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At Southern Cross we’ve been designing and installing Windmills Toowoomba locals can count on since 1903.
With over 100 years of experience designing and manufacturing windmills, residents can be worry-free knowing they have the support of Australia’s oldest windmill manufacturer.
Queensland families know how important reliable water harvesting systems are in the Australian outback, and this is why people all across the nation continue to depend on a Southern Cross windmill.
A regional city, Toowoomba is known for its many parks and gardens, with the annual Carnival of Flowers being held every September for over 50 years. Toowoomba is also the birthplace of The Toowoomba Foundry, which would go on to create the Southern Cross brand.
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 upon 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 oldest renewable energy source mankind has harnessed, and for thousands of years it has been employed to power our boats and mill our grain.
Windmills have been a part of rural living in Australia for well over a century, and is a great renewable energy source, along with being an Australian icon. Australian towns like Toowoomba have been using windmills to help them meet their water harvesting needs for over 100 years now, stretching over all parts of the continent.
Still one of the best and most eco-friendly water harvesting solutions, a windmill can be built and effective anywhere there is access to water, whether that be underground in a well or bore, or drawing from a river or dam.
Australia is a notoriously arid and tough country, and water has always been difficult 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 inland for stock grazing and pastoral runs.
While most rural properties use their windmills to pump 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
Windmills are proven to have a long term success that remains to be seen with the more modern solar pumps, with plenty of properties across Australia boasting wind pumps that are more than 50 years old and still operating perfectly.
While many solar systems may be advertised as a safer option, windmill accidents account for not even 1% of all accidents on rural properties, while many electric pumps contain a dangerous or lethal current.
For more than a century, Southern Cross has been supplying windmills that Australian families can trust. Each of our Windmills come with a 30+ year design life.
Our windmills are hot dip galvanised, and backed by more than 100 years of successful windmill design, and Australian innovation. Since 1903, we’ve built over 250 000 of our iconic windpumps.
A 3 year warranty is included in every purchase of a new Southern Cross Windmill.
Southern Cross specialise in the design, manufacture, installation and service of windmills across Australia. We pride ourselves in the design and integrity of every Windmill we produce.
Designed to thrive in even the most harsh Australian climates, all Southern Cross Windmills are designed and engineered in house.
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 decorated 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 water harvesting needs.
The first windmill built by the Griffiths family was produced in 1876, based on blueprints by Daniel Halladay, which were improved upon for Australian conditions.
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 farmsteads.
Much like 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.
Now comfortably residing at the Gilgandra Museum and Historical Society, this 7.3 m Southern Cross windwheel was manufactured and transported to Mendooran in 1924.
While now used purely for display purposes, the Windmill pumped tirelessly and vigilantly for 73 years before it was donated to the Gilgandra Museum and Historical Society by the Payne family in Mendooran.
This ageless windmill is now closing in on 100 years old, and serves as a testament to the resilience and dependability of a Southern Cross windmill. At its last service, all that was required was an oil top up to keep it operating smoothly.
Toowoomba is Australia’s second largest inland city (behind only Canberra), and has three international sister cities; Paju in South Korea, Takatsuki in Japan and Wanganui in New Zealand.
Until 1858, Toowoomba was called The Swamp. Toowoomba is believed to have been derived from a local indigenous word that also means “the swamp.” It turns out using a translation was far more appealing.
