The Conservative Cave
Interests => Living Off of the Grid & Survivalism => Topic started by: BlueStateSaint on August 25, 2011, 04:42:43 AM
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Even though a lot of members don't necessarily read/post in this section of the board, I thought that it would be a good idea to start a thread for Irene preps. My wife is going out later today to get some supplies, and I'll be headed out when I get home from my work-related road trip later today. We've been stocking right up, but one can't have enough water, gas for the generator (my wife and I are having a disagreement over that), propane for the Coleman stove, ammo, canned food, etc.
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I don't think it's ever a bad idea to be prepared. We're aren't even close to being ready for a natural disaster. I do what I can, but my husband thinks it's too tinfoil.
Is the reason for the disagreement on gas a matter of storage space? I might be concerned if a safe gas stockpile area wasn't available. Other than that I can't see any reason not to hold onto as much as possible.
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I don't think it's ever a bad idea to be prepared. We're aren't even close to being ready for a natural disaster. I do what I can, but my husband thinks it's too tinfoil.
Is the reason for the disagreement on gas a matter of storage space? I might be concerned if a safe gas stockpile area wasn't available. Other than that I can't see any reason not to hold onto as much as possible.
Gas bottles aren't exactly cheap, and they're usually pretty bulky and heavy. I use the 9KG bottles for house supply as they're easily stored and can are easy to manage if you need to move them or take them to be refilled. Same bottle fits my gas grill , house supply , portable stove and lighting.
As for stockpiling tinned food - I've kinda moved away from doing that too much because I ended up with a lot of cans of food that is just terrible and didn't get eaten before the use-before date had elapsed.
The last big storm we had through the things I most wanted for was hot water for bathing and washing and more light. Both of which I can solve by getting a 6KVA generator or a portable gas hot water system and more 12V lighting to run from the truck/boat batteries.
Unfortunately they don't call me Moishe McAngusChang for no good reason and I've yet to shell out the bucks to get that gear.
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JohnnyReb storm prep...stock pile cigarettes, eat everything in the house...live off "hump" and smoke cigarettes.
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DU prep. Visit dealer. Stock up on drugs and cheetos.
Curse the fates when the internet goes down.
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BSS, you live upstate, don't you? Seems you would mainly need to worry about power going down for an extended period, well, unless your house is also in a flood plain, since there could be really heavy rain inshore during the final phase. Unless you're within 50 miles of the coast, the winds should degrade to 'Severe thunderstorm' level by the time they got to you.
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BSS, you live upstate, don't you? Seems you would mainly need to worry about power going down for an extended period, well, unless your house is also in a flood plain, since there could be really heavy rain inshore during the final phase. Unless you're within 50 miles of the coast, the winds should degrade to 'Severe thunderstorm' level by the time they got to you.
Yeah, inland the power going down for extended periods of time can be a biotch. Especially in the summer. Especially if you have a whole mess of food in your freezer. A generator and ice can be your best friends in that scenario.
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BSS, you live upstate, don't you? Seems you would mainly need to worry about power going down for an extended period, well, unless your house is also in a flood plain, since there could be really heavy rain inshore during the final phase. Unless you're within 50 miles of the coast, the winds should degrade to 'Severe thunderstorm' level by the time they got to you.
That would be correct, DAT. I want to get whatever gasoline I can. Yeah, storage might be an issue, but the garage we rent in this apartment complex is 200 yards or so away. (Easily covered by the Model Seven in .308.) An extension cord or two wouldn't hurt, either.
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I've lost power twice in the last 3 years for multiple days (6 days each time to be exact). You can't NOT take this seriously up here. We're far enough out of town that the power company really doesn't have the time to get to us until down the road a bit--better they restore power to a few thousand people rather than the "onesie-twosie" bit.
I've got the generator, 15 extra gallons of gas, two full 20-lb propane tanks in addition to the one already on the grill, and plenty of 50:1 and chain oil for the chainsaw.
Don't think I'll need ice yet, but I'll make that call Saturday.
The "nice" thing about possibly losing power now versus December and February like the last couple of times, heating the house won't be a problem.
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BSS, you live upstate, don't you? Seems you would mainly need to worry about power going down for an extended period, well, unless your house is also in a flood plain, since there could be really heavy rain inshore during the final phase. Unless you're within 50 miles of the coast, the winds should degrade to 'Severe thunderstorm' level by the time they got to you.
That's not what the Boston/Portland/Manchester newsies are saying:
http://www.wmur.com/video/28980253/detail.html
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That's not what the Boston/Portland/Manchester newsies are saying:
http://www.wmur.com/video/28980253/detail.html
Ran generator under load today with Gen-tran. Filled a tank of propane to have spare. Freezer is on Gen-tran for summer, furnace for winter.
MH has plenty of propane but the generator needs to be looked at again :argh: it didn't even turn over when I tried it this pm. I am a bit disappointed at the amount of propane it uses when it is working, frugal it isn't.
