There are many Christians with $50,000 or more invested in their houses alone, which they can translate into usable cash if they have the wisdom to abandon their homes in time (and , hopefully, at the right time). With that kind of money, in view that money will soon be useless to them, it is my opinion that they might as well invest in a water-pumping windmill. With $50,000 on hand, one should easily be able to find a partner with a similar amount. If the two with $100,000 purchased and installed a windmill and a wind turbine, they would still have $85,000 left for food, shelter, property, root cellars, etc.Many simply won't have that kind of money. They don't own homes nor possess much of anything with substantial market value. Take heart. The sailwing windmill and tower can be built and installed for about $2,000, 25 hours of labor, and 5 hours at a welder's shop. True, the money could be spent on food instead, but, I think, if you had to choose, it may be best to sacrifice the food for the windmill because the windmill can soon translate into crops, while food cannot pump your drinking water from a well. And, for your further information, you could also buy a used windmill from someone no longer using theirs. I'll bet you could get it for hundreds of dollars.
Suppose someone turned down a windmill and tower at a cost of $5,000 and bought food in that amount instead. A family could be fed with that money for one year. But if there is a windmill, it can be used to water a huge garden fairly dependably (i.e. as long as there isn't a wind drought), and tens of people could grow their own fresh food. Only those who are going to locate in areas with dependable rains in the growing season should snub a windmill, but even then there is the risk of a summer-long draught in one or more years of the tribulation.
The difference between a windmill and a wind turbine is that the first provides mechanical power oft used to pump water, while the latter is strictly for the production of electrical power. Both machines use bladed rotors to capture the wind, but each has a drastically different blade design. Windmills incorporate as many blades as possible to capture as much push-power from wind as possible while sacrificing speed, whereas wind turbines have the least number of blades possible (usually two or three), and very thin ones at that, designed to interact with pressure-differences produced by moving air, the purpose of which is to achieve high turning speeds while sacrificing work-power.
Whereas a wind turbine's rotor is immediately attached to a generator at the top of a tower, where the system's mechanical components end and its (non-moving) electrical components begin, the windmill is a fully mechanized system with moving components throughout. However, due to the simplicity of the mechanical parts, a windmill is less expensive than a wind turbine.
I am speaking in terms of supplying water for fields, orchards and/or livestock here, not merely for household use. According to the Texas Extension Service, the leaves of one pecan tree alone release (into the air) about 150 gallons per day in the hot summer. A windmill’s parts are simple enough to pump reliably and without heat buildup for the long hours. Compare that to a noisy gasoline generator, the likes of which are bound to get you into trouble with an unsympathetic neighbor, especially if he isn't a Christian.
If a windmill or a wind turbine is not affordable, then a couple of gas generators set aside strictly for an electric water pump or two will have to do; just pray they don't break down, or that your gasoline supply doesn't run out. And do note that gasoline may not last long periods in storage, or so I've heard. Look into that if you plan to depend on gasoline for anything of major importance. Conduct an experiment. Try setting aside a gallon for two years, and another gallon for three, and see what happens. Or contact oil-company chemists, and hope they're being honest.
I would have no problem at all spending up to $15,000 of an available $100,000 to secure a dependable supply for acres of need. I'd have two top-of-the-line electric pumps ($1,000), two top-of-the-line gasoline generators ($2000), a solar-powered system reserved for home-use water ($1,000), a windmill and tower ($5,000) or a small wind turbine reserved for pumping water electrically ($5,000), a large water tank and the best manual pump I could find.
When the rains are plentiful, or the winter removes the need for irrigation, the above electricity-producing machines combined will yet find use for freezers, refrigerators, perhaps a refrigeration system in the root cellar, some indoor heating (especially priceless when the wood in the stove goes out during sleep), etc.
You'll be told by windmill authorities that the first requirement before installing a windmill is to assure the existence of appropriate winds at your site. An average annual wind speed of seven mph or less is currently insufficient to make one’s financial investment worthwhile in time for his/her retirement. Average wind speeds of eight to twelve mph will reclaim a windmill's cost in about eight years, but who cares, as far as we're concerned; we only want some dependable power to eke a living for three or four years, perhaps five if we start early, and, under the rapture-awaiting circumstances, we're fully willing to take a financial loss to succeed. Whether or not we get our money's worth over the long haul will not be an issue.
