Posts Tagged ‘first windmills’
February 3rd, 2011 | 
Author: The first windmills that were used in Holland for water draining are mentioned in written documents in the year 1414. Windmills designed for graining, have lived there 200 years before that. Read more about the history of this. The oldest identified documents that mentions a windmill are the privileges offered to the city’s bourgeois, in 1274. The feudal senior could give the right of building a windmill, to constrain the workers to move cereals to his windmill, and to avoid the construction or the planting of trees close to the windmill for being sure the powerful wind.
In the following years, windmills extended over Holland. Useless towers that once were employed for keeping gun powder were converted into mills. Yet the real progression of Dutch windmills happens at the end of the XVI century and the beginning of the next one. The windmills started to be used more and more to make all kinds of manufactures. They were built from heavy wood, brought in ships from heavily forested lands from around the Baltic Sea.
The cheapest source of energy for the Dutchmen was the force of the wind. Larger and stronger windmills could drain excessive amounts of water. That was incredibly important as the land of Holland was constantly in the chance of being drowned by water. As its territory was under the sea level, lots of great cities such as Amsterdam and Haarlem were threaten to be flooded. As an example of the power of the mills, in just one year, the Beemster Lake was emptied by twenty six windmills.
Across the year 1850, about 9000 windmills were operational in Holland, probably the greatest number that ever existed there. Subsequently, their number started to decrease. By the end of the XIX century there were only 2500 windmills left.
In 1920, an initiative for creating an association to protect the windmills was beginning to take shape. This association was launched in 1923, in Amsterdam. As result of a petition the Dutch society of windmills wrote, in 1924 a letter to the minister of Education, Arts and Science that emphasized the importance of keeping these monuments. Same letters were sent in 1930 and in 1939.
By the first of January 1961, an agreement has become successful and according to it, any person who maintained an operational windmill received a subvention from the state. Most of the times, a windmill owned by an old person, who can’t keep it in working conditions, is taken by the authorities and transformed into a cultural monument. Normally, it shelters a museum or it becomes a center of receptions organized in the respect of international guests.
Holland greatly owes its existence to the windmills, because, with their help, water was kept from flooding the terrain and can now hold a growing population.
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Tags: building a windmill, cheapest energy source, energy source, first windmills, windmills | 
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Vertical windmills are not such a new concept. In fact, despite that we’re accustomed to seeing horizontal axis windmills, the first windmills introduced were the vertical ones. The first effective types were invented in the 9th century, but their design has changed very much over time in order to get a higher efficiency from them.
Vertical windmills have several benefits. Among them is the low sound that they make. Horizontal windmills generally are very noisy, a fact that is proven by their settlements in non-populated or low populated areas with not so many habitats around. Because of their silent function, vertical windmills are most of the times used by humans for their homes, metropolitan areas or commercial buildings.
Another advantage that vertical windmills have is that they can capture more wind than horizontal windmills. Regardless of the direction from which the wind blows, vertical windmills can catch it and convert it into energy. We can’t say the same about the horizontal axis form windmills.
A vertical windmill is easier to maintain. It’s also secured to do it, also. We owe this to the truth that the position of the generator is at the ground level. Because it is in such a helpful place and simple to repair, we save a lot more time & energy when we give it maintenance or when we fix it.
Using the vertical windmills’ design also brings benefits for the birds. Birds sometimes fly into the horizontal axis windmill. From this point of view the vertical axis form is safer and there’re least possibilities for birds to fly into its blades.
Vertical windmills could also have a highly anesthetic look, as they could be adapted to the adjoining area. They don’t have a pre-established pattern to pursue when building them. You could find them in a number of shapes.
The most common vertical windmills are the Savonius & the Darrieus. The Savonius windmill is mainly used for pumping the water or for grain grinding. If you look at it from above, you notice that its shape is the one of the letter “S”. Contrary to the Savonius, the Darrieus windmill is used for generating electricity and not for pumping water. Its blades are in model of the letter “C”, providing it the aspect of an eggbeater.
We live in a world where the electricity is not only beginning to become more and more expensive, but we’re also becoming more aware that many sources that produce it are affecting the environment. Start thinking at building your own vertical or even horizontal axis windmill so you can save money and help save the Earth in the procedure.
