Editors Note: The O’Hara Saw Mill was originally powered using a flapper type, overshot, wooden water wheel. Sometime in the early 20th century, the original water wheel was replaced with a metal turbine. This turbine was highly inefficient in this application due to the flow characteristics of Deer Creek. A new, metal overshot water wheel was built and installed in 2007 as part of the saw mill restoration process.
A new water wheel was built and installed by Dave and Carl Blakely in 2007 from drawings supplied by the O’Hara Volunteers Association. It is a vast improvement over the old turbine and its 30 inch penstock. The water consumption of the new water wheel is only one quarter of that used by the turbine. A pipe draws water from near the bottom of the pond and discharges into the sluice way to power the water wheel.
At full flow and 30 rpm, the power output is approximately 70 H.P. at the shaft, which is more than enough to power the mill for demonstrations. In the summer of 2008, when Deer Creek was at its lowest flow, we sawed for a full hour with no noticeable decrease in pond levels.
