Are you all happy with your kit and preps?

[BillMasen]

Just wondering if the community is happy and settled with your preps, tools, vehicles, food, medical gear, reserves, vehicles, guns, security measures, EDC, GHB/BOB, etc ?? There does not appear to be very much new discussion or debate occuring on the essentials of our prepping on the forum mainly just politics and crime conversations.

What are you changing, updating, repairing, modifying, replacing, buying, building, training for as we move towards 2020? Because I think the twenties is going to be very a volatile time for westerners.

 

[lonewolf]

the 2020s are certainly going to be interesting for us Brits Bill as we move out from under the EU umbrella and stand on our own two feet as an independent nation once again.
as for my own preps, I wouldn't do anything different but I would have bought less of the small bits and pieces that I have accumulated.
I do tend to think prepping is keeping the "consumer society" going in one way and another!!

 

[Brent S]

20+ years has given me more insight. I really haven’t wasted much at all but would do some things differently now. One thing to note too is my financial status has improved now, so looking back I did well with the resources available at the time. The biggest thing is after getting my pantry well stocked with stuff I allready eat I would have started getting freeze dried foods for long term storage. They are pricey but will last so much better than home saved foods.

 

[Proud Prepper]

I have recently been looking into drones for post SHTF uses. Finding drones that will work properly without possible GPS system in place or functioning properly.

We are also working on our solor powered video surveillance system and wireless alarms.

 

[Brent S]

I have recently been looking into drones for post SHTF uses. Finding drones that will work properly without possible GPS system in place or functioning properly.

We are also working on our solor powered video surveillance system and wireless alarms.

I’m on the fence about electric and electronic powered devices. Yes they definitely have advantages but if the grid goes down keeping them going for long term would be an effort. I’m still on the fence about solar for the house too. The battery lifespan is my biggest concern. I guess though even without batteries you could still just have electricity for the daytime, which would still be a huge help. Going back to the stone ages would be difficult.

 

[Mountain trapper]

My preps are more about building an independent, self sufficient homestead. We're about 90% complete with the construction of the buildings, purchasing of tools, livestock, and equipment. I am planning on buying some additional grazing land at a lower elevation that will help reduce some of our feed costs.
My 2020 construction plans include; drilling a new well, building an additional barn, equipment shed, new chicken coop, plant more fruit trees, add a wind generator and seeding more pasture. That's enough. I'm already tired.

 

[DrHenley]

I’m on the fence about electric and electronic powered devices. Yes they definitely have advantages but if the grid goes down keeping them going for long term would be an effort. I’m still on the fence about solar for the house too. The battery lifespan is my biggest concern.

I've given this some thought, and I think one possible long term solution (independent of how you generate it) is to store energy by pumping water up into a high water tower. Then you can use a hydro generator to recover it. Any source of energy can be used - steam engine, windmill, water wheel, etc. You can also use the water pressure as a direct energy source instead of generating electricity first.

I've seen plans for systems that use a windmill to generate electricity first, then use the electricity to pump water up into a water tank, but that seems inefficient to me when you can use the windmill directly for pumping water.

Many of the old Midwestern windmills were for pumping water, so this is really nothing new, just how the water is used after it's pumped.

In my case, the BOL has a 1600' deep artesian well, so we would not even need to pump the water into the tank.

 

[GaRp58]

I'v gotten a new battery for my trailer for the lighting and toilett. Another solar cell for charging all my batteries, an 800 watt infrared heating panel, gave away my wax-cloth (heavy) jackets and gotten fleece/polyester jackets for my winter clothing. A new alcohol stove, re-built my gasoline latern and bought some wool socks...wish my retirement would go through so I could start moving to Hungary tho........

 

[lonewolf]

I'm going old school, I will live post SHTF the way I lived when I was off grid, all manual, get up just before dawn and go to bed when its too dark to do anything, no solar panels or wind turbines to attract attention. not stone age but using the methods of my ancestors who were all farmers and fishermen. no man made chemicals, fertilisers or pesticides, these wont be available post SHTF as they are all imported here, everything will be natural.

 

[GaRp58]

Nothing like mushrooms and potatoes from behind the outhouse...gotta admit tho, If and when we survive the SHTF OR TEOTWAWKI, we'll have to do with which we get, make, find or create ourselves. Wanna go and start in Hungary SO BAD I can taste it. Have a nice New Year in the boondocks bigpaul, thanks for writing so often...GP

 

[lonewolf]

gotta be careful with mushrooms, many more that will kill us than are edible, I know that much.
potatoes I grow in tyre towers, have for years.
post collapse if we cant make it, grow it or scavenge it we wont have it.
thank you my friend, happy 2020 to you too.

