The Prepper Thread

Bandwagon · Jan 23, 2020

Lightning Lord Rule said:
This is an interesting topic that I've thought about from time to time over the years.

I think you have to start from 2 slightly different questions, which lead to different but possibly overlapping answers:

1. In a homesteading situation, how much of modern life is feasible to become self reliant/self producing?

2. In a disaster/SHTF/Zombie Apoc/whatever situation, what will I be deprived of that I need to stock up on now?

Relating to question 1 and 2, the big one is electricity. If you can become self reliant and make your own electricity, you're way ahead of the game in either situation. Personally I think solar is a dead end in this regard. My own idea is to have a natural gas generator that is sealed up and the waste heat from the generator used for home heating. With the generator hooked up to a battery + inverter system, you can run your normal power needs through only having a gas line hookup instead of having a gas line + electrical power hookup. If you then add a natural gas storage tank to this system to account for interruptions in gas line service you're only limited by the size of the tank(s) you have access to. Natural gas generators are pretty efficient these days, and if you were careful with your power needs you could get 500-1000GAL of natural gas to last quite a while in an emergency. You could also set up the system to be able to hook a portable diesel generator to it as well for a backup to the NG generator.

The downside is the cost of course. You have to pay for the generator, the gas lines, the tank, the battery system, and then engineer a facility designed to direct the heat towards heating something useful in the house. The savings you'll get from that compared to what your power bill currently is is likely negligible at best. But is cost really that much of a concern if you're talking about the situations you're planning for?

Relating to question 2, it's a question of identifying what you really need to survive, and then what would be nice to have that you couldn't get in a situation where the nationwide on-demand supply chain breaks down. I haven't put a lot of thought into this because it's such a broad question. You basically only NEED food, water, shelter to survive, but there's all kinds of things that fall into the nice to have category. The main things I come back to are those water filter straw gizmos I see advertised sometimes, and Night Vision of some kind. NV would be extremely useful in an emergency situation or SHTF situation, and probably more valuable than gold.

Thanks LLR, those 2 points hit the nail on the head. I edited them into the first post.

The generator effort you're describing is pretty much how I'd keep myself busy if I was rich as shit and didn't work. I tell my woman "God help you all if I ever win the lottery" all of the time, because I'd move us even further out into the (warm) country and building "Fort Commune" would be my only hobby. It's either that, or my Restaurant & Man-Campus idea, but that's a different thread. Electricity is definitely the one that I'm always scratching my head about though because that and medicine are about the only things I can think of that I would want, but really can't build anything effective myself. I know that I'm mixing the practical and the interesting components of this whole exercise here. I always end up back at those hand-crank generators or ones that run on motion/movement that people use to charge their cell phones and flashlights on long hikes and shit. Those essentially run on calories and I know how to make fuel for more calories. I don't know how to make fossil fuels, though.

#2 - So you're telling me I need to order one of these pulsar scopes? Can you write a letter to my wife? Maybe tell her I need one of these, too.

Downhammer said:
Having gone through SERE and some other less intense survival training, it is hard to overstate the quality of life improvement from having soy sauce, tabasco, cholula, or some other flavoring to add to your food.

I tried so many fucking times to cross train into SERE instructor when I was enlisted, along with EOD & Aerial Gunner. I get why you can't be colorblind and do the other two, but the SERE one really pissed me off.

Cybsled · Jan 23, 2020

Any self-reliant power system needs redundancy. I knew a guy who went totally off-grid. He had solar, wind, geothermal, and DYI biodiesel. Year round Greenhouses, radiant water heating, self-converted vehicles he could fuel or power himself. He constructed his home with one of those traditional Russian style fireplaces that was giant but the rocks help radiate heat out in the winter.

When an ultra ice storm knocked out power for weeks like 8 years ago, he was living like a king lol

Zaara · Jan 23, 2020

Geographically speaking, we live in the absolute worst place when it comes to a nightmare society-breakdown scenario. Winters can be bad. Urban/suburban area sandwiched between two large cities and bordered mostly by water to the south/east, with few/no viable escape routes to the north that would be passable in a mass exodus event. Proliferation of guns (I think outsiders overestimate massachusetts’ bleeding heart liberalism outside Boston). Huntable wildlife would probably be extirpated within a few months. The number of people living here with appreciable and relevant life skills is real fucking low. Availability of arable land is limited by being on the border of one of the largest marsh/wetlands areas in the state.

