Will Airstreams Renewables windmill technician training program be a good investment?
Saturday, March 13th, 2010 at
4:07 pm
I’m looking to get into the wind field and am considering going to this program. It costs $4700 plus more for living expenses. I was wondering if anyone in the industry knows about this program and if so what impression do they have of the training.
Tagged with: Airstreams • good • investment • program • Renewables • technician • Training • Windmill
Filed under: Uncategorized
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
I’m going to ask my husband to answer this question. I believe he’s the only person who answers yahoo Q&A who actually worked as a wind turbine tech.
By the way, that’s the first thing you need to correct. They are wind turbines, not wind mills.
Wind mills pump water, or grind grain.
Wind turbines produce power.
$4700 is an extremely good investment to get you into an expending field. There simply are not many places you can get an education for only $4700 and go to work after that.
Are you physically fit? Working on wind turbines is NOT an easy job!
Remember, no bathrooms in a wind turbine. You also work in them, when the weather outside is over 100 (F), or negative 30 (F).
You also need to live in states that have the wind turbines. Most of the turbine jobs are in Texas. Hopefully you like that state.
Are you afraid of heights? If so, don’t spend you money on wind turbine school.
Wind turbine jobs are fantastic for the young, single man. Many wind turbine jobs are on contract. They can last anywhere from 2-5 years. That means moving, possibly to another state every few years. Not at all easy for the married man with children in school. Just something to think about. Can also make owning pets difficult.
You should also like the desert. Most wind turbines are placed in desert areas. They recieve a lot of wind, and there are no trees to slow the wind down.
The other concideration of course are the off shore wind turbines.
Keep your question open for several days. If my husband does not have time to answer it tonight, he will not have time for a couple of days, as work is taking him on the road. His online name is D_Offio.
By the way, if you are married, you need to realize just how demanding a wind tech job can be. You will be on call certain days. So you might end up working Christmas, or your wife’s birthday. You may well also recieve a call at 3AM and have to go to work. The smaller the site, the fewer the fellow techs you will be working with, that also means the more days you will be on-call.
Wind turbines are not a 9-5 job.
Even after you are trained as a tech, your employer will send you off (to other states) for aditional training. Some of that training sends you away for 30 days, with zero time home. Married? How would your wife handle that? Got a pet? What would you do with them?
~Garnet
Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years