Even the smaller amounts of water yielded by average winds of 8 mph or less will be appreciated. Remember, God can bring us wind to give us water if we have a windmill, but he can't permit us to receive the skincode. Prepare for the worst, get past all the physical preparations, and then you can concentrate exclusively on spirituality and preparing for the Wedding Feast.
If the average winds in your area are low, you can off-set it by using a larger rotor (i.e. the turning blade system). The larger the rotor, the more wind you'll be able to capture, obviously. Furthermore, winds generally increase in velocity with increase in height. Therefore, to off-set low wind speeds further, build a higher tower. You can even use a sailwing windmill using much lighter blades that turn in the lightest of winds.
The mechanics of a windmill are simple. The axle of the rotor is attached to a vertical rod that, in extending down into the well pipe, is connected to the piston that is essentially the water pump. As the rotor is turned by the wind, the rod and pump piston repeat up-and-down strokes. Water above the piston moves up the well pipe on every up-stroke, and through pipes to its end-use, up to hundreds of feet away from the tower. Each revolution of the rotor allows for only one upstroke (and one down stroke). The larger your well-pipe diameter, the more water you will get per stroke, IF the winds can lift that much water! There’s your predicament.
A windmill can stand beside a well, or directly over it. This allows the pumping of river/lake water without locating a windmill in the water. But do protect the tower’s posts from logs if your river carries them during floods. One way to do this, aside from pouring a concrete wall, is to use heavy steel beams as the tower’s posts for the first few feet out of the ground. Then continue up with less-expensive materials (wood or steel).
As its name implies, a sailwing's blades are sails, and these are more susceptible to high-wind damage. On the flip side, sails need to be replaced every 4-7 years, perfecto for our tribulation needs because we won't likely need to replace them! Just the same, it would be a good idea to buy an extra set or two of sails at about $200 per set in case winds do destroy them. Sails can be destroyed in winds exceeding 40 mph, and need to be unfurled before such gales arrive, whereas the metal-bladed types are usually maintenance-free in regards to their blades, short of a hurricane. But this is the sailwing’s only drawback.
The sails can be unfurled all winter long since water is not then needed for gardens and orchards, and that'll save worries, especially during sleep. Electric or manual water pumps can then be used as alternative well-water providers for relatively minor household needs. My neighbor stole my well pump so that I went without running water for a while. At a local store, I filled two containers holding 13 gallons total, only twice per week, and that got my dishes done, provided two two-gallon showers, and all the rest. If I had had a good manual pump, I could have pumped 13 gallons in a minute. If one wants more-normal showers, perhaps five minutes at the manual pump would do the trick. The point is, you can get by with a few gallons per day when you're not irrigating.
One important advantage of the sailwing machine is the visual appeal. You'll have less problems with the neighbors complaining about your light-weight and colorful sailwing than you will with the heavy, less-appealing commercial machine. Before you install any windmill, you'll have to get permission from the local authorities, and the fewer neighbors in opposition to your plans, the better. And while on the subject, you'll also need government permission (i.e. a license) to use irrigation water.
The rotors on the sailwings must be larger than on the metal-bladed windmills, but they are still far cheaper. Furthermore, because of their minimal weight, towers for sailwings can be more light-weight and, therefore, less expensive and easier to build and erect. Indeed, those experts who are experimenting with better and cheaper models have built two-by-four towers and, for big cost-cuts, they have also set them on single telephone posts that run a mere five to seven dollars per linear foot!! If you have a straight and sturdy tree on your tribulation retreat, you can cut trim off all branches and set your sailwing on it’s trunk. But the tree must be nearly alone in an open field, to catch the wind, and not in the middle of a treed area.
The performance advantage of light blades is in their ability to start turning in lighter breezes. Of course, restrictions on rotor motion/speed is not due so much to blade weight as to the work required to lift the well water. The faster the blades can turn, the faster the pump can pump, but if the water needs to be pumped long distances, the pressures of doing so will decrease the rotor speed. Horizontal runs of water are far easier to pump than vertical runs, requiring no need to overcome gravity -- just the friction between water and pipe walls. Windmill efficiency is measured by the amount of wind capture required to pump the water per any given pipe situation. Therefore, the shallower the well, the more water obtained for any given winds on any given windmill (to a certain maximum, however). This is another reason for buying property near a river or lake where underground waters are shallow.
The sailwing rotor's light construction is not built for great power so that the windmill should not be used for lifting waters from a deep well of more than about 80 feet down.
