Windpower Workshop: Building Your Own Wind Turbine [Paperback]

Hugh Piggott (Author), John Blow (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product 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. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Hugh Piggott runs his own succesful windpower business in Scotland. He advises individuals and companies in Britain and abroad on windpower turbines and systems. He has been teaching others how to build windmills for twenty years and has been featured as an advisor to the BBC television program, "Castaway." --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 159 pages
• Publisher: Centre for Alternative Technology; 3rd Revised edition edition (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1898049270
• ISBN-13: 978-1898049272
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #321,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Absolute Must-Have For Windmill Enthusiasts, July 11, 2002

By	Bruce Boatner (Eagle, Idaho USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Windpower Workshop (Paperback)

This book contains real practicality, not just empty theory. Talk about "put your money where your mouth is" - Hugh lives on a remote spit of land in Northern Scotland that doesn't even have roads, much less access to the power grid. If necessity is the mother of invention, there's good reason why he was highly motivated to develop the kinds of simple airfoils and low speed alternator combinations that produced real power. This rudimentary experience has taken him all over the world for installations and workshops. I guess having someone like that around makes him a pretty popular guy with his neighbors.

This book covers the theory necessary to understand wind energy basics, and proceeds as a how-to manual on shaping a simple turbine out of wood. It then shows how to build a low speed alternator out of a brake drum. (There is another book by Hugh called "Brake Drum Windmill Handbook" which goes into more detail).

The challenge is building an electrical generating system that operates at the slow rotational speeds of a wind turbine (e.g. 300 - 500 RPM). Everybody wants to hook up an automobile alternator, but even if it is optimized for high output at an idle, it probably will not start producing power until it reaches 1800 RPM. (Typically the engine/alternator pulleys have a ratio of 3 or 3.5 to 1 and the engine idles @ 600 RPM).

A great little book.

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good information, but felt incomplete, October 23, 2005

By	Nicolaus G. Bauman "suitcase iconoclast" (Minneapolis) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Windpower Workshop (Paperback)

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".

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Specific to build-your-own Windmills, June 14, 2008

By	Dirk J. Willard "Dirk Willard" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Windpower Workshop (Paperback)

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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