Welcome back. There most definitely was a “white squall” today. Dow down 1,000 points only to recover with a loss of “only” 347. Financial panic the last few days…
Thank you for sharing this lesson. You’re right - being without power is the only way to realize where the weak points are. And it’s certainly better to do it in a drill than wait for it to happen for real.
Welcome back. There most definitely was a “white squall” today. Dow down 1,000 points only to recover with a loss of “only” 347. Financial panic the last few days…
Thank you for sharing this lesson. You’re right - being without power is the only way to realize where the weak points are. And it’s certainly better to do it in a drill than wait for it to happen for real.
I always remember in UK when the ‘wrong type of snow’ brought down both 11KV & 33KV power lines to the town. No power for 1 week! BBQs in the snow.
For Long Term if the SHTF then one would need other / more permanent solutions. For portability and short outage especially in city housing one can’t beat a Portable Generator. (Honda, Hyundai, Yamaha to name a few), especially if you have city gas.
The latest generators are small, Whisper Quiet and have Mains Voltage & DC Power Output Sockets. 1 KW may suffice, 2KW about perfect. They can last up to 6-10 hours on 1 tank of fuel depending on model.
Where the electricity comes into the flat/ house there will be a meter and fuse or circuit breaker box. Turn off the big switch which isolates the house from the grid. Next turn off large consumers on the breaker box (electric showers, cookers, hot water boilers ) disconnect hot water kettles. Place the generator in a dry but well ventilated location. Make up a cable which connects the generator mains socket to a mains socket in the house, this will back feed electricity into the main fuse box and power any remaining circuits. You MUST disconnect the grid mains from the house first though! Power = Volts *Amps . (Ignoring Power Factor) ; 2000W/ 240V = 8.3A or 2000W/110V = approx 18Amps. Use a suitably sized cable.
The generator has enough power to run several lights plus keep an efficient fridge working and if you have city gas it will run the boiler electrics and the circulation pump. Very quickly you have light, heat and bath hot water whilst the majority of the rest of the street will likely be in darkness and cold.! The only lit up house in the street may attract some unwelcome attention but that’s another story!
Hi Chris,
as for your refrigerators: What kind of machines do you have? How much energy do they use?
Here in Germany and Europe, most white goods have a so called “Energy Label”. This label makes the energy efficiency visible and comparable to customers in a shop:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label
Examples:
The best refrigerators (without freezer unit) with energy class “A++” and with 144 liters of volume use less than 76 kWh in a year.
One of the best avaiable freezers with 195 liters of volume only needs 113 kWh in a year. If you choose the “big version” of that freezer, it comes with 441 liters of volume and 245 kWh in a year.
So you should not only improve your PV installation, but also invest in some new white goods with the highest energy efficiency class avaiable. I think the investment could break even in a couple of years, because you could save hundreds of dollars per year in energy costs. And of course, you could possibly live with either a smaller PV installation, or use the PV for even more devices. 
There is a guy in Austraila that has been using a energy star freezer for a fridge for a while now. He replaced the thermostat and it operates for about 1 minute an hour…can’t remember the website though. I’m pretty sure I found it on a search for fridgeless living or something like that.
Chris, thanks for clear, honest reporting. I lived through 54-56 hurricanes in Reading with no power for a week and remember the chafing dish meals and seeing Prospect St blocked by 4 or more old maples. In India it is summer and we go 36 hrs. without power. Not enough to charge the inverter. I keep ice bottles to carry refrig. But at new home I have 1 solar light so far. Two inverters: one with 4 batteries to run minimal (for longer time) household, one with 2 batteries solely for security lights. I keep 2 gas tanks. But reading about the prize winning solar cooker from Africa I have 2 boxes, black paint and an intention to make one for myself, then show to an NGO to consider showing villagers. The gutter design for harvesting is in process but the underground 2nd 6,000 ltr tank is built. 26 holes have Rishi Krishi Vedic formula in them getting ready for planting drought tolerant trees with first rain. Two are chikoos or fruit. 16 are a hedge outside compound wall to block future traffic sound and petrol fumes and put nitrogen into the soil that is non-ag and mainly rock. One is a Singapore cherry to bring birds but I could eat the cherries too. Last week I saw a high dust swirl that momentarily jolted my remembering what a tornado was due to the shape, the irregular path it took. Fortunately it was nothing needing my action but it was UNEXPECTED AND STARTLING and that I read is the point of your story.
I follow your expanding presentation opportunities clapping from across the oceans.
Have you or has anyone heard of a potential “global collapse of economies and depression” forecast for first week of August? A friend mentioned this but didn’t remember the exact title of a book by an invester who combined that skill with astrology and his view of synchronicities.
The USD/INR exchange today was a strengthened dollar. It’s at 45+. Went to highest at 51. I’ve seen it at 39+. Have had two men tell me it might go to 30. Manage my money looking at what 38 figures out to be. For practice in thinking what matters.
