Turbine powered dehumidifier

[cerial]

I am the type of person who can learn and build anything given enough effort and attempts. My home located south of  Ionia, Michigan is next to an open field and I regularly have wind in the 30 to 40mph average range. Gust can be up to 80 with light wind days around 5 to 10. The house was built in the late 70's so of course it has a TV antenna on the side. While I have no use for the Antenna the tower itself may make a great base for a wind turbine. The satellite dishes will be removed also.





The tower is attached with 2 bolts to the top of the roof then runs down along side of the house with 3 bolts on a concrete base  next to a window(that I want to replace/fix along with this project). By removing the 2 bolts up along the roof and then loosing 2 bolts and removing the third on that concrete base I should be able to tilt this tower down and up for maintenance with the assistance of a hand winch and pulley setup attached to the house.







The home is 50 feet from a culvert that has a healthy 3 to 14' deep stream(potentially have a submersible on a cantilever). My water table is at a mere 30 feet. I basically live on a layer of sand, bedrock, clay, more bedrock, then have the water table from 20 to 80 feet. Despite this my basement is sealed and leaks nothing no sump pumps etc. But the ground around and under the basement is always saturated so the basement is 20 to 30 degrees colder then the upstairs.

The home is heated by natural gas and has a whole house generator  powered by natural gas. But by reducing humidity I can lower the "chill" and reduce heating cost.   

Now I could simply run a $3-500 dehumidifier to lessen the amount of heat I use. But what if I used the wind to make a dehumidifier /heater instead?




What I have running through my head is a wind turbine off that tower that has wires running down through the tower and that side window to resistance wiring coiled inside a protective box that would simply get hot when that turbine was turning and through convection progressively  dehumidify the home.

I will place the resistance wiring in a protective metal box under this work bench.



No batteries, no controllers(potentially), simple "turbine turns, coil heats up" setup.

This is my "dream home" and I will be here for the next 40 years. I believe I can build the "simple setup" for around $800-1500. But before I just go out ordering stuff without knowing much I thought it would be a good idea to get recommendations. Obviously the turbine is going to need a break for those high wind gust. The winds are usually South West to North East to straight West to East so the turbine blades will be located over the roof itself. Being in Michigan I get snow and ice as well as heavy rain so the turbine/motor will need to survive those conditions.

[Mary B]

That tower is extreme light duty(I would not climb it!) and  wind turbine of any size will tear it apart. I replaced MANY of them over the years after a TV antenna shredded it.

And your average winds are much lower... around 10mph... not a lot of energy in winds that light.

[cerial]

I know what the charts say. My winds are higher around me.

If the structure is not up to the task I will build another. Part of me was expecting to replace it anyway.

1.5x.120 wall steel tubing laid out in the same basic triangle setup with bracing similar to what is currently there should be up to the task. Offset the joints and sleeve them as the tubing is commonly sold in 20 feet lengths and the tower looks to be 30+ feet. 5/8 bolts at the attachment points.

Recommendations on the type of turbine to power the heating coil? I am not looking for a ton of power and don't need it on a constant basis. I am looking for basically the heat around 20 hours a week. A 1500 watt heater running that same 20 hours will be  around $5 in energy cost a week or $260 a year. I am expecting 5 years before things even out. Of course that is not including the lower heating cost.

The feel inside the basement especially during the winter will pay for itself. I just don't know much about the motors etc. Seeking recommendations on what  will work best for a "full load" setup.

[bigrockcandymountain]

Just an fyi, a heater does not dehumidify.  A dehumidifier has a compressor, evap, condensor like an air conditioner. The cold surface causes condensation of the humidity, which is then collected as water, and disposed of. 

I wouldn't connect a wind turbine tower to my house.  They vibrate at different rpms so it is constantly changing.  I think building a tower like you suggested is a good idea. I would space it away from the house a bit and use guy wires.  You could still use the house as your pulling point to stand it up if you are short on space.

I don't like to shut down ideas or discourage building turbines.  I just thought those points might be useful to you. 

I really like induction motor conversions for generators.  You take a 3 phase induction motor and turn down the rotor and attach magnets to the rotor to make it into a permanent magnet generator.  They are a very cost effective option, since 3 phase motors can quite often be had for scrap price. 

Boring looking 3 blade horizontal turbines are probably the easiest to build successfully, and make decent power.  1500w 20 hours a week is 30 kwh a week.  It takes a good size turbine to do that job.  Something over 10' diameter I would guess. 

If it was me, i would look at sealing the basement up with vapour barrier, tape, foam insulation, etc. That will help your heat bill way more than a turbine, and have a way better feel as well. 

I would also look at landscaping around the house.  Usually unless the water table is very high, like 8', you don't get a wet basement.  Maybe it is rain water off the roof etc.  Could be a simple fix.