We keep road and med kits in both our cars- extensive ones. Blankets and changes of clothes. I horded extra/left over antibiotics. Given our living situation/storage options we can’t do much more to prepare outside of having a 2 week supply of stored water. I keep enough food to last a month and a half, along with powdered milk and other long-term shelf items. No guns, just a machete, a few knives, a can of pepper spray, and baseball bats.

I don’t entertain any hard delusions that I’d last very long in a Mad Max sort of circumstance, but I do have an interest in accruing and writing down knowledge that might come in handy should I ever be in a circumstance where self-sufficiency was forced on me. Silly things, a notebook full of copied-down instructions for how to dry and store potatoes, or how to grow kale, or how to dress a rabbit. Long term water storage options and rotations. How to dig/construct one of those New England cellar pits for storing shit overwinter. Books about pickling. I watch videos about deer hunting and dressage and things like composting. On some level it’s all some ridiculous LARP but it makes me feel better to think I have access to some crude and generalized information that might make me useful if the lights ever go off for good- or if we ever make it out to the country.

Of course I’ve never shot a gun, killed a food animal, or built a shelter. I’ve never grown a yielding plant (though I’ve convinced the landlord to let me take over the vegetable garden in back of the house.) I’d end up dead pretty quick if it came to some hardline End of Days, but at least I could say I went out trying to convince the local Warlord to let me grow potatoes in lieu of getting skullfucked to death.

Captain Suave · Jan 23, 2020

Lightning Lord Rule said:
1. In a homesteading situation, how much of modern life is feasible to become self reliant/self producing?... the big one is electricity. If you can become self reliant and make your own electricity

Depending on your electrical demand and where you live, wind turbines can work well. In the 1930's my grandfather attached one to the windmill pump on the cattle ranch his father homesteaded. It was enough for lights and some other basic uses and they had the first electricity within a couple hundred miles. Of course tech has improved substantially, and with some battery buffer you can power a modern home if you've got good average windspeeds.

Lightning Lord Rule · Jan 23, 2020

Bandwagon said:
Thanks LLR, those 2 points hit the nail on the head. I edited them into the first post.

The generator effort you're describing is pretty much how I'd keep myself busy if I was rich as shit and didn't work. I tell my woman "God help you all if I ever win the lottery" all of the time, because I'd move us even further out into the (warm) country and building "Fort Commune" would be my only hobby. It's either that, or my Restaurant & Man-Campus idea, but that's a different thread. Electricity is definitely the one that I'm always scratching my head about though because that and medicine are about the only things I can think of that I would want, but really can't build anything effective myself. I know that I'm mixing the practical and the interesting components of this whole exercise here. I always end up back at those hand-crank generators or ones that run on motion/movement that people use to charge their cell phones and flashlights on long hikes and shit. Those essentially run on calories and I know how to make fuel for more calories. I don't know how to make fossil fuels, though.

Thanks for the scope link, better than viagra!

As for making your own fossil fuels, sure you can. Fossil fuels have always been misnamed, they don't come from dinosaurs, they come from plants breaking down. You can do that yourself on a small scale, it's almost like making moonshine. A ton of companies are working on avgas alternatives for one, because the oil companies are tired of catering to such a small market with an expensive product. A lot of those alternatives use processes that result in products that are similar to ethanol. It's not nearly as good as stuff you can get now from fuel manufacturers, but it would certainly do in an emergency situation. Then there's biodiesel as was already mentioned.

One of the other answers is also transportation. If you want simple, robust, and able to haul stuff out in the sticks on rough terrain, it's hard to go wrong with an old surplus Deuce and a Half that has a multifuel engine. Just make sure you have some spare tires for it, since they're specialty items.

chthonic-anemos · Jan 23, 2020

re:bugout

Strap on an emergency entry hatchet+hammer+crowbar tri-tool and a camp cook-pot set w/strainer. If you want to carry more than a bag and a gun.

Bandwagon · Jan 23, 2020

Zaara said:
a notebook full of copied-down instructions for how to dry and store potatoes, or how to grow kale, or how to dress a rabbit. Long term water storage options and rotations. How to dig/construct one of those New England cellar pits for storing shit overwinter. Books about pickling.

That's a good point that I haven't thought of in years - A backpack library is something that could use more consideration than a lot of people give it, myself included. I have a couple books in my bag for identifying plants, but that's about it.

