What do you folks think about this coming Winter?

[TnAndy]

TnAndy; I'm nowhere near as prepared as you but I like to go into the winter with at least 6 weeks worth of canned goods and other nonperishables; as well as plenty of firewood.(In spring the stockpiled nonperishables go to the Postal Service food drive.) I can run up to the spring for water, and while my power rarely goes off, worst case scenario when both my generators ran out of gas or quit I would start processing the thawing goods through the pressure cooker.
I really like your greenhouse setup.

Yeah, canning out the freezers was our plan too until I got enough solar backup to handle the freezers. We'd probably still can a lot of meats. We can extensively anyway, so we're set up to do it easily.

One whitetail deer in jars:

We have spring water too. Fortunately, it comes out of the mountain high enough to gravity feed, but the pressure is only 20-25psi. We lived with that for 25 years, but we were visiting the Mother Earth Fair in Asheville couple years ago and saw a real nice 'on demand' booster pump. Bought one and installed it in the basement 'water room'. Now the house pressure is 40-70psi, real improvement.

But I can flip back to straight spring intake if needed, or use the drilled well....just a matter of if we have power and flipping the right valves.

Backup power here is solar, (6kw) with a couple of generators if needed.
Manual transfer switch in the garage runs circuits in 100amp panel (gray cover) to the left...critical stuff like refrigeration, lights, etc.

 

[TnAndy]

Hey Andy

Would you mind sharing more about your root cellar? Looks like a pored ceiling, so it is a buried separate root cellar, or is it just a room in your basement?

Sure....glad to.

It is a separate room off the garage wall....that side of the garage is north, and dug into the mountain when we built the house (flat ground is rare here ). I had a buddy with a big track hoe up here doing some other things, so I got him to come around and dig me out enough for an 8x10 root cellar. I sawed a door hole in the block wall, hand poured some footers (left the floor gravel) and laid up 8" block to form the room. see below.

Then I formed up some 2x lumber and a temporary center beam to hold the pour for the roof.

Roof is 6" thick, walls poured solid, plenty of steel. Side ramp is just something temporary for walking across the hole to be back filled.

Had a concrete pump up here for another project, so I got this ready and poured at the same time.

Finished inside. All the temporary pour lumber gone, of course. Couple coats of white paint on the walls, ceiling. Ran some electrical, built some shelving, and built a thick, insulated door.

Also, if you happen to have any, would you share a closer pic of one of your potato racks? Looks like a good simple design.


Glad there are those out there that are prepared and won't be in a FEMA camp or otherwise hoping for the knock on the door "I'm from the Federal government and I'm here to help"

Let me show you them in a separate post....probably hit the photo limit for this one.

 

[TnAndy]

Potato racks:

(And I can steal ideas with the best of them.....but this is one of my few originals....ahahhaaaa)

These are some 2x lumber (2x6 ripped in half) x 3 lumber with a 1/4" slot dado'ed about an 1 1/2" deep in the inside for the hardware cloth to go in to....then ran some 1" staples in the face to prevent the screen from coming out or sagging too much with weight. Overall outside dimensions are about 2' x3'.

Frames were assembled with glue and pocket jig screws (you can see the angled holes from the jig)
Short pc of 2x4 glued/screwed to the frame for a leg. That seems to be plenty of room for even the biggest sweet potato (also use them for that) to sit on the screen and not bump the next layer.

As you can see, they stack nice....you can get a WHOLE lot of potatoes in a small foot print. Air circulation is good, if you do have a potato rot, it doesn't usually affect the ones around it if you just keep a small space between spuds. We put the 'bakers' and 'peelers' on the racks.....then about late January, we'll go thru them and rub off the sprouts so they keep well into late spring. The small potatoes from our harvest go in the bags for next year's seed.

 

[Einthewoods]

Sure....glad to.

It is a separate room off the garage wall....that side of the garage is north, and dug into the mountain when we built the house (flat ground is rare here ). I had a buddy with a big track hoe up here doing some other things, so I got him to come around and dig me out enough for an 8x10 root cellar. I sawed a door hole in the block wall, hand poured some footers (left the floor gravel) and laid up 8" block to form the room. see below.

Very nice, thanks much. I assume you back filled over it once you were done? Any issues with the roof?

 

[Einthewoods]

Potato racks:

(And I can steal ideas with the best of them.....but this is one of my few originals....ahahhaaaa)

And thanks for this one as well. I think I found a project for this week. :laughing:

 

[TnAndy]

Very nice, thanks much. I assume you back filled over it once you were done? Any issues with the roof?

I put a couple inches of foam insulation (because I could only get a foot of dirt on top...up to the siding on the gable end of the garage.....then draped a hunk of EDM rubber commercial roofing material over that, then back filled the whole thing with my dozer, including parking it on the roof. No issues. Do get some dampness when it rains a lot, but the idea behind a root cellar is you want a high humidity environment to store most vegetables......like the 'crisper drawer' in a fridge. Root cellars are not the place to store metal canned goods, or jars with metal lids. I built a separate, well insulated, low humidity storage pantry for that type of thing.

 

[Einthewoods]

I put a couple inches of foam insulation (because I could only get a foot of dirt on top...up to the siding on the gable end of the garage.....then draped a hunk of EDM rubber commercial roofing material over that, then back filled the whole thing with my dozer, including parking it on the roof. No issues. Do get some dampness when it rains a lot, but the idea behind a root cellar is you want a high humidity environment to store most vegetables......like the 'crisper drawer' in a fridge. Root cellars are not the place to store metal canned goods, or jars with metal lids. I built a separate, well insulated, low humidity storage pantry for that type of thing.

Thanks very much once again. Very nice work. My wife has now officially banned me from talking to you any further as she can see the look in my eye of upcoming projects involving a backhoe. :laughing:

 

[TnAndy]

Thanks very much once again. Very nice work. My wife has now officially banned me from talking to you any further as she can see the look in my eye of upcoming projects involving a backhoe. :laughing:

I completely understand

My long suffering wife has put up with a lot from me over the years.....but when the neighbors came over for breakfast last power outage, and his wife said "Hey.....you've not only got water....you've got HOT water !" I saw my wife smile (neighbors have well and electric hot water.....ours is spring fed, and propane heated)

 

[Buppies]

In looking at Long range weather so are so many variables to consider and if one piece does not fall into place the cold does not happen as advertised. This year if I were predicting the coldest winter in a long time I would look at the temperatures of the Great Lakes which are very warm this year. This in turn will moderate any cold air masses coming across especially for the East

 

[Einthewoods]

In looking at Long range weather so are so many variables to consider and if one piece does not fall into place the cold does not happen as advertised. This year if I were predicting the coldest winter in a long time I would look at the temperatures of the Great Lakes which are very warm this year. This in turn will moderate any cold air masses coming across especially for the East

That is a good data point. Could mean overall warmer winter, but could also mean a lot more snow. The longer the lakes (in my case Lake Michigan) stays open, the more snow we get.


Similar to some above, I am stocked without any worry of cold and snow, power or no power. I don't mind the snow at all these days. The real cold (sub-zero F) I can do without.

Since we installed the wood stove last year, my outlook on winter has changed completely. A warm house and family, with food and a way to cook it, turns a day from stress to playing monopoly or Euchre. The tractor and a good snowblower don't hurt any either.