[joestue]

so i have some thoughts on induction motor turbines..

i really like the idea of using a vfd with a tachometer setup so that the vfd is always lagging behind the turbine.

ie.. you put a low voltage permanent magnet 3 phase or a dc motor on the induction motor and you then rectify the ac voltage, or divide the dc voltage as needed such that the 0-10v input of your vfd is driven by the voltage on the turbine..  but its always less than you would need to make the vfd drive the turbine, instead the turbine is driving the vfd. you then set it up so the vfd only turns on above a certain 0-10v input, such that its only drawing a few dozen watts or less below a minimum wind spped.. you also then program a square-volts/hz curve so that you always get power out of the turbine.

my brother has acquired a battery pack capable of augmenting my pickup truck and i posted a better description here
https://endless-sphere.com/sphere/threads/attempt-to-achieve-torque-control-of-an-induction-motor-via-a-tachometer-and-off-the-shelf-vfd.119621/

so anyhow you can do this backwards to get power out of the turbine.. and the great thing is, no rewireing needed, you'll get power out at the nominal motor's rating. but without driving the motor into saturation you will be limited by the nominal hp rating of the motor.
on the plus side, you can play with the volts per hz curve to ensure that you can in fact get power out at low wind conditions.

when you saturate the induction motor with neodymium magnets.. yes you can get nearly double the nominal "torque" rating at its nameplate hp and rpm, but it comes at a cost of increased losses.. significant losses. you coul d just go to the scrap yard and get a bigger motor for less money than the magnets cost.

you will need to add a mechanical brake.


regarding dehumidification..

a mechanical augur screw driving silica gel through a loop.. one side is a moderately concentrated solar situation but exposed to the atmosphere.. then it goes inside the house in a big open tray.. only to be pumped back into the solar "green house"

is probably the most efficient method of dehumidification.

[SparWeb]

Hi Cerial,
Welcome to Fieldlines.
I'm still in the process of doing as you want to do - using as much power as I can from my wind turbine.
It's as much art than science, so I'm happy to see you are aware that a bit of trial and error is needed.

I'll agree with what others said about insulating your basement (you're obviously losing a lot of heat that way, a common problem) and getting a more sturdy tower that's not attached to your house.

In answer to your specific question about the heating, you probably should get a WT with a 3-phase AC output, and size the resistance load to match the output specs of the turbine.  Can't tell you what that will be until you tell us what turbine it will be.  That will take some research on your part.  Some quality time with Ohm's Law will give you the idea.  For an effective heater, expect the resistor bank to be 3 cylinders sized between a rolling pin and a roll of paper towels, each.  Getting a WT for 3-phase heating limits your options because many are built for battery-charge only or grid-tie only, though if you are willing to disassemble/modify the WT then you have a lot more choices.  Knowing what is what will take some research.  Taking the hint from the others who've already spoken, it's too soon to be making that decision. 

One way to size up your problem is to convert your gas bills into kWhr as far as heating is concerned.  If you have baseboard heaters and other heating things plugged in around the house, include them too.  Don't cheat.  Then decide how much of that you want to take care of with a WT.  Select a WT that can do that.  That's defines about 1/2 your budget.  The other half is the insulation and tower as were mentioned.

Find the energy the WT can produce in the wind you actually have.  The weather service reports are not a good guide.  Wind energy that you can actually collect is not the same as what's theoretically possible.  More research on your part.  To understand this at my house, I installed a weather station.

For comparison, my homebuilt WT is 10' in diameter, is on a 70' tall tower, and delivers about 1000kWhr per year.  It does not have a mechanical brake but I can stop it with an electric shorting switch.  The tail folds up to turn it away from excessive wind.  I started with an induction motor and modified it to mount Neo magnets on the rotor (like BigRock said).  My winds are variable, seasonal, and often stormy.  Last year I didn't see a single thunderstorm, but a few years before that I got multiple TS per week and even a couple of incipient tornado clouds.

You know, circling back to the basement - If you fixed it up into a nice cozy shop then it would be a much more pleasant place to work on your wind turbine projects, see?

[cerial]

Thank you.

Thats my 4th bench and does not get used much.

There is a bench grinder tore down  on it that I thought would make a fun learning  experment with magnets.




Well.  Its sounding like this is not going to be a good idea after all.

I will just run a normal dehumidifier and of course insulate the home better.


Thankyou all for the help.

[DamonHD]

Don't let us put you off the idea in general - one of the best ways wind and solar help us save energy are by making us think about how we might *use* less up front!  (I cut our energy use about 3x while putting solar in...)  Then what you generate is all gravy.  B^>

Rgds

Damon

[Mary B]

I know what the charts say. My winds are higher around me.

If the structure is not up to the task I will build another. Part of me was expecting to replace it anyway.

1.5x.120 wall steel tubing laid out in the same basic triangle setup with bracing similar to what is currently there should be up to the task. Offset the joints and sleeve them as the tubing is commonly sold in 20 feet lengths and the tower looks to be 30+ feet. 5/8 bolts at the attachment points.

Recommendations on the type of turbine to power the heating coil? I am not looking for a ton of power and don't need it on a constant basis. I am looking for basically the heat around 20 hours a week. A 1500 watt heater running that same 20 hours will be  around $5 in energy cost a week or $260 a year. I am expecting 5 years before things even out. Of course that is not including the lower heating cost.

The feel inside the basement especially during the winter will pay for itself. I just don't know much about the motors etc. Seeking recommendations on what  will work best for a "full load" setup.

Use straight and diagonal bracing, MUCH stronger.

This is rohn 45 tower, medium duty, would handle a 2 meter diameter rotor when installed properly

Specs:

Tower Section, Straight, 45G Series, 1.25 in. Leg Diameter, 16.75 in. Leg Spacing, 10 ft. Overall Height, Each