Survival UK Forums

following on from Devonian's excellent thread about faraday cages/EMP I thought I would post this link(its American but the thoughts are universal): http://modernsurvivalblog.com/preps/10-t...y-at-home/

Hi BP,

Good reminder.

Here, in spite of my addiction to electronic gadgetry, we have planned to do without if necessary.

Cooking: Initially LPG, for which we have between 12 and 18 months reserve

Heating / Cooking / hot water: Multiple stove wood burning capability. Depending on severity of weather we have more than a couple of years fuel stored.

Lighting: Oil lamps. Although to be honest we are somewhat light on lamp oil. I'm thinking about using old car engine oil as a fuel, but don't know if this would work.

Refrigeration: This is the most difficult one to work around. We have cold larder and a root cellar, but in all probability the only work around would be a change in the way we store things, to rely less heavily on foodstuffs that need deep cooling in order to remain edible.
What are you planning in this regard BP?

Water Fair reserve in place. We have a well, but with high rainfall in this area we plan on rainwater harvesting as primary fall back source of drinking water. Ceramic water filter already in permanent operation.

Sewerage: we are off grid. so as long as there is water supply, no change necessary. If no water available dry toilet refurbished, ready and waiting for business :-)

Lack of refrigeration is why you do not depend on refrigerated foods in your preps.

It is also why you have 100 pounds of salt per-person in your stores for brining and salting meats to preserve them. Fruits and veggies you dry if they will not keep in a cellar.

Foods that require cold to form or if you want to cook more than you can consume at a sitting, you will need to wait for cool weather to aid you.

Or keep the pot hot on the stove eternally just to kill bacteria. The eternal stew over the fire was a feature of pre-refrigeration homes.

Motor oil will not work in your oil lamp. It will smoke excessively and stink.

Diesel will work if you can find the dregs in the bottom of someone's fuel tank.

Without electricity what are you going to do for transportation, since fuel requires electricity for pumping from the underground tanks?

Not only are you unrefrigerated and unlit, you are also unable to travel more than a few miles in a day. Imagine being stuck right there, at home, with no job to go to, and all your neighbors in the same situation. No one going any were, ever. And your spouses voice ringing in your ears hour, after hour, after hour...

Now you know why they have that pub just down the road.

Then there is the entertainment factor that takes up so much of our day? Recorded music, games, computer searches and chat, TV, radio,,,,all gone. Without the gadgets and devices how will one while away the 10-14 hours between dusk and dawn with no sufficient light. You can't work, can't sew, can't read...

Oh yes, I forgot about that pub.

(31 July 2014, 17:00)Mortblanc Wrote: [ -> ]Without the gadgets and devices how will one while away the 10-14 hours between dusk and dawn with no sufficient light. You can't work, can't sew, can't read...

errrr! its called sleep you silly ninny!!!!

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(31 July 2014, 17:00)Mortblanc Wrote: [ -> ]Lack of refrigeration is why you do not depend on refrigerated foods in your preps.

It is also why you have 100 pounds of salt per-person in your stores for brining and salting meats to preserve them. Fruits and veggies you dry if they will not keep in a cellar.

Foods that require cold to form or if you want to cook more than you can consume at a sitting, you will need to wait for cool weather to aid you.

Or keep the pot hot on the stove eternally just to kill bacteria. The eternal stew over the fire was a feature of pre-refrigeration homes.





Without electricity what are you going to do for transportation, since fuel requires electricity for pumping from the underground tanks?

Not only are you unrefrigerated and unlit, you are also unable to travel more than a few miles in a day.

well, at least you got something(the above) right!!!

Hi Mort,

I guessed that motor oil would stink.... it'd prob give of some nasty fumes too, liberating all the pollutants from the engine from which it was taken. Maybe I'll just have to use it in the diesel engib=ne to eek out a few more miles from it.

Transport: I think that if power's out, I'll not be looking to travel far anyway.

What no I-phone? no computer? no mp3 player....whatever will I do...apart from living in bliss that is!

Refrigeration issues? Move to Scotland! OK, we did have 20+ degrees here last week, but typical summer highs are 16/17 and, during the core winter months, typical daytime highs are +4 degrees (same as the inside of a fridge).

OK, I know I'm trivialising, but seriously, we did survive for an awfully long time without electric refrigeration. A lot can be achieved with shade, ventilation, insulation and use of moisture to create evaporation.

I went to stay with my middle son and his partner a few weeks ago. Half the stuff in their fridge didn't need to be there. I'm talking ketchup, jam, eggs, chutney, etc. Just because it says; "keep in fridge once opened and consume within 3 days", doesn't make it so.

On the broader topic of living without electricity, the one thing I will do my utmost to hang on to will be lighting. LEDs are the great saviour here. Small and easy to store, robust and long-lasting. I did an experiment in our large open-plan kitchen/diner/ hall recently, comparing just one 4W halogen-replacement downlighter with 4-5 candles. The difference was literally like night and day. One of these will use just a third of an amp, meaning that a 100Ah battery will last for 150 hours, even if only discharged by half before recharging. At, say, 4 hours a day, that's over a month of decent lighting if the battery is used for nothing else. That 100Ah battery, if treated with care, should provide many hundreds of recharge cycles, which means it would probably outlast me! Even a small solar panel, operating in less than ideal conditions, will keep that battery charged.

I worked a solar system hooked to my 12v caravan system one year with only a 180ah deep cycle battery and a 1 amp 12v charging panel.

Using the lighting only for the few hours between dusk and sleep time I never had to hook a charger to the battery between April and October.

the human race lived for millions of years without electricity and will again. we didn't have electricity in the UK in houses(I think businesses had it first) until about the early 1930s, my grandparents still had gas wall lights in the 1950s and 1960s. we had things called "meat safes"(I have a small one bought from a recycling company for £8) which has a zinc front to keep the flies out but holes big enough to let the air in. some rural big houses had "ice houses" to keep their stuff cool.think "root store"(an old chest freezer buried in the garden) ground temperatures are mainly constant, stuff dosent have to be frozen so much, its the fluctuating temperatures that ruin it.

I don't think POST SHTF keeping stuff frozen will be top of the list, its not like we'll be having ice cream and fish fingers and the like, it'll be more about keeping stuff COOL, which is where the root cellar comes in. meat-if you have any left over-will be salted or dried. even in the days before supermarkets people didn't eat meat on a daily basis,for some it was once a week and was probably a chicken or a rabbit.

I have made a meat safe out of an old chiller cabinet by removing all the pipe work and compressor etc. cut extra holes in each side at the bottom so that there are holes at the bottom and the top of the cabinet for air flow, all the holes are covered by fly screen to keep insects out, the shelves are removable so the full height of the cabinet can be used to hang game. I use it for storage space at the moment as any game I catch is processed and frozen same day, but the cabinet is ready if I ever need it.
I have toyed with the idea of adding a thermo syphon evaporator system to help keep the contents cool, but that's way down my to do list at the moment.