This weeks preps check-in

[Brent S]

Yeah, you have to buy them. Also have to keep up maintenance on them -change anodes, etc. I also understand that a lot of homeowners insurance companies don’t like them. I should talk to them as well....

I think a 1000 gallon tank would last us quite a long time.....

I never considered the insurance.... what tank? Just one more reason I have two big dogs in the fenced yard. Keeping those pesky insurance guys away.

 

[WGregMiller]

I never considered the insurance.... what tank? Just one more reason I have two big dogs in the fenced yard. Keeping those pesky insurance guys away.

Yeah. I don’t like those guys. I do like your thinking above it the tank....

 

[Brent S]

It is luckily rare for gas leaks to explode, but when they do there's not much left. I can see why an insurance company might want to charge more.

 

[WGregMiller]

It is luckily rare for gas leaks to explode, but when they do there's not much left. I can see why an insurance company might want to charge more.

What I’ve read is that they’re afraid that people won’t change the anodes, then they get leaks.

Otherwise, I’ll find another way to hide it. Hell, out n the boonies I’d worry more about an above ground. Plenty of chances for some idiot to shoot it, either intentionally or not....

 

[Mountain trapper]

I was disappointed with the 500 gallon tank when I learned they only fill them at 80% capacity! Seriously, that's still a crap load of fuel for my needs, but almost wish I had gotten a 1000gal tank.

It's a safety thing. Due to my location the delivery driver will fill my tank to 90%. I'm estimating that 500 gallons will last us a couple years. I still have a couple 20 gallon tanks that I use for heating the pump house. For this winter I'm putting up a solar panel, inverter and a two deep cycle batteries at the pump house and connect it to a heat lamp. Maybe that will be enough to keep it above freezing.

 

[Brent S]

It's a safety thing. Due to my location the delivery driver will fill my tank to 90%. I'm estimating that 500 gallons will last us a couple years. I still have a couple 20 gallon tanks that I use for heating the pump house. For this winter I'm putting up a solar panel, inverter and a two deep cycle batteries at the pump house and connect it to a heat lamp. Maybe that will be enough to keep it above freezing.

How cold does it actually get there?

 

[Mountain trapper]

How cold does it actually get there?

It doesn't get that cold here. Maybe a really cold winter it could hit -20, but I've never seen it get below -15 so far. Last winter it went 3 months where it never got above +20. It is a challenge living off grid and keeping equipment warm and the animals water thawed out. I spent many nights last winter making the 1/2 mile trek to the pump house at 1-2 am to check on the temp.

 

[Dani]

Our is an above tank and they filled 90%. Maybe depends on the company filling the tank. When the guys were out for the install, one had noticed my tractor by the garden. I asked him if I could paint the tank so it wasn't such an eyesore. He said sure they wouldn't mind with a grin.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Our is an above tank and they filled 90%. Maybe depends on the company filling the tank. When the guys were out for the install, one had noticed my tractor by the garden. I asked him if I could paint the tank so it wasn't such an eyesore. He said sure they wouldn't mind with a grin.

I saw a tank one time where the guy painted it black and white to look like a Holstein. He even made a head and tail for it.

 

[WGregMiller]

And one near here that painted theirs to look like a watermelon...

 

[Dani]

I saw a tank one time where the guy painted it black and white to look like a Holstein. He even made a head and tail for it.

I'm sure I could do a cute little pig. Make a 'Strawhat' with a big yellow daisy. . . Possibilities

 

[Brent S]

My plan was to just put a wood fence around it. Call me boring......

 

[Mountain trapper]

My plan was to just put a wood fence around it. Call me boring......

Me too. Then I could put the garbage cans there too, out of the reach of bears.

 

[MaterielGeneral]

I have been splitting and then stacking firewood for the last couple of days (sucks ass).

I bought several ACU tops from eBay and now I am working on getting the bottoms. They are going to be part of my RIT dye OD Green project (thread to come).
I have most of my components for my portable power supply project. So I will take pictures and step by step what I did.

I still have to get my COMMO thread going.

F'ING summer to do list gets in the way of everything fun.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[Maverick]

Replaced all the lighting interior/exterior with LEDs. Originally I gone from incandescence lighting to CFL lighting, it helped lower the bill significantly but I was running into a reliability issue with the CFLs so I pulled them all out and replaced with LEDs lowering wattage usage further, not only will this help my pocket book it would make it cheaper to run the generator plus give me more watts to work with.

Incandescence wattage = 4,600 (59 lights)
LED wattage = 372 (59 lights)

Reducing my load by 4,228 watts, still maintaining 59 lights with the same lumens as the incandescence.

 

[MaterielGeneral]

Replaced all the lighting interior/exterior with LEDs. Originally I gone from incandescence lighting to CFL lighting, it helped lower the bill significantly but I was running into a reliability issue with the CFLs so I pulled them all out and replaced with LEDs lowering wattage usage further, not only will this help my pocket book it would make it cheaper to run the generator plus give me more watts to work with.

Incandescence wattage = 4,600 (59 lights)
LED wattage = 372 (59 lights)

Reducing my load by 4,228 watts, still maintaining 59 lights with the same lumens as the incandescence.

Yeah LED lights make a difference. Last summer when we bought the house we replaced all of the lights with LED lights. Well worth the investment and I noticed that the prices are getting cheaper.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Replaced all the lighting interior/exterior with LEDs. Originally I gone from incandescence lighting to CFL lighting, it helped lower the bill significantly but I was running into a reliability issue with the CFLs so I pulled them all out and replaced with LEDs lowering wattage usage further, not only will this help my pocket book it would make it cheaper to run the generator plus give me more watts to work with.

Incandescence wattage = 4,600 (59 lights)
LED wattage = 372 (59 lights)

Reducing my load by 4,228 watts, still maintaining 59 lights with the same lumens as the incandescence.