For the best efficiency, you have options. You can increase the diameter of the rotor, increase the diameter of the pump, decrease the diameter of the pump (no contradiction there), increase/decrease the water-pipe diameter, increase the height of the tower, relocate the tower, decrease the distance to be pumped, pray for better winds, or any combination thereof. But beware the wrong combinations. For deeper wells, you'll want to increase the size of the rotor and depend on heavier winds, but if you combine too large a pump (dia.) with the large rotor, you'll need heavier winds just to start turning the rotor. True, when the heavier winds do occur, having a large-diameter pump cylinder means you'll get more water per stoke, and while this might make up for the times of lighter winds when you'll get no water at all, you'll need a larger storage tank system to take advantage if you don't need irrigation water at that time. An above-ground swimming pool can be a great tank.
On the other hand, by using a large rotor and a small pump diameter, you'll be pumping in lighter winds but running an inefficient system in heavier winds due to lifting less water per stroke. This could be good or bad depending on the wind conditions of the time. Again, this is the predicament, in deciding what size pump to go with when not at the same time a seer that knows the coming wind speeds. If you have a shallow well, the predicament disappears, as it will be wasteful to use a large rotor in combination with a small pump. A shallow well is where the sailwing excels.
A 6-foot metal-bladed rotor hooked up to a 2-inch (dia.) pump can raise about 125 gallons per hour, in 15 mph winds, a distance of about 100 feet, while an 8-foot rotor using a 2 1/4-inch pump can raise almost twice as much (225 gallons per hour) the same distance. There's no sense wasting all that potential just to save a few dollars on the slightly smaller system. A 12-foot rotor with a 3 3/4-inch pump will raise 500 gallons per minute 100 feet in identical winds. Therefore, for the cost difference between a 6-foot rotor and a 12-foot one, as well as a cost difference between a 2-inch pump and a 3 3/4-inch pump, you can have 4 times as much water. But with a larger pump, you'll only get more water if the well isn't so deep that the weight of water in the pipe doesn't greatly offset rotor potential. My logic tells me that we should figure out the amount of water we'll need, and then get the smallest pump possible (so that the rotor turns in lighter winds) to provide it.
Let's say you want 200 gallons per hour in 15-mph winds where your water depth is 55 feet. First, tack on 10 feet to your water depth because the pump should be positioned that much below the water line. Now, you can achieve this 200-gph rate by installing a small 6-foot rotor to a 2 1/2-inch pump. To get the same basic results, you could decrease the pump size and increase the rotor size, but this would be a bad economical move since you'll save less on the smaller pump than it'll cost extra for the larger rotor. Plus, the rotor will be turning faster with the smaller pump, per given wind speed, and that’s added wear and tear on all moving parts.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if there is a shot-off valve in your well pipe (at ground level), couldn't the valve be closed, say half way, to reduce the amount of lifted water by two? Wouldn't it be like changing the diameter of the pipe at will? If true, then you can disregard everything I've just said, since you'll likely be at home at all times to regulate the weight of lifted water. On days with light winds, close the valve some, on days with higher winds, open the valve some. Of course, and only if I'm correct about this, it would seem the logical thing to do to use large pump and pipe diameters so that you'll have greater pumping potential on the windiest of days.
If your well casing is only three, or even four, inches in diameter, you couldn't use a 4-inch pump (because the outside diameter of the pump is greater then 4 inches). You'll need a 6-inch casing for a 4-inch pump (with a 4-inch well pipe inside the 6-inch casing). A shaft for a 6-inch casing is about $25 per foot (1999) to have drilled by a professional; a 3-inch shaft will cost $10 per foot or less to drill, but will be for a 2-inch pump or smaller. Some well drilling companies have a minimum cost of $1,000 or more. I was quoted $1,200 and $1,500 to drill seven feet in loose soil.
For some purposes, tanks may not be required, as in the irrigation of orchards. Orchards can be watered as it spills freely from a network of pipes. Do not position one pipe, or any number, so that it pours water at the trunk. Water the roots, not the trunk! Position pipes or hoses so that they release water just inside the tree-canopy’s drip edges, under the outermost parts of the branch system, for the root tips grow out to about that distance.
On the other hand, providing tanks for vegetable gardens would be wise as smaller plants can't go for very long waterless/windless periods without sustaining harm. Nor can gardens tolerate constant water if that water is too much. The plants need oxygen at their roots as well as water. But, then, there’s a big difference between "water" and "humidity." Most roots need humidity, not standing water. In the same way, don't drown your trees! Install a shut-off valve in the pipe that leads to the orchard. Ditto for the main pipe to the garden system.
