Pictures of a Dempster Windmill Water Pumper

These are just some pictures I took on a trip to California of an Dempster windmill powered water pumper.

This was near a rest area on I-15, and the pumper was pumping right along filling up a water storage tank for the rest area -- looks like its been doing that for quite a while.

Functional, reliable, and beautiful (at least to me).

More on solar and wind water pumping ...

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Gear box and furling mechanism

These windmills use many blades for more torque. A mechanical "engine" (red box) is used to turn the rotary motion of the turbine into vertical motion to drive the pumping rod. There is quite a bit of gear reduction -- the vertical rod moves up and down at about the speed you would pump an old long handle manual pump if you were a bit tired.

These windmill pumps have been sold by Dempster for 130 years.

Gary September 2, 2008