Residential Wind Turbine

I've been doing some research on Solar and Wind power, and I've come to the conclusion that before I spend thousands of dollars on some of the manufactured products, I want to try out a little Do-it-yourself project to make my own residential wind turbine. I live in Dallas, TX, and since 2006 the winds here have really been picking up. So much so that it's been causing rain to get into homes where the rain water does not usually reach. I should know, I had a plumber over to the house because I thought I had a leak in my bathroom, but he told me with all the winds and rain we've been having, the rain water was getting into my expansion joints two stories up! I didn't have a plumbing problem, I had a wind problem.

So, I started thinking about that and I figured that with all the winds, I should really take advantage of them and look into wind power. I recycle everything I can, so why not look into alternative power solutions. That's when I started doing my research and found a couple of articles to get me started:

Making A Windmill
Wind Power Solutions at Home

I looked up the author of the article and he has his own website where he sells guidelines with instructions and pictures of the components needed to make wind turbines and solar panels for my kind of prices...under $200!

I'm a Do-it-yourself kind of person, usually with wood working, but this will be the first time I tinker around with making a machine! Wish me luck and check out the site.