Buckets are good for washing clothes with no power because they need less water than the bathtub and keep the sink free for washing fruit/ veg and dishes. I also just read clothes used to be washed with only water and with new concentrated detergents manufacturers are counting on our using more than needed wiping out the cost saving. I’ve cut back my amount of liquid.
Onward.
Solar PV systems, generators, inverters, batteries, etc. are great, and I admit I have a lot of these types of things, but I see them as tiems that mitigate normal electricity loss etc for the short term but assume power will return and fuel supplies will be replenished at some point. For longer term preparation I see the most resiliency coming from reducing our needs for the energy to begin with rather than trying to replace it with alternate sources and technology. But perhaps how you prepare is less important than just being prepared to expect the unexpected, the main point I think CM makes.
yes, we discussed this on the homestead site, I thought it was brilliant.
Something I learned to my regret this past winter, when replacing a 30-year-old gas boiler under exigent circumstances. The old boiler had a ‘millivolt generator,’ powered by heat from the gas pilot. Its electrical output operated the thermostat and the main gas valve on the boiler. As a result, no AC power connection was required. As long as gas pressure was available, the boiler could operate.
By contrast, the new boiler needs AC power both to operate the gas valve and a flue damper. If the AC power goes off in a winter snowstorm – no heat!
I’m unhappy with this new dependency of the gas heat on AC power. In the past, we could go away in the winter, confident that the house wouldn’t freeze. Now there’s the possibility of cascading failures – a blizzard fells trees, which cut electrical power, which turns off the heat, which freezes the house and bursts the pipes. Ugly!
There’s something wrong with the mentality that electrical power is omnipresent and ever-available for critical systems. After losing power for a couple of days this spring following a windstorm, we know it’s not.
I live in N.E. Ohio and we all know how great our electric is here. Yes I have First Energy and they still have power outages all the time. You never know how long you will be off line. In order for them to cut cost of labor they dumped all the workers and use now sub-contractors to fix our power outages. They don’t know the streets or the area. Most people here have their own back up systems. It can be 5 days till you get your power back. It don’t take a storm or anything. Just one thing like a car hitting a pole and we’re done for days. God help us if we get a bad storm. It’s only a matter of time before it all goes down again. Our country wont spend a dime on ourself. We will go help every nation but let our nation fall apart. It’s crazy!!
[quote=Woodman]Solar PV systems, generators, inverters, batteries, etc. are great, and I admit I have a lot of these types of things, but I see them as tiems that mitigate normal electricity loss etc for the short term but assume power will return and fuel supplies will be replenished at some point. For longer term preparation I see the most resiliency coming from reducing our needs for the energy to begin with rather than trying to replace it with alternate sources and technology. But perhaps how you prepare is less important than just being prepared to expect the unexpected, the main point I think CM makes.[/quote]Great point, Woodman. It seems to me that Chris’s strategy to cope with power outages is to try to ensure that he has back up energy, in various forms. However, surely the best strategy is to figure how how to best cope with no power at all?
With society still assuming that no collapse will happen, it makes collapse all the more certain. In a collapse situation, how can you be sure to be able to continue topping off those tanks, or to be able to repair that solar panel? How do you know whether you’d be able to replace solar panels as they start to malfunction or get plain broke?
Before collapse, we have an ideal opportunity to figure out how to survive a collapse. We have access to information and resources.
Rain barrels are a good idea, but trying to keep the freezer going isn’t (unless there is a backup mechanism for preserving food).
WOODMAN
YES and YES ! RESILIANCY coming from reducing our needs for the energy. HOW you prepare is less important than just being prepared to EXPECT the UNEXPECTED. Have I read your heart and mind correctly?
Woodman, there was a time when I had a “conventional” view of life. University degree Phi Beta Kappa, husband, family, part time career. I didn’t know words like: karma or destiny, transformation, spiritual. OR “Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal can exist.” Or that my peace and my happiness originated within me. Whatever was outside: people, places, activities important and entertaining – could suddenly leave as when my husband in his early 50’s finished his journey of life, and as we had just moved I had v. little around me familiar. That was a turning point when a man stepped into my life. In words where I could find only truth he told me over the next 7 years my destiny was spiritual, my place India, my work not to be revealed for years beyond the 13 since then, but I was going to learn what truth was. I was going to go from being a “spiritual child” to a “spiritual adult.” Have I at any point since 1997 known what was coming next in my life? BARELY if at all. For reasons beyond my understanding I took his words to heart that when you lose everything you have nothing to fear. I am not fearless but I’ve learned to talk fear, face it and go forward with a deep knowing there is a guidance system in place that a thousand times over has given me the information I needed, even in what I humorously came to call the 11th hour. SO IN YOUR SIMPLE WORDS that I prefer for myself I FIND TRUTH. Nobody knows what’s coming in the next minute, let alone, week, year, decade. CHRIS is the brave, compassionate, “small self-serving ego” and HUGE “selfless service ego in service to all” kind of person I remain on the watch for. I DRAW CLOSE to these people who within my domain add to the energy and direction I practice. Why do we all follow Chris? He’s honest about his view being “of the moment,” he’s quick to respond to a blog comment that is NOT what he is saying, he’s positive about the moment and those coming, and he’s clear that his mistakes (as in the 1% full propane tank) are just the other way of learning. NO judgment. NO criticism. NO blame. FULL of understanding he can provide information that we may take or not take, but each of us is 100% responsible for our decisions. My training included “I was meant to fail because in failing I would look for another way.” When I heard that, as a former teacher and love-focused mother, I would have changed all learning anywhere to that value. Prosper from doing it “right” and prosper from doing it “so it didn’t work” and make another effort. Say “Help” to the universe as that which is the omnipresent energy creating this awesome experience called life.
