Shortly before New Years I got a call from Keith saying that he'd gone out that morning only to find his wind turbine on the ground - 100' lower than it should have been. That's a problem.
Keith and Polly are customers of mine who live off the grid in Highland County, VA. Here's a photo of Keith (left) and his neighbor Dave as they work on disassembling the wrecked machine. We spent the first day of 2010 cleaning up this mess.
Keith and Polly have authored a great article about their winter and how losing the turbine affected their off-grid lifestyle. It is a nice read and it was originally printed in the Highland Recorder early in June.
The tower manufacturer had under-engineered the stub pipe (seen in the photo above) and this resulted in the failure. It also put Keith and Polly in a tight spot because they depend on the wind turbine for a greater portion of their electricity in the winter months. Needless to say, I was relieved to get a new turbine back up on the tower and so were they.
Below is a photo of Chris bolting up the new machine in preparation for the crane. Note that things are much less snowy on Snowy Mountain. You can see Keith and Polly's home in the background as well as the lowest section of their 100' turbine tower.
Keith took the following photos of the actual pick..........................................
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