What do you all do to be prepared for long term power loss?

[FPGT72]

I'll admit my memory isn't perfect, and I may not have even caught the full story. But I distinctly remember a lot of talk about Texas power plants being previously cited for not running appropriate levels of antifreeze in their plant cooling systems, and that being the cause of most of their outages, during that last cold snap. Many reports claimed things like, "despite being previously cited and fined for this violation, they appear to have once-again failed to maintain appropriate antifreeze concentrations in their cooling plants."

Here is a good video to refresh your memory.

 

[fatjay]

Omega, do those transformers by any chance have a lot of chinese parts in them?
Something tells me they do....

Everything has a lot of chinesium parts in it. That's a reality of wanting to use their slave labor to create cheap things.

 

[Sprinkler Fitter]

Mine also does a weekly test, and will run for 30min. That is long enough for it to get everything up to temp. They are really just bigger "lawn mower" engines. Everyone knows that those little batteries if left off a tender just don't do real well. It seems that if a machine has a real alternator the batteries seem to "live" longer. Before everything was on battery tenders I was lucky to get two years out of a lawnmower battery, now year 3 in only everything still cranks right up. The motorcycle has always lived on a tender, I had to replace its battery for the first time this year, the bike is a 17, so roughly 7 years on that original battery.....dat ain't bad.

My cheap Cub cadet mower I bought in 2018 from Home Depot is on the original battery, sits out in the shed with no tender on it.

 

[fatjay]

I'm seeing two lines of thought on here. One is being ready for a weather event that can cause power loss for days, or even weeks. And the other line of thought is more severe loss of power that would affect the entire country for the long term.

For me, I'm just focusing on weather related issues with the goal of still being able to maintain a decent standard of living. During Covid, we realized how important bartering is. Having lots of eggs to trade allowed us to get things that others had stocked up on, but where not easy to find a the stores. I honestly didn't think that would ever happen, but now I know it's very likely to happen again.

Solar Cells for charging and short term use during the day might be in our future. I can see where it would be useful to charge our phones, or have another source of power if we run low on fuel. Hopefully I can get Natural Gas connected to my house before we need it and buy a bigger generator.

With the cost of food skyrocketing, it just makes sense to raise and grow as much as possible to be less dependent on grocery stores. Same with canning and having a large supply of food on hand makes a lot of sense to me. It sure seems a lot easier to have it and not need it, then to try and find it if you need it.

What are you doing about feed for chickens? I included a garden area to hopefully grow some stuff for the birds, but it's only supplemental.

 

[Sigarms]

Omega, do those transformers by any chance have a lot of chinese parts in them?
Something tells me they do....

Please post a list of any product that you're fond of that has a majority of American made parts in them please?

Reality is there is a difference between "made in America" and "assembled in America" per the legal definition and "rating".

 

[FPGT72]

My cheap Cub cadet mower I bought in 2018 from Home Depot is on the original battery, sits out in the shed with no tender on it.

I have never had a mower live that long unless I bring the battery inside or put a tender on it. For the longest time I brought them inside and put them on a shelf in the heated garage. The cold is hard on them. I have first hand seen them freeze and explode.

 

[RobertEH]

This is a pretty good (and well known) novel that walks thru a financially driven collapse. It talks about many of the topics on this thread including how to deal with people who approach needing assistance.

Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse​

James Wesley Rawles

Amazon.com

 

[EddieWalker]

What are you doing about feed for chickens? I included a garden area to hopefully grow some stuff for the birds, but it's only supplemental.

They free range and there is plenty for them to eat in the pasture. But we supplement them with protein to max out egg production. I’ve been casually looking at machines to make my own pellets. We’re also talking about planting an area just for chicken feed. It’s just talk for now, but that’s where all our projects start

 

[HawkinsHollow]

This is a pretty good (and well known) novel that walks thru a financially driven collapse. It talks about many of the topics on this thread including how to deal with people who approach needing assistance.

Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse​

James Wesley Rawles

Amazon.com

Rawles has a lot of good books on the topic. In my opinion they are like a how-to book wrapped around a novel. They are entertaining but chocked FULL of useful information. I have read Patriots and Survivors, might have to get a couple of his newer ones.

 

[WinterDeere]

I have never had a mower live that long unless I bring the battery inside or put a tender on it. For the longest time I brought them inside and put them on a shelf in the heated garage. The cold is hard on them. I have first hand seen them freeze and explode.

I just keep a battery tender on them in winter storage. I'm on the second battery, on my 2007 mower, I think the first lasted more than 10 years.

Likewise on the big deep-cycle batteries on my trailer, I just keep a solar battery tender on those. It seems that keeping them full charged helps, but having a small trickle on them may be even better during deep cold. The solar option is a compromise, as I'd rather have it charging in the overnight low temperatures than the daytime highs, but it beats running electric service to where I have that trailer stored.