Updated 04/11/2005 - Everfair has a new owner, Paul. I have had the pleasant opportunity today to use his services in troubleshooting a bad rectifier on our wind generator. Paul was not only polite and courteous but was able to send me the parts under warranty. His demeanor over the phone is professional like. I would highly recommend Everfair after dealing with it’s new owners. The ratings below have been adjusted to reflect my more favorable review of Everfair and it’s support.

There are many wind generators to choose from and each has their own pros and cons. We chose the Fourwinds II wind generator because of it’s high output, low noise and traditional looks. This unit is manufactured by Everfair in Florida.

The Fourwinds II comes nicely packaged and includes the wind generator, wire, terminal strips, terminal connectors, instruction book and warranty card. The blades also come already balanced from the factory. What is required but not included is a voltage regulator and mount. This wind generator is available as a stern pole mount, mizzen mast mount, radar arch mount and hoist mount unit so be sure to know how you’re going to install it before ordering. Another side note on ordering. If you call Everfair direct to order your wind generator be warned that they will try to talk you into buying every accessory with it saying that it’s absolutely necessary to have. It’s not. The exact voltage regulators with a different label can be had at other places for about 25% less, other monitoring panels will work besides their proprietary unit. Just be sure to shop around and buy only what you need.

Be careful to read the instructions carefully but beware that there is a lot in the manual to confuse you. The manual contains a wealth of engineering information about the wind generator and I found this to be confusing when trying to read the installation instructions. It would have been nice to have clear and consise installation instructions in one manual and the how’s and why’s of what the wind generator does in another, putting the two together just makes things confusing. I’ve installed about 8 of these units and each time find the instructions over shadowed by too much engineering information. The manual does have some good illustrations and once you’ve read through there a couple of times installation actually is pretty easy.

Once installed the unit operates very well. The Fourwinds II is one of the quietest units on the market, in 25 knots of wind there is only a quite whisper. When we first installed the unit and used it at the marina we were quite disappointed with it’s output, but once at anchor and away from all the buildings and other obstructions we were very pleased with it’s output. At anchor in 15 knots of wind we typically get close to 9 amps or more.

Customer service from Everfair has always been good but sometimes the folks there can be somewhat abrupt as if they are busy doing something else or are low on patience. For the lay person it would also help to speak in less engineering terms. Overall we are very pleased with our Fourwinds II, but another wind generator to consider is the KISS. It is a much simplier unit to install (I’ve installed three) and doesn’t require extras like voltage regulators (it’s built into the KISS) and by the time installtion is done the KISS is less expensive. It’s output and noise level is very competitive with the Fourwinds II unit.

Rating:

Performance                      8
Quality                                8
Ease of Use                      9
Installation                           7
Documentation                  8
Customer Service             9

Overall Rating                 8.5
Would buy again            Yes
 

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