Building a do-it-yourself wind turbine is an effective way to greatly reduce or even eliminate the cost of home electricity. Of course they also serve the additional benefit of reducing pollution by converting the sun’s nearly renewable energy into useable electricity.

Before attempting to build your own wind turbine it is important to understand how much electricity you currently use. This will be helpful in deciding on how many turbines to build and whether or not you wish to completely or just partially replace the services of your current power company.

Step 1: Calculate How Much Power Your Homemade Wind Turbine Can Produce

Some diy wind turbines, for example, are designed to generate 1000 watts of electricity in a constant 20 mile per hour wind. If the average wind speed in your area is closer to 10 mph you will obviously need to reduce your expectations. Good wind generator plans should include a wind speed versus power-out chart.

Once you build and install your home power generation system keep track of its total electrical production in kilowatt hours. This can be done by installing a meter in line with the total system or one for each energy producing component.

Step 2: Use Your Electrical Bill To Learn About Your Actual Total Usage And Peak Demand

Many electric bills offer a wealth of information about your electrical usage on an annual basis as well as the totals per month. The monthly totals will help you determine the maximum power needed in the most demanding months.

In Michigan, for example, the typically hot month of August will often require the most amount electricity in Kilowatt-Hours because of air conditioning. This is the most critical month for a completely off-the-grid system because it helps determine the maximum peak amount of electrical power needed.

Step 3. Calculate The Electrical Power Needs of Individual Appliances

Modern appliances are required by law, at least in the United States, to carry a printed label or engraving that describes its power requirements. For example a television set might be labeled 65 Watts. This means that if the TV was left on for an hour it might use up to 65 Watt-Hours of electricity.

Often these labels do not describe the peak power demand in Watts but instead give the amps and voltage requirements. In order to convert these measurements into watts just multiply them together. Amps X Volts = Watts.

Some small appliances are rated in Milliamps. This is equivalent to one 1/1000 of a Watt. For example: a cell phone charger might be rated at 850 Milliamps at 9 Volts. Convert Milliamps into Amps by moving the decimal point over three digits to the left. 850 Milliamps becomes .850 Amps. The charger requires 9 Volts X .850 Amps which equals 7.65 Watts.

Other appliances may only list the amperage. A kitchen vent fan might just read 2.0 Amps with no voltage or wattage value displayed. Since the fan is connected directly to the household current rated at approximately 120 Volts then the Watts can be calculated as 120 Volts X 2.0 Amps = 240 Watts.

Another tricky device is a guitar amplifier. Mine is rated at 15 Watts but this is a little deceiving because this is the power of the sound output. It actually takes 75 Watts of electricity to produce the 15 Watts of sound.

Step 4. Now Add Them Up

Add the Wattage values for all of the appliances that you might be running at one time. For example:

(4) 60 Watt Light bulbs = 240 Watts

(1) Television = 60 Watts

(1) Laptop Computer = 65 Watts

(1) Coffee Maker = 900 Watts

(1) Cell Phone Charger = 8 Watts

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Total Watts required to operate all of these items at one time = 1,273 Watts

If you simultaneously ran all of the above items for one hour they would require =1,273 Watt-Hours of Power. One windmill generator producing 500 Watts would then need to be charging your battery storage bank for 2.5 to 3 hours.

If you tie your wind powered electricity in with the household power grid, (with the aid of a licensed electrician of course), then you really do not have to budget quite so carefully. If the diy wind turbines don’t bank enough power on a windless day the grid can always make up the difference.

John Mackinnon is the publisher of several websites that have a focus on environmentally friendly do-it-yourself solutions for reducing or eliminating home energy costs. For additional information from the publisher’s website or to purchase DIY Wind Turbine (windmill) plans or solar plans panel plans or solar water heater plans follow this link: http://www.wind2electricity.net/