Post-SHTF Recovery
The storm is long gone. The power has been back on and the house is finally cooled off. But what if another storm comes tomorrow and we lose power again?
Something that is often overlooked is restocking and reorganizing supplies after an event. The 50 gallons of gas that my generator drank up need to be refilled and retreated. That's about $160, so for me it is not something I can do right away, but I got about half done this weekend and will get the rest done next payday.
I'm redoing our blackout kit. I've got a basket on a shelf outside of our pantry that holds our blackout supplies. I've got two headlamps, a couple of flashlights, a LED lantern, some extra batteries, a poncho (in case it is raining when I need to fire up the generators), and the phone number to the power company. We also have flashlights and a lantern beside our bed. For redundancy, I have the number to the power company on the bulletin board over our kitchen wall phone (hard wired and usable as long as the Verizon relay box down the road has power from its UPS batteries) and loaded in the directories on our cell phones.
SHTF Lighting
With the current technology in LED lanterns and small-scale solar, I truly believe that kerosene lanterns are of no further use to us, or are at least on the way out. The wick lanterns are not that bright, anyway. The Aladdin mantel lanterns are very bright, about a 60 watt light bulb, but they are expensive, fragile, and a fire hazard. The chimneys crack, the mantels disintegrate if not treated very gingerly, and they can shoot flame up an out the chimney for no apparent reason - it happened to me one time. You have to store kerosene, along with extra mantels and chimneys. I think LED lanterns, either solar or battery, are really the way to go. I still have two Aladdins, one antique, and one bought for Y2K. I have a half dozen or so mantels and a couple of extra chimneys. I don't store kerosene and really don't plan to. I should probably put them on Craig's list or something and use the money for LED lighting.
those solar yard lights have been a godsend.we have been using them 10 nights now to light the stairwell and general lighting all around the house, and can be used to charge batts for other stuff.a solar lantern from harbor freight has worked well for tasks requiring more light, and we use streamlight survivors as well. turned facing the ceiling they light up the whole room and have lasted hours a night on the same set of batts. we run tv,box,puter and a 40watt cfl on my little solar system (harbor freight, with 4 marine batts). when this is over i will get led's for all the lamps in the house. thinking about a transfer switch to run the solar into and run all the lights in the house. ran into an extension cord problem. several that worked w/ regular power were rejected by my inverter. it detects the tinyest short circuit.i will toss them, no need to invite a fire by powering thru a short in a 10 dollar extension cord.
ReplyDeleteRiverRider - I can't believe you all are on 10 days now. That is outrageous! Sounds like you have a great setup with your HF solar. I know a guy that has that set up for his porch 'fridge. I agree with you on the extension cord, that is not worth skimping on for a few bucks.
ReplyDeleteThanks for keeping us updated on what you are going through.