 

[Kevin L]

I’m on the fence about electric and electronic powered devices. Yes they definitely have advantages but if the grid goes down keeping them going for long term would be an effort. I’m still on the fence about solar for the house too. The battery lifespan is my biggest concern. I guess though even without batteries you could still just have electricity for the daytime, which would still be a huge help. Going back to the stone ages would be difficult.

You can store extra batteries and switch them out after a few years.

Me, I plan on getting solar in my new house, but also having a diesel generator.

A diesel generator can run off of processed vegetable oil (see earlier posts about the Chinese tallow tree-Triadica sebifera-which is used for fuel, oil, lubricants, hide processing, and so on).

The point--in my mind--is to have some electricity available, but it doesn't seem realistic to expect that we can run our houses like nothing happened after the **** hits the fan.

I plan on keeping a few chest-style freezers running, occasional computer or television use once in a while, charging batteries for lanterns, and occasionally running a window air conditioner.

I'll also have a wine storage cooler to keep medications cool to prevent deterioration in the Florida heat.

What else do you need electricity for?

 

[lonewolf]

where would you get the vegetable oil once TSHTF? its unlikely the local Chinese take-away would still be functioning.
I lived for 12 years off-grid without electricity of any sort and TBH I didn't miss it one bit, but I wasn't trying to live a 21st century style life, simpler times.

 

[Kevin L]

where would you get the vegetable oil once TSHTF? its unlikely the local Chinese take-away would still be functioning.
I lived for 12 years off-grid without electricity of any sort and TBH I didn't miss it one bit, but I wasn't trying to live a 21st century style life, simpler times.

I understand.

My vegetable oil will come from the chinese tallow tree. It's an invasive species here in Florida, and grows all over the place.

The plant was originally brought here by Benjamin Franklin, who got seeds in England and shipped them to Georgia.

 

[lonewolf]

my information says that is native to Asia, there may be seeds in Kew gardens but I have never heard of it until you mentioned it.

 

[BillMasen]

where would you get the vegetable oil once TSHTF? its unlikely the local Chinese take-away would still be functioning.
I lived for 12 years off-grid without electricity of any sort and TBH I didn't miss it one bit, but I wasn't trying to live a 21st century style life, simpler times.

Rapeseed oil the UK grows millions of tons of it.

 

[DrHenley]

Rapeseed oil the UK grows millions of tons of it.

More commonly known in the U.S. as "Canola Oil."

 

[Kevin L]

There also seems a possibility of a woodgas generator, which is a generator that runs off of burning hardwood.

It seems wonderful in theory, but my recent research seems to show that this idea is nowhere near as practical as it seems . . . so I'm now steering away from it (despite my earlier position in other threads) and trying to move the vegetable oil generator forward seems like a better idea.

 

[lonewolf]

Rapeseed oil the UK grows millions of tons of it.

yes but how does an ordinary person process it once TSHTF??
once TSHTF my need for oil will cease.

 

[BillMasen]

yes but how does an ordinary person process it once TSHTF??
once TSHTF my need for oil will cease.

Your need may cease, but for many other survivors there will be a need for both mineral oil, veg oil and fuel oil for many years. Thousands of small biodiesel making plants have been sold to farmers and the public over the years, they can easily be adapted to use rape-seed. loads of info out there for extracting oil from plants for those who need it. The farmer near me grows, harvests and processes all of his own seed rape he make the cooking version out of it, and the biodiesel version of it and the waste plant material even gets used as fuel to warm his drying sheds.

 

[lonewolf]

everything will change post SHTF, people will need to adapt to the new circumstances.

 

[Brent S]

everything will change post SHTF, people will need to adapt to the new circumstances.

That’s for certain. I guarantee shtf will happen too. No one knows when, how or what will take place after for certain, but change is one thing that is enevitable. I’m really hoping it dosent happen in my lifetime but with the state of the world that’s one reason I prep to help me and the ones close to me.

 

[BillMasen]

everything will change post SHTF, people will need to adapt to the new circumstances.

That truism applies to life in general, I have been trying to explain to my children how we "" Survived"" without Mobile phones, Computers, the Internet, Microwave Ovens, Apple, Miscrosoft, Amazon, Sat Nav, Fibre Optics, McDonalds, Cheap imported fashion clothing, Goretex, Central Heating, Freezers, Air Con in cars, WIFI, Supermarkets .

According to todays under 40s we must have lived like neanderthals before 1980

 

[lonewolf]

I'm expecting it to happen in my lifetime that why I prep, that's why I have been on prepping forums for the last 10 years.

