# Revisiting the water wheel for energy



## BadFordRanger (Apr 26, 2014)

I tried to explain my ideas on the other thread, but let's face it, there is a lot to be explained before anyone will understand and I can't do it in one setting at the computer! I have been broken up from my feet to my neck and I can't do anything but so long and that includes setting in a chair! 
Please give me a chance to make several post before anyone begins to shoot down the ideas and I think that no one will shoot down the ideas if you will do that for me! 
I am not a teacher whatsoever! My father taught me to learn by watching others do what I didn't know how to do and keep my mouth shut until they were finished, and he said that if I had any questions about what they were doing they would be happy to answer them, and I have found that to be true over the years! 
The water wheel had been around for centuries, but me, well I have been in construction for a bit more than a half century! And I am only 59 years old! 
My father had me helping on the well machine when I was about seven years old and by the time I was ten, there were a few of the contractors that who built many of the houses we drilled wells for, that would pay me to be a carpenters helper, electricians helper, plumbers helper, and even a roofers helper, so I started learning trades at a very young age! 
Hey, a dollar a day for a seven year old back in 1961 was a lot of money! But the next year I was earning $2.50 a day! I could run the well machine by the time I was about 10 or maybe 11 (with my father standing over me and my mother at home biting her nails, LOL) and I drilled my first well when I was only 14 years old! 
That was 45 years ago, and I am still only 59 years old! 
I have a lot of knowledge inside me that many people wants to pick apart and they do so simply because I never learned to present what I am trying to say so that most people can understand it! But that is going to change right here and right now! 
There is an estimated 50,000 small dams in the US that does nothing but allow the free energy of falling water to fall! 
Once a gallon of water flows over it, the energy that it had in it is gone for ever!
God only knows how many creeks there are that people could build a water wheel and get all their electricity from but they believe it not worthy of the investment, yet they will spend thousands to install a solar system! 
Please don't get me wrong here! Solar is great, and we need more of it, but if you have a creek, it is so much cheaper to get all the electricity from than solar is, "IF YOU HAVE ENOUGH WATER FLOW and ENOUGH HEAD!" 

I posted a calculation on the first thread that I started about water wheels to see if Ace Admirer could figure it out! I despise people jumping in and running their mouth when they haven't a clue as to what they are saying, and I let myself get wide open to that type of thing but let's start with the calculation here that I posted on the last thread! 
62.4 x 60 x 12 x 15 x 25% / 5252 x .743 = KWH's. 
OK, that was the calculation my brain was telling me, but after I remembered speaking to many professors, (actually I talked to every one of the math and/or engineering professors at the University of Virginia but there were, I think three that never got back to me) but the that did return my calls said that I had to take the multiplication of 15 out of it! 
15 was the number of RPM's that I expected but to figure the weight of the water on the wheel, it had to be figured by the minute, so the RPM has to be one, which negated the x 15! Sorry for that slip up bet hey, I did catch myself. I knew I had something wrong because it was making way to much power, LOL! 
So the true calculation that all the professors said was correct, is as follows:
62.6 x 60 x 12' x 25% / 5252 x .743 = kWh's! 
OK, the 62.4 is the lbs. that a cubic foot of water weighs and this is figured at 1 CFS of water flow!
60 represents the seconds the water flows in a minute because h.p. is what can be done in a minute!
12' is the radius of the wheel which delivers 1 foot lb. of torque for every lb. of water x the 12' of leverage! 
Now, the 25% comes in because water at the top of the wheel makes no torque what so ever! But as the wheel turns each lb. of water begins contributing to the torque of the system until it reaches 90 degrees from the center of the wheel, where every lb. of water produce 12 ft. lbs. of torque!
Look at it this way! When the water is at the top, it makes no power but that gradually grows as the wheel turns until 90 degrees after which it decreases until it reaches the bottom and is allowed to fall free by the design of the bucket! 
So in all, during one minute, all the water that was on the wheel only produce an amount of 25% of the power produced! 
I hope you can all understand that because it took me a while with a couple of the engineering professors to make them understand what I was saying, "but" they all agreed with me when they made sense of it!
now the dividing it by 5252 is the common calculation for changing ft. lbs. of torque to Horse Power and the x .743 is the common calculation for changing HP to kWh's of electricity! 
So lets look at what we can get from one cubic foot per second of water, which isn't a great amount for a creek, if we have the fall to get the head needed! 
62.4 x 60 x [12 x 25%] / 5252 x .743 = 1.58899 kWh's of electricity! 
Now I will admit that getting a site that has a CFS of water flow and a place where you can build a 24' water wheel had alluded me! 
Oh, there are some around, but seeing them and drooling over them and being able to buy them are two different monsters! 
One thing that you must think about, with the difference in water and solar power! 
Solar panel collect all they can during the day and then the stop! If you don't have it set up correctly it will even drain "Juice from your battery bank! 
On the other hand, a water wheel never goes to sleep on the job! It runs 24 hours a day and 365 days a year! 
I'll post more later, but if you all would be so kind, allow me to explain more before you begin shooting this idea down! 
I would like to make the first few post here and get a bit more into the construction of a water wheel before relating to questions and if you have a creek within 500 feet of your home, this just might be for you!

Be back later today, I hope, LOL!
Ranger


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## MichaelK! (Oct 22, 2010)

I think I got my solar panels wired in less time than it took you to write this voluminous post.



BadFordRanger said:


> So lets look at what we can get from one cubic foot per second of water, which isn't a great amount for a creek, if we have the fall to get the head needed!


Umm, my homestead is in the arid west, along with a couple of million other square miles of arid land. Honestly, I can't think of a single stream within 10 miles of my homestead that has a cubic foot per second of flow. That kind of huge flow only happens immediately after a thunderstorm here.



BadFordRanger said:


> Solar panel collect all they can during the day and then the stop!


Oh, gee, thanks for explaining that to us. Now I know why all my solar stuff went dead after sunset!



BadFordRanger said:


> On the other hand, a water wheel never goes to sleep on the job! It runs 24 hours a day and 365 days a year!


Will it run 24 hours a day, 365 days for the year in a location that gets no rain from May till November?

Maybe you should take a step back and ask yourself why all the people with up and running alternative power systems aren't enthusiastic about your "yet to be implemented" conceptual ideas.

Don't sit there and lecture us that hydro is the answer to everyone's situation. Solar power is a niche. Wind power is a niche. Hydro is a niche. Which one works best for anyone is based on their own personal location. Your "one-solution fits all" ideas need to be vetted in reality.


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

Some days my creek is barely moving.. other days, it's pretty nice, then some times it would wash the wheel away, along with parts of the bank that are constantly being eroded away, then replaced the next storm... 

Every alternative source has a WHOLE lot of factors to consider.. Location location location.. and I'd bet more locations are out, than locations that are in...

I have given a water wheel thoughts, and I'll probably build something that will get me by in a pinch, but for my location, it's not something I can rely on... I have however been planning on a water wheel that will deliver water to my garden.. .even during dry times, it will get me some water to the garden, but it would never get me power to the house..


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## watcher (Sep 4, 2006)

I look at it this way, if you can get some usable energy out of a system that you are willing to build and/or maintain then go for it who cares about how efficient it is or isn't.


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