Turbine fiasco sends green couple to ‘hell and back’

WHEN green enthusiasts Alan and Janet Turner became the first residents in Bury to have their own wind turbine they had high hopes for the future.

But only four months later the enviromentally friendly couple from Tottington are taking it down and urging others to learn from their mistake.

The turbine was installed at their house in Moorside Road in October, following two years of planning negotiations and electrical problems. Since then, the couple have battled against noise from the generator, which, they say, causes the house to shake.

Mrs Turner said: “It makes an horrendous internal humming noise and when it generates electricity the noise gets much louder and the house vibrates.”

The retired couple paid £1,500 for the Windsave turbine from B&Q, but a third of the cost was covered by a grant from the Energy Saving Trust.

Similar products have been available in DIY shops for some time, but in January B&Q removed all domestic turbines from its shelves, following complications.

Mrs Turner said: “We are waiting to hear from B&Q and are hoping they will take the turbine down and give us a refund for what we have been through and all the extra costs.

“We deserve compensation and are getting legal advice. I do not want to take legal action because we have already been to hell and back.”

A B&Q spokesman said: “We recognise that we have customers who have already installed these turbines on their homes and we are contacting those customers to notify them of the decision we have made, and determine whether they are happy with their turbines.”

Mrs Turner has calculated that in windy conditions she would save £4.81 a year in monetary value once the amount needed to run the turbine is deducted.

“You would save more money by taking out one of your light bulbs,” she said.

Philip Sellwood, Energy Saving Trust chief executive, said: “We advise getting the basic energy-saving measures installed in a home before moving on to any microgeneration technology.

“We are conducting the most comprehensive in-situ field trials to date of domestic microwind installations across the UK.

“The results of this trial will put us in a better position to provide consumers with information to help them with their purchase decisions for microwind.”

The results of the trial will be available in May.
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