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living without a fridge/freezer
4 June 2014, 13:24,
#31
RE: living without a fridge/freezer
when I was camping on Dartmoor used to take a watertight plastic container with me, anything I wanted to keep cool (eg bacon ) I put in that and immerse in the nearest stream with a heavy stone on top of it(so it didn't move), worked fine.
Some people that prefer to be alone arent anti-social they just have no time for drama, stupidity and false people.
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21 April 2020, 21:18,
#32
RE: living without a fridge/freezer
(21 August 2013, 11:17)Tartar Horde Wrote: I remember my Granny using her pantry to keep Hams and Dairy products fresh by evaporation. She stood the Milk in a pot dish and put water halfway up the side of the Milk bottle, she then draped a muslin cloth over the milk with the bottom portion of the cloth in the water. The water would soak up the cloth by capillary action and because there was a constant flow of air through the pantry it would evaporate drawing heat from the milk thus cooling it very effectively even in Summer.

I remember using that system when younger.
We lived on our yacht (sailboat) for years without refrigeration.
We put food in a Sealine 15 litre dry bag.
This was put inside a hemp/Hessian sack.
Water (salt) was tipped over it to saturate sack.
Evaporation then chilled down contents extremely efficiently.
One could place container of water below with a wick leading up to sack for continually self wetting if passive system required.
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23 April 2020, 00:50,
#33
RE: living without a fridge/freezer
Gentlemen this is not refrigeration it is cooling.

Using this method you can take the items down from an ambient temp of 20 down to a possible 12 or 15 you are not going to take it down to food safe refrigeration levels of 2-4 degrees.

it is best reserved for cooling beer, cider and sodas, and has nothing to do with preserving food from day to day.

You are not going to halt the production of bacteria using these evaporative cooling methods. That was why real refrigeration was such a big hit of the last century. There is no way to know how many deaths due to food poisoning the presence of refrigerators stopped each year.

Refrigerators are the reason I own a generator! I did not buy that thing to play video games or be the shining house on the hill, I got it to run my freezer and fridge!

I have seen the evaporation method used and it was mostly for drinks during hot weather. Not to preserve food. We used it in our APC to keep cold beer a little colder for a little longer. Styro cooler filled with nearly frozen beer wrapped in an army blanket and soaked down with water. It was still drinkable, but not really cold, at the end of the day in 30-40 degree temps.
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23 April 2020, 09:39,
#34
RE: living without a fridge/freezer
MB, I have been eyeing up the possibility of getting a genny to run my fridge and freezer, just in case (and who knows these days). Would you mind sharing details of the generator you own, i.e. size, fuel, capacity etc.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
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23 April 2020, 19:41,
#35
RE: living without a fridge/freezer
I have two generators and the ability to rig a third gen-set from any vehicle if necessary.

As I said, I do not use these for all inclusive power to run as if all was well with the world. They are for emergency power for the fridge and freezer with possible use for emergency lighting if necessary. By emergency lighting I am speaking of someone being injured and needing treatment or a mandatory repair with power tools. Your favorite show being on and needing the TV running I do not consider an emergency, or wanting to read a book or charge your phone randomly.

When the common outages occur I just run the generators 2-3 hours daily at spaced intervals to keep everything inside the fridge and freezer cold/frozen.

I have a 1000 watt unit for just the Fridge and freezer. It is a small portable unit that one person can pick up and carry like a picnic basket. It has a 2L fuel tank and will run for 6 hours on 1L of fuel. If I needed too it would run all night on one tank.

This little unit cost me about 75 pounds your money many years ago. Some of the best money I ever spent. I think you can still buy them from the cheap Chinese tool dealers.

I also have a 2500W unit for use with my power tools. They have a heavy surge draw and this set will run anything in my workshop. I built a house using this generator 20 years ago and it still runs like new. The 2500w generator will power the fridge, freezer, charge every gizmo I own and light the house (all LED bulbs) all at the same time.

It has a one gallon tank but uses fuel rapidly at 1L per hour. That is about average unless you have a very fancy, very expensive unit. It uses an old style Briggs and Straton lawn mower type engine of 3hp. Not fancy technology at all and I can salvage an engine from any lawn more I find.

Remember that you are only using this for 2-3 hours daily, so fuel consumption is not a primary concern, unless you have no fuel stored. Remember that you vehicle has a large fuel tank and I consider my vehicle's best use in a lock-down situation as being a fuel storage device. I have put less than 50 miles on my vehicle this month.

Which brings up my third emergency power system, the vehicle. I have both a 500W and a 1000w inverter which can be used directly off the vehicle battery. Just hook the clamps to the battery and you instantly have a 1000w generator. Fire the vehicle up and you have a power gen-set at your disposal.

Even without running it the vehicle makes a better power pack for charging phones and devices that those little 1 amp solar charger panels everyone raves over until they are required to use them long term and discover that they simply can not keep up with the demand of a phone using GPS, Gut-Hook, Google Map or any of the other emergency apps one might need.

