Pumping windmills - Molino de Ferro - kantega.de

Pumping windmills on Mallorca

We drive on a side street of Muro north. Left of the road in the middle of the field a small brick tower. It projects a steel tower link. A car is on the field and worker on the tower. A pumping windmill is repaired.

Story

Windmills there are in Mallorca for several hundred years. However, the pumping windmills dating from the 19th century. They were used for irrigation field. The oldest pumping windmill dates from 1845 and is in the south in Sant Jordi. It must have been a colorful sight at this time.

State

Thank pumping windmills are however expired or no longer in operation. Sometimes only is the brick building, or it is a lonely lattice mast in the countryside.

Refurbished

We had luck. A wind turbine near Muro was just prepared again. As we passed were the craftsmen were about to mount the large metal wings.

Die Blechflügel werden nach der Restaurierung wieder montiert.

The rod and the pump were already prepared and repainted.

gut zu sehen: die gekröpfte Welle und die Kette zur Steuerung um das Windrad durch den hinteren Flügel in den Wind zu drehen

Even the interior of the tower, we could look at. The technique is simple but effective thereby. It is a tube with a piston pump. At the tower outside is bricked a basin in which the pumped water is stored. And so it is water available when no wind blows.

Number of pump-turbines

The north to Euro and the South to Palma are the windräder richest areas in Mallorca. Today should exist in Mallorca still over 3,000 mills. An equally high density of wind turbines, there are only in Crete.

The island government has launched several programs for the restoration of the mills. So in 2004, in 2006 and a program from 2012 to 2015.