Thursday, February 9, 2012

Make a Wind Turbine from 55 Gallon Drums

I figured this would be appropriate since I'm now working at a wind turbine company.
-Bob

Make a Wind Turbine from 55 Gallon Drums:

vertical axis wind turbine


Although there are several vertical axis wind turbines listed on greenterrafirma’s page, the one built with 55 gallon drums was especially interesting to us. Although the spouse approval factor of any of these designs is debatable, at $100, the 55 gallon drum design could provide a very good return on investment. The tools required to make one of these are relatively simple, so this could make this experiment accessible to those without a vast arsenal of equipment.


If large blue barrels aren’t your thing, the post also features several other turbine designs, including one made with wood and aluminium foil, and one constructed out of PVC pipe. The video after the break does a good job of explaining the “blue barrel” construction process, but if you’d rather just see this [VAWT] in action, fast forward to 5:25.





If wind turbines aren’t your thing at all, why not instead build a heat exchanger to harvest the waste heat that your appliances give off anyway?



Filed under: green hacks



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