Preperation for a Short Term Disaster !

[CADplans]

A brand new 200 foot deep well that fills to within 6 feet of the top,,
and a hand pump, just in case.
150 pounds of hard red winter wheat berries, and a wife that can cook with it.
20 pounds of chocolate chips (cookies or waffles, with the whole wheat flour)
NOTE, these are whole wheat,,, and yes we store 10 pounds of Kisses,,,too!!

Enough yeast to last 3 years, literally.
Last years left over garden seed,, (those seeds would be good for years)
Apple, cherry, fig, plum, and peach trees,,
Several varieties of berries,,more to come. AND asparagus,,

Did I say berries??!!

Chickens get the leftovers,, we get the eggs,,,

We have a generator, but, just recently, we have found how useful the Harbor Freight inverter is.
I will get a couple more of those.

 

[CADplans]

Just last week, my son-in-law was mentioning how many devices actually operate off of DC.
He was saying, if we are careful when buying, we can get many versions that operate off of 12 volts DC.

No generator is needed, no inverter losses converting AC to DC.

Many travel campers are set up to take advantage of this.
I might even wire a couple 12 volt DC outlets,,
I believe the modem, router, computer, Dish Network box, and TV can operate directly off 12 volts DC.
If I had that,, what else would a man need???



I will be looking into this more.

 

[TnAndy]

Water is no problem here....very first issue I tackled 30 years ago. Two 1500gal tanks constantly refilled by gravity feed from our spring, which then gravity feeds the house. Pressure isn't the best (about 25psi), but we lived with it for decades before I finally put in a nice booster pump. I did not put that on the backup power panel, but would just flip a couple bypass valves and go back to lower pressure if depending on backup power.

Food is no problem. We have 6 smaller freezers, because as we empty them down, we shut one off. I do this because the chance of a failure would not take out a huge portion of our frozen food.....and as I pointed out to someone that once gaped in amazement: "We ALL have the same amount of freezer space....in my case, it's right here under my control....in your case, it's at the supermarket, warehouse or manufacturer's place...and it takes you multiple trips to the store to access it"

We also can and root cellar quite a bit, and could can a lot of the meat out of the freezers if need be, getting down quickly to one-two. And keep many cases/buckets of long term dehydrated foods, and dried whole grains.

One of several dry storage areas:

Root cellar....late summer, not to stocked yet.

Also raise our own beef, pork, chicken (meat + eggs), catfish. (Got steer in quarters in the walk-in cooler right now, to be cut up in another week or so)

Have two greenhouses we can grow 3+ season in.

Heat/etc: We now heat with wood 99%....use couple of super energy efficient mini-splits early fall/late spring when don't want the full heat of a fire. They are there mainly for some AC the few weeks of summer it's needed. I keep 12-15 cords of hardwood cut ahead....yesterday I was cutting wood for the winter of '19-20. Have a propane space heater that will keep the house well above freezing if needed, and 3-500 gallon tanks of propane (typical use for all propane is about 300 gal/yr). Range top is propane, water heating is propane (switched from electric after a 2 week power outage in a 90's snow).

Power: 11kw solar with battery backup, plus an 8 kw diesel generator with 1,000gal fuel storage. Another 8kw gasoline welder generator (Miller Bobcat). Plenty of stored gasoline preserved with PRI, and rotated/refilled regular into 300gal gravity feed tank for use around the place/vehicles.

Toilet paper ? Yeah.....big fan of it. Got on a kick about it some years back, and put a dozen plywood boxes like this (144 rolls per box) well sealed and stuck in around in various sheds/barns).

Lots more, deep and wide..and plenty of defensive measures to hold on to it.......this is but a sample.

 

[3930dave]

Just last week, my son-in-law was mentioning how many devices actually operate off of DC.
He was saying, if we are careful when buying, we can get many versions that operate off of 12 volts DC.

No generator is needed, no inverter losses converting AC to DC.

Many travel campers are set up to take advantage of this.
I might even wire a couple 12 volt DC outlets,,
I believe the modem, router, computer, Dish Network box, and TV can operate directly off 12 volts DC.
If I had that,, what else would a man need???



I will be looking into this more.

Not inexpensive, but when you get to checking out fridges, look at Sunfrost. They've been in the DC game for quite a long time, including 24v and and 48v models.

They started out building vaccine/med fridges for 500 miles from anywhere applications. Reliability is not optional out there.

Rgds, D.

 

[/pine]

Cross post...

This thread is in the 'Rural Living' forum so on the guise that many rural homes are on wells rather than municipal water systems...And since a human can only survive 3-5 days without water...I'd say it's one of the more important things in disruptive situations...

Hand pumps...without power, moving liquids like fuel and water will require hand pumps...folks with wells can install stationary hand pumps...hand pumps should be checked out as often as genny check runs...but nobody is going to get it done in 45 minutes...Take it from the boy scouts and "be prepared"...

 

[TnAndy]

Take it from the boy scouts and "be prepared"...

Eagle Scout here, class of 1965. I've always tried living "Be Prepared" (The scout motto for those that not familiar)

 

[/pine]

Eagle Scout here, class of 1965. I've always tried living "Be Prepared" (The scout motto for those that not familiar)

Salute and hat's off...I learned a lot in the scouts and had nothing but good experiences...I was just a merit shy of attaining 'Life' rank...
BTW...to this day one of my favorite supper meals is from the B.S. manual...(steak, potato, corn on the cob done on an open fire)...!

 

[ericm979]

The water level in our well is 190' down. I don't think they make hand pumps that can do that. But we have a 10,000 gallon tank which feeds the house by gravity. That water, connected to a hydrant, is required for fire fighting here. We're set for water when the power goes out.

Our challenges are roads out, trees down on the road, and fire. I can't do much about the first as the surrounding terrain is too steep. But there's more than one road in and out. I can handle down trees if there's no wires under them. Our preparations for fire include roof sprinklers, fire tools and hose, and of course plenty of cleared space around the buildings.

The recent fires where we packed but didn't evacuate showed that the prep work I still need to do are things like storing our papers somewhere safe, keeping pet carriers in a known location, and deciding what possessions to bring during an evacuation.

 

[CalG]

Two phrases come to mind, actually three, now that I think on the topic.

"If you are born to drown, Have no fear of fire".

"Consider the lilies of the valley, the birds of the air, they neither sown nor reap....etc..."

And

"The lord helps those who help themselves."

I'm not sure where that last one comes from. ;-)

eta

Pet boxes? Where are you going? Guilligan's Island?

 

[Garandman]

Some Mormon friends taught me a trick.

Pay with everything you buy for a week or teo with $20 bills. Keep all those small bills in the safe, unless you want to be paying $20 for everything.....