De ja vu

More waiting . . . My installer told me now we are waiting for controller cards. This will take a few more weeks. Is it still called déjà vu when you think you have heard something 4 or 5 times before?

Waiting for Installaton

  More waiting! The snowstorm has gotten my installer behind schedule on the installs. He has put together one tower, but found that he is missing a head cover part, which could take a few more weeks to get.


Luckily, I didn’t count on the turbine being installed right away, so I renewed my building permit for another year. Let’s hope it goes in before Feb 2011!
I did make progress on the insurance front. By getting all my insurance through Nation Wide I was able to get a policy for the wind turbine and save money on my car and homeowners policy. Switching insurance companies is a real pain however. I just couldn’t stay with a company that would have cancelled my policy because I had a wind turbine on the same property as my house. I was just reading the mounds of paperwork. It seems I'm covered for Vandalism and Lighting strike with a huge deductable. I’m not covered for wind damage, earthquake,or volcanoes or nuclear bombs .

Turbine coming and insurance issues

I got a call from Rural Wind and Electric, they say the container is out of customs and will be delivered on Monday to their office.

Early this week, I didn't want to get my hopes up, but it appeared that I might get a turbine soon. So I gave my insurance agent a call. This summer when I thought my turbine would be coming soon ;) I called my insurance company and it was only going to be a few dollars on to my policy to add an “appurtenant structure” to the policy.

This time, however, it occurred to me that the wind turbine is really on a separate piece of land so there might be an issue with putting it on my homeowners policy.

The agent called today and said it is a good thing that the turbine is not on the same land. If it were, they would have to cancel my policy. There name, so you can avoid them, is Peerless Insurance.

He said they could write a liability policy for the land, as its own plot. He said that as long as there is a chance (Very small chance) that we might get a check back from National Grid that it is commercial not personal. Also, we should put a fence around it to keep out unwanted visitors too. We had a fence, but took it down when they started constructing the foundation. I guess we’ll need to put that back up.

It would be really bad to pay for insurance and find out after an event that you were really not covered, but I don’t want to over pay either.

My installer says the All State will put it in a home owners policy. But it looks like I'll need a separate policy for my land. I'd like to get more than just liability too.

Wind turbine will be delivered soon

I got a call from Rural Wind and Electric. They said my wind turbine and tower are in Newark NJ!

Last steps in the foundation for our Re-driven 10k wind turbine

The last step of building the foundation is taking the forms off and the dirt is pushed back.

Now were back to waiting. First, waiting for the cement to cure and then for the tower and turbine to arrive.

Rodney from Rual Bolt Generation and Wind says the parts will be coming in about 4-7 weeks. He said he would try to do a better job at keeping us up-to-date on what is happening.

The next layer of the foundation

The next layer is made with forms that sit above the underground base.

The top layer of the foundation contains the bolts that that support the tower. The tallest pipes are conduit that will hold the electric cable coming down from the top of the tower and come out under ground to connect to the house.

Pouring the Cement for our Redriven Wind Turbine foundation

Six inches of rain added to the fun and created a big mess for the cement pouring. We had to get a special pump and pipeline to transport the cement to the turbine area. With all the rain, the cement truck would have gotten buried in the mud. So we had an unexpected expense to pump the cement from the driveway to the turbine site. The installers were very nice and professional inspite of the gruling rainy work conditions.