WIND CHARGERS: BUILDING TOOLS FROM THE NATION'S PAST
March/April 1983
by Paul Gipe and Carl Judy
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Old water-pumping windmills are still abundant, but they're not what you're looking for
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Go on a Great Plains energy-independence "treasure hunt".
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There's been a lot of talk (some of it, unfortunately, quite loose) about restoring old wind chargers ... most notably the Jacobs generators that achieved some fame prior to the formation of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) in 1935. Most such discussions, however, fail to mention where to find a rebuildable machine in the first place. (After all, not everyone is fortunate enough to have an old Jacobs sitting out in the barn gathering dust!)
However, if you happen to be driving across the Great Plains, you may well have a chance to take possession of a beautiful, potentially functional piece of Americana. And the tips we've garnered from our experience in the used wind machine business will help prevent you from getting ripped off in the process.
WHY THEY'RE THERE
The winds that sweep down out of the Rockies and across the Great Plains are notorious. Their power often rakes the rich topsoil from the earth, kicks it skyward, and carries it across the continent ... where it rains down on distant eastern cities.
But for a few years, spanning the dark days of the Depression, this wind was occasionally put to work. It helped connect far-flung farmers and ranchers with the outside world ... as they and their families huddled around crackly-sounding Philco radios, to find reassurance in the "fireside chats" of Franklin Roosevelt and entertainment in the verbal antics of Fred Allen and Jack Benny.
Rural folks, you see, could get lighting from the traditional kerosene lamps—and propane refrigerators brought modern food storage to the farm—but radios depended on the constant flow of electrons that many people now take for granted.
And during the Depression, Great Plains homesteads had access to electrical power only through the use of batteries or on-site generation. Storage batteries ran down, though, and had to be taken into town for recharging ... a procedure which often cost more money and time than country folk had to spare in those hard years. Of course, gasoline-powered generators were available, but fuel prices put them out of reach of all but the most prosperous individuals. Therefore, it was massproduced wind generators—dotting the landscape with vanes and towers—that created most of the electricity used in remote areas of the Plains.
Modem homesteaders (or homeowners) face some of the same economic problems as did their forebears of 40 to 50 years ago. In addition, today's growing interest in all forms of alternative energy sources has created a demand for low-cost wind generators that has yet to be met by modernday manufacturers.
Well, these conditions have combined to create a mini-industry composed of professionals (and some just plain independentminded cusses) who track down the aging wind machines across the vast Midwest and High Plains ... either for their own use or to market to buyers who recognize quality workmanship. It's a business that can be both lucrative and enjoyable.
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