Don't worry about sign-wave this or that, it is power when you don't have any and you are not going to be using it with your high priced media center.

Your vehicle, or the average vehicle at any rate, will burn one liter of fuel per hour at idle speed. If you have a 50 liter tank that is enough fuel to keep your fridge/freezer cold for up to 2 weeks if used properly rationed in average English weather.

The main complaint people have with generators is their noise. They are loud because their silencers are crap! Get a good car silencer and use some fittings and clamps and you can quiet one down for the price of a scrap silencer and an hour of work. I have done that with several gen-sets I used while camping. There is no reason in the world why your 50cc gen-set should be louder than your 2.5L Toyota. If you plan on surviving the Apocalypse one should have at least enough sense to quiet down a generator.

There is also the worry about "everyone will see the lights and know I have stuff!" thing I hear so much. The solution to that is simple, don't turn on the lights or play the stereo or TV at full blast. I own a lot of things that no one knows about, and they don't need to know about them. That is why I do not tell everyone everything.

To this day there is still no cure for stupid.

Before there are a rash of "that won't work" deals expressed I can attest that all of them will work because I have used all of them successfully. In fact I used all of them successfully at the same time on a couple of occasions. Once I had 4 families running fridge and freezer off one generator, my 1000w unit being used as workshop power for emergency repair and two or three neighbors running off the inverters hooked to their vehicles. One person using the inverter on his BMW to create a Wi-fi hot spot so we all could communicate. That was a group of close neighbors working together during Hurricane Ike about 11-12 years ago. We operated like that for 5 days with no utility power available.

I use one or the other of these systems 2-3 times each year during our storms. Nothing like waking at 2am in sub zero weather to realize your power has been down for an hour and won't be back for 3-4 more, or possibly ever, due to ice load breaking lines.

And be aware that during these power use intervals you can charge up all your devices as well as cooling things down.

I think that your home wiring is different over there. Over here we can pull the main breaker of our home and cut the connection to the grid supply at will. That means I can use a line with two male plugs and put one into the generator and the other plug into any outside outlet on my house and power directly through my internal wiring. If I unplug the main breaker I am not feeding back into the main grid, so there is no danger to anyone.

I do not have to worry with extension cords or gang plugs or makeshift wiring messes. The generators are no more problem to use than grid power.
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Every person should view freedom of speech as an essential right.
Without it you can not tell who the idiots are.
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23 April 2020, 21:16,
#36
RE: living without a fridge/freezer
Wow, MB! Thanks for that. I shall run it off and study it in greater detail. I am assuming the fuel you use is petrol and not diesel. The idea of using an inverter off a car battery is genius and I know this would work off our heavy duty Landrover battery.

You are correct about the home wiring in the UK. We cannot just pull the main breaker, as you put it. This is possible but has to be installed by a specialist electrician (at great expense) when a homeowner has decided to install the option to go off grid. I think Highlander did it at his property in Scotland.

Thanks again for that. I shall be able to approach the potential power shortage problem from a completely different angle.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
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24 April 2020, 02:43,
#37
RE: living without a fridge/freezer
Just keep in mind the cost effective aspect.

A power inverter of 1000w can cost more than a generator of 1000w and you do need at least 1000w. Almost all electric power tools have a starting surge of at least 1000w and if you can not overcome that the inverter shuts off automatically.

The real advantage of the inverter is that you can mount it under the bonnet and wire leads from the battery so it is always ready and you have power anywhere you have the vehicle. Just start the motor, plug in, press a button and you have juice in the driveway, in the garage or out in the fields or roadside.

I have one mounted under the bonnet of my lawn tractor so I can drive it where I need it on the home lot.
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Every person should view freedom of speech as an essential right.
Without it you can not tell who the idiots are.
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24 April 2020, 17:57,
#38
RE: living without a fridge/freezer
I had forgotten about lawn mowers. We have a large ride on model, so I guess that would also be a source of power. How interesting to have so many possibilities all over the place. I am aware that a power supply is our weak link. We have had a few power cuts this year (to squeaks of rage and distress from neighbours). I can manage to keep fridge cool and freezer frozen for a short time, but it is obviously a potential problem. I shall approach OH with all this information and hold him hostage until he gives in. (I can do that!)
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
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28 April 2020, 19:36,
#39
Thumbs Up  RE: living without a fridge/freezer
(23 April 2020, 00:50)Mortblanc Wrote: Gentlemen this is not refrigeration it is cooling.
Interesting, I never put a thermometer inside to check temperature.

I do know that with the bag in cockpit and shade, with any breeze passing over, the butter was so cold it was a pain to spread, cheese was solid and vegetables kept as long as they would have in fridge ? certainly long enough to be used as normal.

That was without the new bags available now to put greens in, inside fridge which extends longevity.

Altogether, quite a satisfactory cheap system under the circumstances.

Montblanc, we used to cool our beers we had stored in APC, by digging a trench in sand, puttying cans in, covering with sand and tipping petrol over them.
this was ignited and when burnt out, presto, ice cold beers, much to the Grunts envy
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