, you can keep the manufacturers profit for yourself.
The bottom line is you can construct a wind turbine for thousands of dollars less if you do it yourself. The problem is that it takes a lot of time and energy. If you have that and you're the type of person who likes to do projects around the house, you will have no problem at all building your own wind generator from a set of plans.
That being said, there's the easy way and the hard way, just like with everything else. These are the two basic options you have if you want to build your own wind generator from a set of plans:
* Guides with video and audio instruction - products like Earth4Energy offer video explanations for how to build turbine. They actually show someone building a turbine from the start of the project to its finish. This is a great way to study and learn to see if you can see yourself doing such a thing. There are many other sources out there for this variety of instruction and they cost anywhere from $20 to $100. This is a terrific way to go about building your turbine because you can refer back to the instructions and see where you might run into problems and also how to fix them.
* Traditional plans and diagrams - this is by far the cheapest way to go because you can get a set of plans for under $10! However, this leaves you with the majority of the conceptualizing and assembling the materials that you will need. Also, you have to go on a bit of scavenger hunt to find the parts that you have to have to build turbine.
Whichever way you go, getting either video or hard copy wind generator plans is by far the cheapest way to produce wind energy at your home.