Wise move on the lights. I'm putting LED's in all my buildings. Got LED's in my barn now. Right now I'm running the barn off a generator but next year I'll put up a couple solar panels, a 1,000 watt inverter and two deep cycle batteries. That'll be more than enough power to run all the lights in the barn.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Got the roofing on the cabin and generator building done today. I need to put up some gutters on the roof now. Never installed gutters before but they don't look too hard to do. Split another cord of wood today too. Got about 2 more cords left to split. A couple days ago I put up a solar powered motion sensor light on the chicken coop. It's nice having the light come on when I go out to lock the chickens up at night. It should help to scare off preditors too. I see where another 6 or 8 of these lights would be real handy around here this winter.

 

[Maverick]

Wise move on the lights. I'm putting LED's in all my buildings. Got LED's in my barn now. Right now I'm running the barn off a generator but next year I'll put up a couple solar panels, a 1,000 watt inverter and two deep cycle batteries. That'll be more than enough power to run all the lights in the barn.

I had LEDs in the shop since last year but was concerned about the cold though they held up without an issue, home depot had an sale that I couldn't pass up yesterday except for the flood lights, those I ordered online last Monday and came today, diffidently a lot cheaper than last year. Next year I need to do my barn.

 

[DrHenley]

I recently began converting to LEDs now that the price is a lot more attractive than it was.

I've been using compact flourescents for over 20 years. They were somewhat of a novelty item back then, with a replaceable U tube and no globe.

 

[WGregMiller]

Back in the 90's an old friend from high school had built a new house. He and his family went out to dinner one night, and when the came home it was a pile of ashes.

One of the CFL's shorted out (one of his kids left the lights in his room on).

We put can lights in our basement. You could tell where every one was on the floor above when we had CFLs in them (the heat). EVERYTHING is LED now.....

 

[Maverick]

Back in the 90's an old friend from high school had built a new house. He and his family went out to dinner one night, and when the came home it was a pile of ashes.

One of the CFL's shorted out (one of his kids left the lights in his room on).

We put can lights in our basement. You could tell where every one was on the floor above when we had CFLs in them (the heat). EVERYTHING is LED now.....

I had a couple of CFL bulbs pop busting the glass bellowing out smoke from the plastic housing.

 

[Brent S]

Yeah, the cfl's were crap. No where near the life expectancy they touted. LED's are much better but even they don't last what they say. The light diode is really good in them but it is the driver, or transformer, that fails. I see commercial LEDs failing all the time and just strobe flashing. I'm changing 4 of ten fixtures on an auto parts store that were only 2 years old. Luckily for the customer they are warranted for five years, but they still have to pay labor. We sell mostly LEDs now and I am a little worried about that 5 yr warranty thing. I started buying directly from China about two months ago. So far the quality and price both seem good, but we will see what the longevity is. Most of what we do are parking lot pole light conversions, just gutting the original fixtures and installing flat panel LEDs in them, along with retrofitting other exterior and interior fixtures to them. We even have flexible strip lights that are great for replacing the neon inside channel letter signs. Again though, in the real world use, we will see how long the stuff actually works. It does lower electricity costs immediately though. We replace 1000w lamps with 150w. That's a huge reduction instantly.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Yestersday I made one of the best moves a prepper can make (in my opinion); I paid off the ranch and the tractor. I am now 100% debt free. Also got the cabin and generator building wired and insulated. Only have about 1 more cord of wood to split.

 

[Psalm7]

See where a Prepper sent His food prepps to Puerto Rico ?

 

[Brent S]

Yestersday I made one of the best moves a prepper can make (in my opinion); I paid off the ranch and the tractor. I am now 100% debt free. Also got the cabin and generator building wired and insulated. Only have about 1 more cord of wood to split.

I agree with the debt free thing being one of the best things one can do. Debt to me is akin to slavery, kind of like owing your soul to the company store. More realistically, when you don't have to give your hard earned money to a creditor you can use it to enrich your own life. I try to tell people that that new car or boat is fine, but only if you can pay cash for it. If 1100.00 is all you can come up with in cash, then that's all the car you can afford. The idea is to drive that piece of crap car while you take the money you would be paying a payment with and save it. It builds up a lot faster than you think. Before you know it you can afford a better car. I did break my own rule a little while back though. When my son and I started our business I took a mortgage out on the house. We bought our first bucket truck and some tools and supplies. It was a tough decision to borrow money, especially with putting the house at risk. I will say the only reason I will ever borrow money is for an investment. Luckily it did pay off and I was able to pay it off in less than a year. I still have the equity line available, but don't ever plan to use it again.

 

[Brent S]

Since it was a rainy day today I stayed in. Decided to can the rest of the red potatoes I got out of the garden. Just finishing up the first load and am about to start the second as soon as I can unload the cooker. I've been so busy with work that it's hard to find time for stuff like this that I really enjoy.

 

[Brent S]

27 jars of red potatoes cooling now! It's the first time I've canned anything in a while. It really felt good to work on a prep again.

 

[jimLE]

well.i finally started on getting the hall closet cleaned out,to make it into a tornado safe room..in which i found more candles..i have some 2x8's 1x6's. 1x2's and 3/4 plywood..in which i figure i can use what's needed from of that to have a shelve/roof directly above my head,while sitting on the floor....any food,water,to whatever i put in there to get me out after a tornado comes through.will have to be in metal cans with lids.or plastic totes.on account we have a mouse problem..

 

[Dani]

I canned up balsalmic vinegar onions for salads and finished planting the garden, except three rows. . . two are still breaking down and one has all my cages on it. Started my dough to rise last night before bed so this morning made sticky buns with a maple glaze for hunny to take to work in the morning.