How did we ever live without residential wind turbines in the past? They are now such an accepted part of the U.S. energy equation that is hard to imagine that they were once not only not accepted, but rejected by much of the country.

And, we really don’t have much of a choice because energy is coming more and more expensive as we go forward along our timeline.
That being said, there are several things that you need to know about them as you are doing your evaluation of alternatives…

They don’t work just anywhere – While wind energy devices are tremendous step forward and an easy thing to use to drop energy costs in general, they don’t work just anywhere you put them. You need to pick a couple locations on your property that are possibilities first. Once you do that, you can drill down to the next level detail which is how much wind resources are available at that particular point. Believe it or not, every place that you have just thought of as a potential source of power for your wind turbine is not the same. Just because you see wind outside your window blowing the trees around does not mean that there is sufficient wind and the best wind may be on top of your house. You simply have to get into the details and size up every individual location based on the data.

They need an average 6 mph to produce much power – Just because the wind is turning the blades does not mean that it is making energy. To be able to justify a home wind turbine at your house you need to find a place on your property where there is at least 6 mph of average wind. Even though their turbines out there, like the Honeywell version, and that only requires one or 2 mph of average wind to get the blades turning, that doesn’t mean you that you will be able make sufficient energy to really be able to justify the device without more wind.

Many communities don’t support you having one – Most communities in this country are ambivalent towards wind turbines. However, there are some the will put up a fight if you think you want to put one up in your neighborhood.

In summary, residential wind turbines may be the best thing out there right now, but you still need to be aware of the potential downsides for you and your particular situation.