Captain Suave said:
Depending on your electrical demand and where you live, wind turbines can work well. In the 1930's my grandfather attached one to the windmill pump on the cattle ranch his father homesteaded. It was enough for lights and some other basic uses and they had the first electricity within a couple hundred miles. Of course tech has improved substantially, and with some battery buffer you can power a modern home if you've got good average windspeeds.

What I really want is to be surrounded by old men like your grandfather and immerse myself in that frontier culture. I love that attitude.

Lightning Lord Rule said:
As for making your own fossil fuels, sure you can. Fossil fuels have always been misnamed, they don't come from dinosaurs, they come from plants breaking down. You can do that yourself on a small scale, it's almost like making moonshine. A ton of companies are working on avgas alternatives for one, because the oil companies are tired of catering to such a small market with an expensive product. A lot of those alternatives use processes that result in products that are similar to ethanol. It's not nearly as good as stuff you can get now from fuel manufacturers, but it would certainly do in an emergency situation. Then there's biodiesel as was already mentioned.

Fuck me, I completely forgot that I've seen people run well pumps off of moonshine before.

You know how there's stuff like home brewing kits, kid's toys where they put together wind turbines or stuff along those lines? I'd really like to see some kind of home kit or recipe/guide for setting up your own self sustaining backyard-sized ecology. How the garden feeds the fish feeds the chickens feeds the humans....making fuel out of organic materials and using that to power an evaporation pump, etc. Every last component is just a fucking rabbit hole that you could lose yourself in when you start trying to learn how to set it all up and some kind of kit sounds like a fun way to learn how it can all interact.

I've seen it before, but I can't remember the show it was on. The whole reason I started watching Doomsday preppers when it was on streaming was because of this backyard setup I remember seeing on a show like it. Some guy had his backyard pool converted to a tilapia farm and half of it was covered by a big ass chicken coop. Chickens shit directly in the water, there was some kind of plant in the water that attracted bugs for the chickens to eat, and it ran on very little electricity. I don't remember how he had the electric portion set up. Anyways, Doomsday preppers is a lot crazier than whatever show I watched that on.

Lanx · Jan 23, 2020

Downhammer said:
Having gone through SERE and some other less intense survival training, it is hard to overstate the quality of life improvement from having soy sauce, tabasco, cholula, or some other flavoring to add to your food.

i guess when shit hits the fan, you're gonna target the black guy to get his bag of condiments

Lanx · Jan 23, 2020

Bandwagon said:
That's a good point that I haven't thought of in years - A backpack library is something that could use more consideration than a lot of people give it, myself included. I have a couple books in my bag for identifying plants, but that's about it.

naw just take an old smartphone/kindle and torrent the usual assortment of survival pdfs

bushcraft 101
sas survival guide

or just search for "prepper ebook collection" etc

Cybsled · Jan 23, 2020

Zaara said:
Proliferation of guns (I think outsiders overestimate massachusetts’ bleeding heart liberalism outside Boston

This is true. Western Mass as you near the Berkshires becomes Banjo Land real fast lol. It’s kind of funny, though, because Western Mass has the 5 college area liberal core surrounded by lots of traditional rural population, so you’ll see Warren and Trump bumper stickers at the same Trader Joe’s

Oldbased · Jan 23, 2020

I keep a pretty comprehensive med backpack and 6 months of very vital medications in it that I swap out each month with new pills and take the older ones ( blood thinners, metoprol and so forth ). I've bought low power things for the home the past few years such as usb powered desk lamps that I use daily but would run on a little battery pack for days before needing a charge. I have several solar kits ranging from 15 to 100 watts that I've tested and keep them stored to recharge such packs. I have a gas generator that could almost power the house now but my favorite is my battery gen that I can plug said solar into to recharge that has a decent converter and a 1000watt output. It is light and functional and I have roughly 100 rechargeable batteries of various sizes we use and rotate between things.

Up till recently I used to have barrel fuel delivered ( started back in my racing days when I needed leaded fuel ) but I stopped doing that to cost and maintenance of it all.
Food wise I keep rice and bean buckets but mostly moved to revolving mountain house products as they keep 30 years and are as tasty as most anything you could make in a normal meal. 6 months for 2 people roughly food supply. We have a single water blue barrel I keep filled and sealed we pump out every few months and refill and some smaller 4 gallon ones. Probably could stretch that a few months and we got several life straws and iodine pills and such to purify more.