For house use, tanks are required for water pressure. But you may be just fine with a pour in the tub instead of a shower. In some cases, you might only get a glorified drip if your lateral piping (from well to house).is too long/thin.
For each foot of pipe height to your tank, water pressure (from gravity force) increases .43 psi. Therefore, for a “high-performance” pressure of 18 psi, you'll need to have the top of the water level in the tank at 41 feet above your shower. With such low pressure as 18 psi, you might want to install your shower head directly above your head, not on the wall. Modern shower heads are built to reduce pressure all the more. You can “fix” them to let out more pressure. Pressure is not needed in the garden.
Here’s an idea. Put a 45-foot, 12-inch diameter clear plastic tube five feet into the ground (in concrete), so that 40 feet protrudes from the ground. Tack the pipe to the house to keep it strong and to capture the heat off the house wall. Let that tube be your house water tank, about 5 gallons per linear foot. Sunlight will warm the entire contents; paint the back of the tube black. With the mere turn of a handle, you can temporarily shut the (cold) well water off to this tube-tank, to let the water within warm up, all sunny-day long. Then, take showers in the evening.
Lid-less tanks can be outfitted with a mechanism for automatically shutting off the water supply when the water surface reaches a certain level, as in a toilet tank, to prevent overflow. The automatic shut-off valves are available at your local ranch-supply dealer.
Lid-less tanks can be outfitted with a mechanism for automatically shutting off the water supply when the water surface reaches a certain level, as in a toilet tank, to prevent overflow. The automatic shut-off valves are available at your local ranch-supply dealer.Meteorologists, who have already mapped out the entire continent's "average" wind speeds, tell me that I, in my area of Texas, can only expect and depend on average speeds of about 10-mph. Average speed can be reckoned as the supply 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Now, it is a fact that windmill-water volumes for 10 mph winds are reduced by 38% from the 15-mph volumes. Therefore, if I produce as little as 200 gallons per hour at 15-mph average winds, and only 124 gallons at 10 mph, that’s still 124 x 24 = 3,000 gallons per day! But I could do a lot better if needed with my shallow well, especially with a fast-replenishing dug shallow well. And think what I could do with a bigger windmill. I COULD EASILY TOP 500 GALLONS PER HOUR "every day" of the year.
What will I do with the 500 gallons per hour if I don't need but 300 gph for all 100 pecan trees? Create a pond? Yes, and just let the water seep back through the soil to the water table, and enjoy fish at the same time. Ponds can be used to kill many garden pests by luring them to your fish using a night light in or near the water. On the edges of the pond, grow herbs and spices that thrive in standing water!
For ideal performance, the rotor of any windmill should be 25 feet above the tallest nearby trees or buildings. The wind speeds are much higher at this elevation than at the tree-tops. For the sailwing and commercial windmills both, a four-legged wood tower using 4 x 4 lumber is sturdy enough, but there are also specially-engineered metal towers in use. Towers can be built lying flat on the ground and then raised by a crane in little time. Or they can be built one piece at a time, straight up, to avoid crane costs.
The larger the diameter of any pipe, the less the water pressure is sacrificed to frictional forces as water is pushed along through it. Small distances don't make much of a difference, but where pressure will already be low due to locating a tank close to the ground, even short runs can be detrimental. For every 100 feet of flow in a 1/2-inch tube, if the flow is 1 gallon per minute, you'll lose .8 psi. At a flow rate of 2 gallons per minute (a typical tub flow) in the same pipe, the loss is 2.06 psi per 100 feet. At a flow rate of 3 gallons per minute (a typical household flow), the loss in pressure is 4.3 psi per 100 feet. But if the pipe size is 3/4-inch diameter, the loss in pressure per 100 feet is reduced from 4.3 to 1.08 psi. A little extra diameter in a pipe reduces pressure-loss enormously.
A 1 1/2-inch pipe loses only .10 psi per 100 feet of flow where the flow is 5 gallons per minute (300 per hour). This allows you to have a windmill thousands of feet from your house/garden without much pressure loss. Why have a windmill that far? Because it may be the closest opening for a windmill tower. Strike a balance between the cost of the pipe and the water loses due to friction.
There are plenty of used windmills about that are operational, where farmers and ranchers no longer have any use for them, but watch out for those that have seen better days. Buying and/or rebuilding used windmills is a good option if it seems wasteful in your sight to buy a new machine, meant to last for more than 50 years, where you'll only need it for a 4-year period.P>