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Southern Cross Windmills have been supplying windmills Tannum Sands families can rely on for over 100 years.
With over 100 years of experience designing and manufacturing windmills, Tannum Sands residents can be worry-free knowing they have the support of Australia’s oldest windmill manufacturer.
People in Queensland are mindful of their need for a reliable water supply, and due to this, many have, and still look to a Southern Cross windmill to enable them to meet their water pumping and harvesting needs.
Tannum Sands is a coastal town and locality on the central east coast of Queensland, Australia within the Gladstone Region. Tannum Sands and neighbouring twin town Boyne Island are separated only by the Boyne River and joined by a bridge.
Our windmills are available in a range of sizes. The Southern Cross Windmill can be fitted with a windwheel between 6′ and 14′, and mounted on a tower between 20′ and 60′.
Our experts can help determine what wheel and tower sizes would best suit your windmill, based on the landscape you wish to have it built on, and the level of wind your property receives.
The Southern Cross “FA” Series Windmill Towers are available in the following heights:
The minimum recommended tower height for each windwheel size, is as follows:
Wind power is the original renewable energy source. It has been employed to power our boats, mill our grain and pump our water for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Windmills have been a part of rural living in Australia for well over a century, and is a great renewable energy source, in addition to being an Australian icon. Australian towns like Tannum Sands have been using windmills to help them meet their water harvesting needs for over 100 years now, stretching over all parts of the continent.
Anywhere there is access to water, you can build a windmill, no matter if it’s a river, dam, bore or well, the windmill pump is one of the greenest and most reliable water harvesting solutions.
Australia is a famously arid and tough country, and water has always been challenging to come by for rural Australians – so much so that 85% of Australia’s population lives within 50km of the coast.
When George Washington Griffiths brought the Southern Cross Windmill to rural Australians, it was a game changer, allowing pastoralists and graziers to explore further away from the coast for stock grazing and pastoral runs.
While most rural properties use their windmills to draw water from bores or wells, windmills can also pump water from rivers and creeks, or into and out of dams.
As with any other sector, as technology improves, challengers will present themselves. The most recent challenger to the windmill being solar pumps
Windmill pumps on some properties across the country have been reliably operating for over fifty years, and while solar looks promising, its longevity has not yet been confirmed.
While many solar systems may be advertised as a safer option, windmill accidents account for less than 1% of all accidents on rural properties, while many electric pumps contain a dangerous or lethal current.
Southern Cross has been providing windmills that Australian families can depend on for over a century, and all of our windmills have a 30+ year design life.
Since 1903, over 250 000 iconic Southern Cross Windmills have been built. All windmills produced by Southern Cross are hot dip galvanised, and supported by over 100 years of winning windmill design.
All Southern Cross Windmills come with a 3-year warranty.
Southern Cross Windmills pride ourselves on the quality and integrity of our product. We specialise in the manufacture, installation and service of industry leading windmills around the country and across the globe.
All of our windmills are designed and engineered in-house, and are durable enough to survive in the harshest of Australian climates, rain, hail or shine.
Authentic Southern Cross parts for all current range windmills are available for repairs or maintenance. If you are looking for parts for any past windmill, tower, pump or trough models, contact us to see if they are still available to order.
With the first windmill emblazoned with the Southern Cross name rolling off the Toowoomba Foundry line all the way back in 1903, Southern Cross has unrivalled experience in dealing with Tannum Sands’ water harvesting needs.
The first windmills built by the Griffiths family in the Toowoomba Foundry were improved versions of blueprints designed by an American Engineer, Daniel Halladay, and these were produced more than a century ago, in 1876.
Many inland communities began to spring up and prosper thanks to these first windmills allowing rural Australians to move to drier and previously uninhabitable areas, grazing sheep and cattle, and even inland crops and plantations.
Similar to another Toowoomba icon – the lamington – Southern Cross windmills have become an Australian classic. However unlike the lamington, the Southern Cross Windmill originating in Toowoomba is not up for debate.
Operating out of Queensland to this day – in our Withcott factory – Southern Cross is an Australian owned and operated brand, servicing Australians from all across the country, from irrigators and graziers to rural families and households.
This 7.3 m Southern Cross windwheel, now happily housed at the Gilgandra Museum and Historical Society was originally constructed by Southern Cross Windmills all the way back in 1924.
The stunning windmill is now used solely for display purposes, but it pumped water vigilantly for 73 years before it was donated to the Gilgandra Museum and Historical Society by the Payne family.
This ageless windmill is now closing in on 100 years old, and serves as a testament to the durability and dependability of a Southern Cross windmill. At its last service, all that was required was an oil top up to keep it running smoothly.
Tannum Sands got its name from its weather, when a picnic goer returned from the area rather sunburnt, and a local remarked that “we can really tan ‘um over there.”
Tannum Sands and Boyne Island host the Boyne Tannum Hookup, which is Australia’s largest family fishing event. This event regularly attracts more than 3,000 entrants.
Year round swimming due to pretty consistent temps make this a water-sports paradise with stand up paddle-boarding, jet-skis, wind surfers, paragliders and more dotting the shoreline.
Excellent fishing is not too far away at the famed Lake Awoonga stocked with the elusive and big Barra and Mangrove Jack and access to offshore reefs is also near at hand.
Not in Tannum Sands? For Windmills Boyne Island click here.