Of course I have multiple guns and a fair amount of ammo, knives, hatchets and other assorted gear.

I am not as prepared as I used to be, and not as much as I want to be, but I've learned to minimize cost and include many of the things into normal day to day life as I can. All in all the maintenance of it all is a hour a month on average.

chthonic-anemos · Jan 23, 2020

Zaara said:
Geographically speaking, we live in the absolute worst place when it comes to a nightmare society-breakdown scenario. Winters can be bad. Urban/suburban area sandwiched between two large cities and bordered mostly by water to the south/east, with few/no viable escape routes to the north that would be passable in a mass exodus event. Proliferation of guns (I think outsiders overestimate massachusetts’ bleeding heart liberalism outside Boston). Huntable wildlife would probably be extirpated within a few months. The number of people living here with appreciable and relevant life skills is real fucking low. Availability of arable land is limited by being on the border of one of the largest marsh/wetlands areas in the state.

We keep road and med kits in both our cars- extensive ones. Blankets and changes of clothes. I horded extra/left over antibiotics. Given our living situation/storage options we can’t do much more to prepare outside of having a 2 week supply of stored water. I keep enough food to last a month and a half, along with powdered milk and other long-term shelf items. No guns, just a machete, a few knives, a can of pepper spray, and baseball bats.

I don’t entertain any hard delusions that I’d last very long in a Mad Max sort of circumstance, but I do have an interest in accruing and writing down knowledge that might come in handy should I ever be in a circumstance where self-sufficiency was forced on me. Silly things, a notebook full of copied-down instructions for how to dry and store potatoes, or how to grow kale, or how to dress a rabbit. Long term water storage options and rotations. How to dig/construct one of those New England cellar pits for storing shit overwinter. Books about pickling. I watch videos about deer hunting and dressage and things like composting. On some level it’s all some ridiculous LARP but it makes me feel better to think I have access to some crude and generalized information that might make me useful if the lights ever go off for good- or if we ever make it out to the country.

Of course I’ve never shot a gun, killed a food animal, or built a shelter. I’ve never grown a yielding plant (though I’ve convinced the landlord to let me take over the vegetable garden in back of the house.) I’d end up dead pretty quick if it came to some hardline End of Days, but at least I could say I went out trying to convince the local Warlord to let me grow potatoes in lieu of getting skullfucked to death.

Water? Boat out of the shit zone.

Bandwagon · Jan 23, 2020

That's what I'm talking about,

Oldbased - No huge life changes, just factoring in some sort of prepper mindset in the life already being lived. I finally got my wife to start cooking these big bags of beans I got a long time ago because her mom showed her an awesome crock pot recipe. The sous vide actually helped her a lot because now she knows how easy it is to make good food. There's a mormon grocery store that just opened up across the street from my work and half of the store is dry bulk food, so we're going to stock up on a couple things from there after we spend half a saturday looking at some recipes for shit we can make with 100% long term storage type food.

I haven't tried the mountain house stuff, but ate a shit ton of MREs in my early 20s. Most of them are actually pretty good. Sure as hell better than my mom's cooking, at least.

Lanx · Jan 23, 2020

Bandwagon said:
That's what I'm talking about, Oldbased The sous vide actually helped her a lot because now she knows how easy it is to make good food.

Most of them are actually pretty good. Sure as hell better than my mom's cooking, at least.

you sound like you have bad luck w/ women in the kitchen.

Bandwagon · Jan 23, 2020

Lanx said:
you sound like you have bad luck w/ women in the kitchen.

I'm 34 and I grew up in Oregon. Most of the women I used to date are cunty liberal feminists that protest anything that could be considered "woman's work", but that sure as shit doesn't mean they sign up for any "man work".

I've dated exactly one woman that can cook better than me, and she was the daughter of a cattle rancher from rural Oregon. Badass FF/Paramedic, too. Took me 30 years to get my priorities straight.

I think I'm just realizing that my mom is and always has been a 19 year old millennial girl.

Oldbased · Jan 23, 2020

Bandwagon said:
That's what I'm talking about, Oldbased - No huge life changes, just factoring in some sort of prepper mindset in the life already being lived. I finally got my wife to start cooking these big bags of beans I got a long time ago because her mom showed her an awesome crock pot recipe. The sous vide actually helped her a lot because now she knows how easy it is to make good food. There's a mormon grocery store that just opened up across the street from my work and half of the store is dry bulk food, so we're going to stock up on a couple things from there after we spend half a saturday looking at some recipes for shit we can make with 100% long term storage type food.

