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The first windmills that were used in Holland for water draining are cited in written documents during 1414. Windmills intended for graining, have existed there two hundred years before that. Find out about the history of this. The oldest identified documents that mentions a windmill are the rights given to the city’s bourgeois, in 1274. The feudal superior could provide the right of building a windmill, to constrain the workers to bring cereals to his windmill, and also to avoid the development or even the planting of trees close to the windmill for being sure the strongest wind.

In the following years, windmills extended over Holland. Old towers that have been used for keeping gun powder were converted into mills. But the real development of Dutch windmills occurs at the end of the XVI century and the beginning of the next one. The windmills started to be used a lot more to make all sorts of manufactures. They were built from heavy wood, brought in ships from heavily forested lands from across the Baltic Sea.

The cheapest energy source for the Dutchmen was the force of the wind. Bigger and more powerful windmills could drain excessive amounts of water. That was extremely important as the land of Holland was constantly in the chance of being drowned by water. Since its territory was below the sea level, several great cities like Amsterdam and Haarlem were threaten to be flooded. To illustrate of the power of the mills, in just one year, the Beemster Lake was emptied by 26 windmills.

Around the year 1850, about 9000 windmills were functional in Holland, perhaps the best number that ever existed there. Subsequently, their number began to decrease. At 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 starting to take shape. This association was born in 1923, in Amsterdam. As an outcome of a petition the Dutch society of windmills wrote, in 1924 a letter to the minister of Education, Arts and Science that emphasized the significance of conserving these monuments. Same letters were submitted in 1930 and in 1939.

By the first of January 1961, an agreement has become successful and according to it, anyone who maintained an operational windmill received a subvention from the state. Usually, a windmill owned by an old person, who can’t keep it in working environments, is taken by the authorities and transformed into a historic monument. Usually, it shelters a museum or it becomes a center of receptions put-together in the respect of foreign visitors.

Holland greatly owes its existence to the windmills, because, with their aid, water was kept from flooding the terrain and can now hold a growing population.

Vertical windmills are not a new concept. Actually, despite that we’re accustomed to seeing horizontal axis windmills, the first windmills introduced were the vertical ones. The first functional types were invented in the ninth century, but their design has changed a lot over the years in order to obtain a higher effectiveness from them.

Vertical windmills have plenty of benefits. One of them is the low sound that they make. Horizontal windmills normally are extremely noisy, a fact that’s proven by their settlements in non-populated or low populated areas with not a lot of habitats around. Due to their silent function, vertical windmills are most of the times used by humans for their homes, metropolitan areas or commercial buildings.

Another benefit that vertical windmills have is that they can catch more wind than horizontal windmills. Regardless of the direction from which the wind blows, vertical windmills can capture it and transform it into energy. We can’t say the same about the horizontal axis form windmills.

A vertical windmill is less difficult to maintain. It is also secured to do it, too. We owe this to the truth that the position of the generator is at the ground level. Since it is in such a convenient place and straightforward to repair, we save a lot more time and energy when we give it maintenance or when we repair it.

Utilizing the vertical windmills’ design also brings benefits for the birds. Birds sometimes fly into the horizontal axis windmill. From this viewpoint the vertical axis type is safer and there’re least chances 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 plenty of shapes.

The most common vertical windmills are the Savonius and the Darrieus. The Savonius windmill is mostly used for pumping the water or for grain grinding. If you consider 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 producing electrical energy and not for pumping water. Its blades are in shape of the letter “C”, providing it the aspect of an eggbeater.

We live in a world where the electrical power is not only starting to become more and more expensive, but we’re also becoming more conscious that many sources that produce it are affecting the environment. Begin thinking at building your own vertical or even horizontal axis windmill so you can save money and help save the Earth in the procedure.