| | |  | ASHRAE | Home » » Windpower Workshop: Building Your Own Wind Turbine | | | | | | | Description: | | As the true costs of fossil fuels are revealed, the ancient art of windpower is making a steady comeback, and many countries are promoting wind energy generation as part of a drive toward a sustainable future. Yet many environmental enthusiasts prefer a more do-it-yourself approach. Windpower Workshop provides all the essential information for the individual wanting to build and maintain a windpower system for their own energy needs. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9781898049272
• Condition: USED - Very Good
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Hugh Piggott | | Paperback:
| 159 pages | | Publisher:
| Centre for Alternative Technology | | Publication Date:
| 1997-01 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1898049270 | | Package Length:
| 8.5 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.54 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.38 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.57 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 7 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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 Wind turbine infoDec 05, 2009
Excellent book, good information and useful information if you are planning on building a wind turbine.
 Good information but dense and not completeSep 23, 2009
I'm not an electrician or engineer, but I consider myself fairly intelligent and didn't mind the challenge of learning something new. Unfortunately this was not the book for me. While Piggot does an admirable job of laying out the basics of how a wind turbine functions and the components involved, this is not a start-to-finish guide to building a wind turbine. For example, there is a chapter dedicated to constructing (or modifying an existing) generator/alternator and a chapter on constructing an appropriate tower, but literally no information on how to mount your generator to the tower. There's information on what you need from the electrical controls to prevent battery damage, but no information on where you could get these controls or how to build them.
If you're interested in getting into wind power and have a solid engineering foundation, I'm sure this book would be helpful. For everyone else, you might want to start elsewhere.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Produce energy from windJun 30, 2008
This book is really comprehensive. It covers nearly everything you need to build a small windgenerator from scratch including security measures to protect the wind turbine in harsh weather. It makes a complete and excellent start for anybody who wants to get involved with wind energy.
19 of 20 found the following review helpful:
 Specific to build-your-own WindmillsJun 14, 2008
I bought this book as a back-up to Paul Gipe's extensive "Wind Power, Revised Edition: Renewable Energy for Home, Farm, and Business."
Another engineer in the office became interested in this for when he retires in Guana. He and I looked at the book together and it is interesting for the hands-on appeal. The author shows how to you scrounged equipment to construct a wind machine. Hugh Piggott has a lot of experience with building these machines so this is the place to start if you're on a desert island all alone and want to create your own power.
Paul Gipe's book is an excellent reference for those wishing to be good buyers of wind machines. Hugh Piggott shows you how to build your own.
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44 of 47 found the following review helpful:
Good information, but felt incompleteOct 23, 2005
I wanted to like this book. I really did. So many people who are wind power enthusiasts kept telling me how seminal a book this is, but it was a disappointment, albeit a subjective one. I think more accurate thing to say would be that it was not the book I was looking for.
I can say objectively if you want information on how a grid-tied wind turbine system should work, this book has almost no information on the entire grid-tying process, a complicated and expensive process that certainly a lot of people would need help with. I can also say objectively that this book helped me realize that wind power would not be a good choice for my current home.
I think the problem I have with this book is twofold. One, the book is written on a fairly high level. Some formulas for wind power are presented, some general heuristics, and these are important to be sure, but they don't actually help you get your head wrapped around the issues at stake. There are electrical schematics presented in some places. I'm a fairly technical person, and I can read a schematic fairly well. Sometimes I can't tell whether a symbol is a dynamo or an alternator (they don't look the same but they are similar in practice). But of course an electrical schmatic does not a wind generating electrical system make, and this should not reflect badly on the author.
The other thing is Piggott's really heavily invested in presenting a balanced view of the information. Seems like a counter-intuitive criticism but I had a hard time figuring out what his personal opinion about different designs of turbines, towers, furlings, generators, etc. were. I would have preferd that he say. "This is what works for me, and this is why I think it works." Instead of "You can do this. Or you can do this. Or you can do this... etc".
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