 

[lonewolf]

That truism applies to life in general, I have been trying to explain to my children how we "" Survived"" without Mobile phones, Computers, the Internet, Microwave Ovens, Apple, Miscrosoft, Amazon, Sat Nav, Fibre Optics, McDonalds, Cheap imported fashion clothing, Goretex, Central Heating, Freezers, Air Con in cars, WIFI, Supermarkets .

According to todays under 40s we must have lived like neanderthals before 1980

I was brought up in a time before supermarkets- didn't see my first one until 1970 by which time I was married and paying a mortgage, mobile phones or computers. didn't have my first freezer until 1981 and that was an old ice cream freezer from a shop.
when I was growing up we ate what was in season and if it wasn't in season we didn't have it to eat, now its shipped in from the other side of the world and people expect stuff in the shops 52 weeks of the year.
peoples expectations are too great and WTSHTF they are going to come a cropper.

 

[DrHenley]

There also seems a possibility of a woodgas generator, which is a generator that runs off of burning hardwood.

It seems wonderful in theory, but my recent research seems to show that this idea is nowhere near as practical as it seems

It does have some drawbacks, but with my degrees in Chemical Engineering, I think I SHOULD be able to construct a working woodgas generator to power my propane electric generator. With near limitless hardwood available, it's a very appealing prospect.

And BTW, it doesn't use "burning hardwood" except as a heat source, that would defeat the purpose. It uses heated wood in an oxygen deprived sealed container. Poorly constructed, it could leak toxic fumes. But it is not a very complicated process not does it require very sophisticated equipment.

 

[Maverick]

Our knowledge is far greater today than it was back in the 19th century and earlier. We certainly are far more advanced in chemical engineering and the world is full of folks with backyard labs so all ain't lost. I stock up on clear food grade medium mineral oil for a lot of reasons, it's cheap, no expiration date, can be used on a multitude of things including firearms (not wood stocks), medical, skin etc... It's not an oil to brag about but it is tried and true and widely used in numerous industries thus should be included in preps.

Anyone that purchased those little Hoppe's 9 lubricant bottles just spent a fortune on mineral oil, example, 1.34 a ounce for Hoppe's 9 versus .14cents a ounce for 1 gallon for mineral oil.

 

[jontte]

do my best to build 'em up as much as possible, try to obtain as much first aid gear as possible and ordered another little book for paramedics,
it's like a guide book to ****** situations, from babies to seniors..
as far as protective gear,fairly satisfied to what I have...

 

[Kevin L]

It does have some drawbacks, but with my degrees in Chemical Engineering, I think I SHOULD be able to construct a working woodgas generator to power my propane electric generator. With near limitless hardwood available, it's a very appealing prospect.

And BTW, it doesn't use "burning hardwood" except as a heat source, that would defeat the purpose. It uses heated wood in an oxygen deprived sealed container. Poorly constructed, it could leak toxic fumes. But it is not a very complicated process not does it require very sophisticated equipment.

A degree in Chemical Engineering is very impressive.

I have a degree in Organic Chemistry, but I stopped going further than 3 years because I got hurt working as a paramedic.

I've never used my degree except peripherally in my writing, and during my work in HAZMAT.

The idea of a renewable fuel source is appealing, but what turned me away from it was the complexity, the fact that it is still very high maintenence (and I would need an impressive amount of spare parts, engine lubricants, extra gaskets and seals, and so on.

The primitive Chinese diesel engine (they make a 4 horsepower slow speed diesel engine) combined with a brushless generator seem like a great idea for PSHTF. Diesel isn't as explosively flamable as gasoline. It also stores much, much longer than gasoline (especially with the correct preservatives added to it), it is less toxic, and can be used in oil lamps.

Also, the Chinese engine can burn vegetable oil, biodiesel, and vegetable oil mixed with diesel.

The slow rpm Chinese diesel engine was designed to be used in remote areas away from resources.

It requires very little maintenence, is extremely reliable, and very easy to repair with simple tools.

 

[Kevin L]

It does have some drawbacks, but with my degrees in Chemical Engineering, I think I SHOULD be able to construct a working woodgas generator to power my propane electric generator. With near limitless hardwood available, it's a very appealing prospect.

And BTW, it doesn't use "burning hardwood" except as a heat source, that would defeat the purpose. It uses heated wood in an oxygen deprived sealed container. Poorly constructed, it could leak toxic fumes. But it is not a very complicated process not does it require very sophisticated equipment.

I seem to remember (I abandoned the idea a while ago) that one fire is used to heat a sealed chamber that is filled with wood, and that it's the gases given off by the destructive distillation of wood that power the generator?