I haven't tried the mountain house stuff, but ate a shit ton of MREs in my early 20s. Most of them are actually pretty good. Sure as hell better than my mom's cooking, at least.

For me, the scale back was how fast I was noticing technology surpassing old methods. The onset of low cost lithium power generators with solar adapters cheaper than old gas/propane generators. The fact most survival guides mention lamp lights and flashlights using old battery tech when you can order functional led desk lamps with usb plugs on amazon for $14 that are bright enough to light a room and only take 5 volt/2amp to power( any of those cheap $10 10000mah + battery pack could power one for days and is easily charged with $30 low watt solar chargers ). Mountain House selling backpacker food that is hamburger helper quality that lasts 30 years compared to survival ration protein bricks that taste like dirt. The additional of life straw technology which gives you large sources of drinkable water for $10 a stick.
Involve all this new tech and being prepared becomes much simpler and cheaper than someone who invested many thousands just 10 years ago.

If power goes out, I have a heating solution to keep the house 50-60 down to 0 for a week+ with lights and food and water. If the world goes to shit I can survive months without leaving the home. My plan revolves around the fact I must just simply survive longer than others, then I can use their resources and the means to protect the things I have. Simple really and cheap.

Don't get me wrong, if I had the money I would love a solar roof and power walls and dedicated house gens and stuff, but I am way better prepared than 90% of the population and for a cost under $1000 total.

Screamfeeder · Jan 23, 2020

Lightning Lord Rule said:
Two posts with a lot of good information.

I'm actually curious about your thoughts on why a NG station or biodiesal manufacturing facility are more feasible than say solar, wind or geothermal. It is just because of environmental factors?

My brother and I did a test run with manufacturing our own biodiesel at our high-mountain location and found that the work required was simply too much to be sustainable for more than a month. Including the fact that we had to constantly repair equipment and relied on ordering specific ingredients, we discovered it was much easier to use water and wind turbines to power what little electricity needs we had at the cabin. Just the amount of time to make our own lye was draining when we could have been doing something else more important for long term survival.

Lanx · Jan 23, 2020

Bandwagon said:
I'm 34 and I grew up in Oregon. Most of the women I used to date are cunty liberal feminists that protest anything that could be considered "woman's work", but that sure as shit doesn't mean they sign up for any "man work".

I've dated exactly one woman that can cook better than me, and she was the daughter of a cattle rancher from rural Oregon. Badass FF/Paramedic, too. Took me 30 years to get my priorities straight.

I think I'm just realizing that my mom is and always has been a 19 year old millennial girl.

btw i'm not tooting my luck, i have heart palpatations whenever my wife is in the kitchen for more than 30s, beyond grabbing a drink i worry for her safety.

Bandwagon · Jan 23, 2020

Yea, I think that a generator & backup heating is going to be the first thing I tackle. Not even a real prepper thing. I think that's just common sense that I've been neglecting and it's bugged me every winter since my daughter was born. We lose power at least once every winter and it usually lasts for 1-3 hours. Every time it happens, my first thought it "I have no plan for what happens if it doesn't come back on before the house starts freezing".

Lanx · Jan 23, 2020

Bandwagon said:
Yea, I think that a generator & backup heating is going to be the first thing I tackle. Not even a real prepper thing. I think that's just common sense that I've been neglecting and it's bugged me every winter since my daughter was born. We lose power at least once every winter and it usually lasts for 1-3 hours. Every time it happens, my first thought it "I have no plan for what happens if it doesn't come back on before the house starts freezing".

not prepper related, when i went on vacay i turned off the main water/turn off boiler, gas to the boiler and turned off automatic furnace. i tried as hard as i could last year to insulate a 2700 sq/ft home and it took 3 days for the internal house to hit zero (i have a smart thermostat on wifi i monitored while i was away along w/ security cams).

edit: when i said zero, i mean 32f, for some reason the app detected i was in korea and switched celcius to tell me temp

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The Prepper Thread

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Kolohe

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Zaara

I'm With HER ♀

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Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.

Il_Duce Lightning Lord Rule

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chthonic-anemos

bitchute.com/video/EvyOjOORbg5l/

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