Maintenance Day

Saturday was Wind Turbine Maintenance day. Any wind turbine needs to be checked annually for any wear and tear, loose bolts, unbalanced or chipped blades, things like that; they have a lot of moving parts that get get worked hard year round - unlike maintenance-free solar panels that just sit there, quietly and efficiently making power.

For the past few years we've been combining it with servicing our friend Jane's smaller wind turbine. Frank the Solar Guy is in charge and does any repairs if necessary; he designed and installed both Jane's and our wind turbines as well as our solar arrays, so if there's anyone qualified for the job it's Frank.

As has become a good custom, we started the morning off at Jane's place with a sumptuous breakfast outside on the deck, enjoying the morning's sunshine and each other's company. It creates just the right mindset to start work on Jane's 70-feet tower, lowering it relatively painlessly using a manual winch (except it was a hot and sticky day).
We were glad to see that no repairs were necessary, just some loose-ish bolts in need of some fastening. Pulling the tower up was a bit tougher (hot!) but went just fine.

Next, it was off to the Eco Centre. Our tower is 100 feet tall with a bigger turbine, so here we needed the help of 2 trucks to do the pulling. Our own beat-up truck was one, and the other came with our neighbouring friends Larry and Liz in it who generously offered their help for the afternoon.

Once everything was hooked & cabled up, the tower came nicely controlled down. We were again happy to see that no repairs were necessary, except for the tail vane that showed some micro cracks from too much play between the vane and the tail rod. An extra rubber  washer would help, which Larry made from recycled parts of one of Jacomyn's old rubber boots. They're even green, eco all the way!

By the end of the afternoon the tower was back up again; the wind had picked up, so we spent a few satisfied minutes just watching the turbine spin and make power. Boy, does that ever feel good!

Beers, snacks and lots of good food shared with excellent company was the perfect finish of a great day. If only it was possible to do all our maintenance chores this way, the world would be a better place...