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The cone that TWC had this morning looks as if it's going a tad south and east of us--maybe a mile or so south of Albany. We'll see. Lots of preps being done today. I'm leaving work at noon just for that reason.
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Cut the only threatening pine in the front yard this spring. Always ready on most other fronts. Lots of food and fuel for cooking. Have tons. of oil lamps and oil. I have a generator to run my 2 freezers. Got 15 gal gas treated with star tron all the time and 30 gal in my company van if needed. Don't forget to fill the car, truck and MC. Lets see fill the tub for handy flushing. 300 gals of water in the hot tub if needed. 2 chain saws and splitter ready in case opportunity knocks in the form of wood to heat the house this winter. I have 8 cord now but room for a few more in the shed. Bring it!
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Cats, FNC now has the path over Worcester MA. It's going to cut over LI and head north. I'm still getting lots of gasoline today and lots of water. My wife is going to get water, soups, and batteries today.
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That's not what the Boston/Portland/Manchester newsies are saying:
http://www.wmur.com/video/28980253/detail.html
Well, that was from Thursday at 1330 so it's way out of date, as I found after waiting five minutes for all of their damned advertising to load.
Around here 'A severe thunderstorm warning' means gusting up to 60 mph or so and often tornados, the latter of which I realize you don't see much of down East. Remember, BSS is in upstate NY, not in Ye Olde New Englande. There was nothing in that to make it sound worse than severe TS winds but with extreme rain amounts, for where BSS is.
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Well, that was from Thursday at 1330 so it's way out of date, as I found after waiting five minutes for all of their damned advertising to load.
Around here 'A severe thunderstorm warning' means gusting up to 60 mph or so and often tornados, the latter of which I realize you don't see much of down East. Remember, BSS is in upstate NY, not in Ye Olde New Englande. There was nothing in that to make it sound worse than severe TS winds but with extreme rain amounts, for where BSS is.
We've been told--the update was about 20 minutes ago on the local Time Warner cable weather station--that the really big winds will hit at around 9 AM our time, which is in about 3 1/2 hours, and keep going through the 6 PM timeframe. Things were said about power possibly being out for days.
I'm still probably going to try to go into work tomorrow. The gas tanks are full. I may send my wife and daughter (daughter has the week off from daycare, and my wife's staying home for the week) somewhere, hopefully with power, if our power is out for an extended period of time.
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Let us know how it went for ya, when you can post again. The next town over from my old, unlamented home in NJ was on Fox for flooding from the rains (Very far inland, as NJ goes; tidal surge would never be an issue there).
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Hunker down, BSS.
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Well, that was quick. My wife wouldn't let me go anywhere, and for once, I listened to her. The Heiress did say that she wanted to "go outside and play in the rain" at about 10 AM. We had to explain to her that it probably wouldn't be a good idea. My in-laws told me that in their city (Schenectady), they had trees down in quite a few places, and there were several homes evacuated for fallen trees. I suppose that the Stockade area of Schenectady is flooded, especially since the NYC Department of Environmental Protection is letting a lot of water out into the Schoharie Creek (actually a river), which flows into the Mohawk River above Schenectady, because they felt that the Gilboa Dam could use the relief. My parents lost power at around 11 AM, and they haven't gotten it back yet. My sister, a few miles away, lost power at 7:30, but got it back around the time that my parents lost theirs.
I'll go out in a bit and look around--go over to the church and look at my gardens, and see if I need scuba gear to get to them. I'm sure that there's trees down.
Rick Reichmouth of Fox News Channel was showing the next trpoical wave that's coming off the east coast of Africa. It'll be Katia, when it's named--and he's pretty sure that it's coming for the US.
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Glad to see you are ok. The flooding is the worst part.
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As I've alluded to on another thread, the NYC DEP lost communication with its' monitoring equipment at the Gilboa Dam. The Schoharie Reservoir is part of the NYC system, which consists of 19 reservoirs throughout the Catskills and two counties on the east side of the Hudson River. There apparently was a small earthquake near the dam on Saturday--a 2.9, but Gov. Cuomo went there Saturday to look at the dam. The NYC DEP has declared a "Level B Emergency" downstream of the dam. The reservoir is 6 miles long, and contains some 17.6 billion gallons of water. If that dam let go, the waters would flood the communities to the Mohawk River. As I type this, someone from Schoharie County Emergency Management has said that the dam has been inspected and is intact. I'm certain that techs from NYC DEP will be there pretty soon, if not there already, trying to restore the commo to the monitoring equipment.
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I hope all is well with that dam.
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How is the looting situation there, BSS? Widespread? Isolated but intense?, etc.
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How is the looting situation there, BSS? Widespread? Isolated but intense?, etc.
Looting? What's that?
There were a few leaves and branches down. That's it, from what I could see. I live in a pretty red area, with people who really don't take to that sort of uncivilized behavior. Even in Albany, Schenectady, and Troy, there's been no reports of it.
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Looting? What's that?
There were a few leaves and branches down. That's it, from what I could see. I live in a pretty red area, with people who really don't take to that sort of uncivilized behavior. Even in Albany, Schenectady, and Troy, there's been no reports of it.
