Turbine story continued....

[windyknight]

Where was I? Ah yes, planning application.  We have a wonderful system in this country especially designed to thwart innovation and keep as many pen pushers employed as possible - something to do with a service economy I think. Anyway I digress, to cut a long.....

after months of letter writing about everything from noise profiles, migratory bird routes, tv interference, access vehicle movements,  etc etc we finally went to a committee meeting and bingo....

Sorry about scanning quality, but you get the drift.

After the odd celebratory drink or 3 rushed home to start digging the access road!





Subsoil a bit clayey hence geotextile membrane, actually some old crop covering (frost protection) fleece i had in the barn!

Next stage was to dig the foundation hole 12m x12m by 2m deep for the 200t concrete and 9tons! of 1" re-bar

Just realised i've skipped a bit about flying over to holland and driving from there up thru Germany (Dont mention the war!) to Denmark looking for a 2nd hand turbine -could do a whole diary on that alone!

After setting up the tower 'foundation section'(3m dia. x2m high and 3 tons) dead level for obvious reasons, re-bar is sort of interwoven with it and concrete all poured in a day - so had some help for that bit -leaving just a foot above ground that the tower is bolted to - somebody tell me if i'm belabouring the detail too much here. Apologies for half metric half imperial; trying to be european but keep slipping!

Manual says to cover concrete quickly to improve cure so i whacked back about 100t of soil (joys of having own jcb loading shovel) only to find out later i should have put about 200ft of copper braid in for an earth 'grid' -whoops

Will continue when i find the finished article photo............

[stevesteve]

Looking forward to the rest of this. Turbines always seem to get peoples backs up. If you explained that you were putting in a small nuclear plant then I could see their point but I always loved seeing them running in Wales.

Now I live in Hertfordshire and there is a single large turbine at King's Langley (http://www.res-ltd.com/news/30-09-03.htm and http://www.architecture.com/go/Architecture/Debate/Sustainability_2796.html). I enjoy seeing it reguarly.

I guess that if I ever get as far as putting a tower up next to my house I will get into the whole planning issue (I don't know if the folk in the USA realise that we can need planning permission for a satellite dish here).

Cheers, Steve

[rotornuts]

Congradulations on your persistance. No doubt in time you'll be hailed as "visionary", till then don't listen to the fools.

[domwild]

Congratulations! The same situation is here in Oz, which is becoming more and more

like a nanny state, where public servants increase their authority while reducing their responsibility.

We need fences around private swimming pools although we have a fence around the house, that means the State has taken the responsibility away from the parents to look after their children while they are in the pool. The children are still drowning in pools but does the State then take on the responsibility for their deaths??

[keleyu]

i like it