There is a small stream which runs through the farm and flows into the Cobleskill. This stream is so small that one may easily step across it in the summer-time. About half a mile from the farmhouse is an old mill dam which forms a pond with an area of more than an acre. The dam was built long ago when small sawmills dotted that section of the State. The timber having been practically all cut off, this mill, along with hundreds of others, was long since abandoned. Mr. Van Wagenen conceived the idea of harnessing its wasting energy and making it do some of his farm work for him. The story of how he accomplished this is best given in his own words, as follows:
“About eight years ago I began to figure on how to get this power to the house where it could do a little work. My first thought was to carry it there by belt cables, but figures proved that the friction would eat up the five horsepower available. Electric power, easily transmitted with little loss, was the only solution. I talked with many who understood electricity and its engineering features and most of them laughed at the idea of such a small installation. Had I wanted to construct a million-dollar plant there would have been whole libraries of advice; but a small plant to run entirely alone and be controlled by a seven-hundred-foot-wire was evidently a novelty. After a good deal of studying and feeling my way the plans were made and the work begun.
“The stream being so small, the most rigid economy of water had to be observed, so I installed a nine-inch upright turbine in an upright wooden case, building the case myself, where it would get the most benefit of the fifteen-foot head. This turbine, furnishing about five horsepower, I belted to a three-kilowatt, or four-horsepower, one hundred and twenty-five volt direct current generator, which would easily take care of seventy-five metal filament incandescent lamps. I next installed a waterwheel governor to insure a steady flow of electricity. It took about seventy-four hundred feet of weatherproof copper wire, strung on wooden poles, which were cut on the farm, to carry the electricity to my home and the farm buildings and to the house of a neighbor. As it is more than half a mile from the house to the plant it is out of the question to go there every night and morning to stop and start the machinery. Of course it is possible to let this plant run night and day during the wet season, but in dry times it is best to save the water when the power is not needed. A neighbor living about seven hundred feet from the power station kindly starts and stops the machinery with a wire stationed at his bedroom window. This wire controls a valve and counterweight. At five o’clock in the morning he pulls the wire and the lights come on and at a certain hour of the night he releases the wire and they go out. In payment for this service I light his house and barns free of charge.
“Our maintenance charges are very small; almost negligible. I think our waterwheel behaves better every year. Carbon brushes for the generator last a long while and oil is a very small item. Each year I am improving the plant, and very soon I expect to install a motor-driven washing machine and wringer to prepare the clothes for the electric iron and to put a vacuum cleaning outfit in the house.
“Although I consider the cost of our plant about $500, it was installed under the most rigid economy in every respect and mainly by my own hands. The dam was already built and needed only some trifling repairs. The gate control is my own get-up, and, while the cost is trifling, it took considerable study to get it to work right. I did most of the house wiring, using concealed knob and tube for the living rooms of the house; moulding and open wiring for the other rooms and for the barns. This material cost me about $40. Of course, I do not in any instance figure in my own labor, as the work was all done at odd times.”
This small power development, using the dam already built, cost Mr. Van Wagenen about $500 as follows:
| Dynamo, 3 k.w. (second-hand) | $ 50 |
| Waterwheel, 4 h.p. (naked wheel) | 55 |
| Governor (new) | 75 |
| Wire (7400 feet) | 210 |
| Labor (installing waterwheel) | 40 |
| Fixtures (lamps and the like) | 38 |
| One small motor, 2 h.p. (new) | 50 |
| Total | $518 |
The plant furnishes power sufficient to light the farmhouse and all of the buildings with electricity, as well as those of the neighbor who turns the water on and off. In the dairy a small electric motor of about 3 horsepower, actuated by the electric current, drives the cream separator and also furnishes power for running the grindstone, feed cutters, hay fork and fanning mill, in addition to which the power is also used to milk the cows and cut the ensilage and to do numerous other bits of work about the place. Mr. Van Wagenen states that his water power does work equivalent to that of a hired man the year round and does away with numerous chores and laborious duties about the place.
The arrangement which Mr. Van Wagenen devised to turn on the water at his plant and to shut it off again is unique and interesting. It consists of a triangular frame lever about two feet wide and seven feet high, hinged at one of the bottom corners. The other bottom corner is connected to a sliding gate which fits over the feed pipe for the waterwheel. At the top are fastened two wires, one of which runs to the house of Mr. Van Wagenen’s accommodating neighbor, and the other runs over a pulley and has a counterweight attached to it. When the water is to be turned on, the neighbor pulls the wire and the gate is raised by the leverage of the frame; when the water is to be shut off, he releases the wire and the counterweight pulls the lever back, allowing the gate to fall in place again.