I have very few “tools” in my toolbox but you wrote in a way that says I could use yours if needed. ONE of my few tools is this: It’s not WHAT happens its HOW you respond. WHY is for me an almost useless word that puts my precious energy trying to figure out basically what creation is, worth a small look at why something may have happened, but it’s much more important that I open to my intuition, creativity, knowledge, and people-skills searching forward movement and resolution to the situation. Another TOOL is to know I don’t know what’s coming and therefore to treasure the strength of RESILIANCY. That’s a stay-float around me that will carry me when I can’t. I’m a manager of a small amount of money and assets relative to what “investors” have for decisions. YET I found CHRIS was a stay-float of most important help for me. Among the many url’s for money management I find bites here and there of information that has served me. I read every day for those. GRATEFUL. Growing. Supporting not by membership for my budget but a 5.00 automatic monthly donation to Chris’ mailbox in MA. It says I use the site, I appreciate the site. I believe in every way of giving.
I end with one of my favorite words: ONWARD.
THANX
My grandparents had what we called an" Ice house " They would cut ice from the pond put it in a rock cave built in the north facing hill ( dug out like a root cellar ), then cover it with straw before harvesting more ice the next cold spell. They had many layers. I was thinking we could use the buckets with lids , fill them 3/4 full of water… leave them out side at night until they freeze then we would line the room and use straw. These could be used over and over and not be so much work as cutting and hauling ice slabs . Anyway I remember this place was cold way into summer . This is where milk , butter and such was kept . I also think it was built over a running spring so that water ran through it at maybe 50 degrees F.
If you made it large enough you might be able to barter with the ice or cold space eventually . Does this make any sense ? Sometimes my ideas are way not practical .
FM .
I agree with Woodman and pjc. Preparing for the short term is good, but what comes after that? A personal example: got a small diesel emergency generator in case the grid goes down. Diesel will run out after time, even on small generators, so I build a tiny emergency generator on woodgas. I will not run out of wood. But a loud generator and a house with the lights on will attrack uninvited guests on a medium to long term emergency. Solar panels on your roof also can be seen as large invitation billboards. Note that I live a crowded country with an excellent bicycle infrastructure.
So: can we do without (much) electricity? Yes, but we have to adopt the sometimes lost skills of our grandparents. One does not need freezers. There are many ways to store food. And who needs tools with a plug?
Knowledge of forgotten skills is what one needs. A creative mind that can make fast switches. Keeping a low profile. Knowing your neighbours. And a will to change, way before change becomes inevitable.
I am not afraid of what is coming. I am not afraid to starve. I am not afraid of my neighbour. The only thing I am afraid of is the big unprepared herd.
Regards,
DJ, Netherlands
Wow, refrigeration without electricity… that’s awesome!
Samuel
Yazaki Solar Air Conditioning Absorption
Has anyone looked or had any experience with one of these things? I have a bunch of thermal solar panels looking for something more to do in the summer, and this looks interesting. Unfortunately the smallest unit it looks like they have is 10 ton, which is probably 5-10x bigger than needed for most residential cooling.
Chris. I’m a veteran of Hurricane Wilma. The eye wall went RIGHT over my house. I was without electricity for 17 days.
You speak the truth. Life without electricity is a system shock (no pun intended).
Folks, after Wilma, I started setting up a 3 months reserve of supplies, year round, to address a future storm. See, when TSHF (the storm hits the fan) around here, people become lunatics during the warning period. I can summarize in one word:
PANIC.
When you do have warning folks, don’t expect to trot down to the supermarket and get all that you need. The shelves will be bare before you get there. And in Florida, the trucks for resupply were coming in by the hour.
Don’t expect gas. I got mine at 2:30 in the morning during the hurricane watch, not warning. The storm was 48 hours out and I still waited an hour in line in the middle of the night.
Don’t expect people to be prepared. With a “this absolutely is going to slam into us” warning, I’d estimate preparation compliance at about 50%. I heard the same rationalization over and over again.
“Ohh don’t worry about it. These things are ALWAYS near misses. Why are you wasting a few hundred dollars on crap that you’ll never use”.
Now, take that scenario, and transpose it to non-hurricane country, (everywhere), imagine no warning, and no resupply.
As a veteran of disaster, It scares the hell out of me. It should scare you too.
Did anyone else watching ‘The Collectors Coach’ get the impression that the girl was reading her lines off her notes?