I meant that as NY as a whole.
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I meant that as NY as a whole.
Haven't heard of any.
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Haven't heard of any.
Well, that is good. I figured the burroughs would've been a free-for-all with the evacs.
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Well, that is good. I figured the burroughs would've been a free-for-all with the evacs.
Democrat politicians..."Doing the looting so you don't have too."
Democrat politicians...."Doing the looting Americans won't do."
Democrat politicians....______fill in the blank_________.
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Democrat politicians....______because I can._________.
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WOW! It was a little different story here in the Catskills. I just got back on the grid since 4:00 am Sun morn. A lot of flooding and downed trees. I was OK as long as no trees fell on the house! Its been a long week at work though. Helping all the people that had flooded basments.
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We're going to be buying a generator, and I'm going to buy a couple of more space heaters. I'm thinking of buying a 3,000 watt generator, does that sound like it's enough? Also I never thought of buying a camping stove that you use propane with, I'm starting to rethink that though.
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We're going to be buying a generator, and I'm going to buy a couple of more space heaters. I'm thinking of buying a 3,000 watt generator, does that sound like it's enough? Also I never thought of buying a camping stove that you use propane with, I'm starting to rethink that though.
I'd try and go for 6 or 7KW.
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*ahem (http://www.cumminsonan.com/residential/products/homestandby)* O-)
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I'd try and go for 6 or 7KW.
Umm, I'm a girl, so does 6 or 7KW mean 6,000 or 7,000 Watts? LOL
BTW, I'm talking a portable generator.
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I thought the rule of thumb was to buy a generator that covered 150% of your average monthly electrical usage. I use roughly ~1 kWh of electricity (I think), so I would be okay buying a >2 kWh generator.
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Umm, I'm a girl, so does 6 or 7KW mean 6,000 or 7,000 Watts? LOL
BTW, I'm talking a portable generator.
Kilo means 1000, so a 6KW generator puts out 6000 watts.
I got a 7500KW for us. The well pump, the boiler circulating pump, or the A/C, it can handle those things. It'll go over 5 hours on a tank of gas, and I always have about 25 gallons of gas on hand for tractor, generator, whatever.
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My "average" draw is about 0.8kw.
That said - I have several appliances that draw far more than that at run time - and anything like fridges / freezers draw a lot at startup to charge the caps.
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Seeing that I'm currently in an apartment building, generators are a tough sell . . . but I have a little 800 W generator for a fan and a mini-fridge. When we get a house (soon, I think), we'll get at least a 7.5 kW Guardian which can run off of natural gas.
Chris, I glanced at the site you provided, and I didn't see prices . . . Did I look hard enough?
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Thanks for the info everyone!
I'll look at my electric bill to see what we average, but I saw a nice 6,000W generator, the ad seemed more geared to farmers, but reading the reviews people bought it to run their high energy appliances. I'd like it to just run the refrigerator and freezer, the TV, a lamp, but more importantly we need something strong enough to run the sump pump if the electric goes, and something to run the heater if it's the winter to keep the pipes from freezing.
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Chris, I glanced at the site you provided, and I didn't see prices . . . Did I look hard enough?
There is a "Request a Quote" hyperlink button on that page.
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Thanks for the info everyone!
I'll look at my electric bill to see what we average, but I saw a nice 6,000W generator, the ad seemed more geared to farmers, but reading the reviews people bought it to run their high energy appliances. I'd like it to just run the refrigerator and freezer, the TV, a lamp, but more importantly we need something strong enough to run the sump pump if the electric goes, and something to run the heater if it's the winter to keep the pipes from freezing.
Beware of running the TV, or any other electronic stuff, like computers. Their innards are really susceptible to damage from power surges.
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Beware of running the TV, or any other electronic stuff, like computers. Their innards are really susceptible to damage from power surges.
That is why a high quality surge protector/suppressor is a must.
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Beware of running the TV, or any other electronic stuff, like computers. Their innards are really susceptible to damage from power surges.
Thanks! I wouldn't run the computer, I can just use my phone to get on the internet, and I would just hook up the small TV in the kitchen because of boredom.
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There is a "Request a Quote" hyperlink button on that page.
So, then . . . the answer to my question is "No, I didn't." ::) :o
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That is why a high quality surge protector/suppressor is a must.
Really what you need for running sensitive electronics on a generator is a proper power filter, as most surge protectors won't protect you from undervolt or out of phase issues.
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Everything (almost) you wanted to know about power conditioners.
A place for power conditioners (http://www.temcotransformer.com/powerconditioner.html)
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Really what you need for running sensitive electronics on a generator is a proper power filter, as most surge protectors won't protect you from undervolt or out of phase issues.
The three that we use are also battery back up units that do provide the undervoltage protection. What are phase issues when dealing with 120 VAC single phase?
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The three that we use are also battery back up units that do provide the undervoltage protection. What are phase issues when dealing with 120 VAC single phase?
If for any reason you're not getting the desired 50hz or 60hz out of the line.