Cheap Solar Lantern

I am up and down several times a night dealing with the dogs and my own small bladder. There is nothing that irritates me more than stepping on a half eaten dog bone or worse kicking a dog in the middle of the night. I wanted a night light that would give plenty of illumination and not draw from the battery bank.

I picked up a bunch of cheap LED rechargeable garden lights at walmart for four dollars each. Then took a water jug, cut the top out and filled it about halfway up with dirt. Stick seven of the lights down into the dirt and poof you have a cheap rechargeable solar lantern.

A solid day worth of charging will give a few nights worth of light just remember to set it out in the sun every day or so. When I get up to make coffee I put the lanterns on the deck to charge for the day. One of Axel's chores is to monitor the charging process. He does the job well.

In the winter just set the buckets in a south facing window. One of the kitchen windows and the sun room are both south facing. You will get plenty of sunshine to keep the lights charged without worrying about moving the buckets outside during the day.

This lantern actually puts out enough light to read by. The handle in the water jug makes the lantern easy to move and you can break the lights apart and place them where needed. Unlike fancy store bought solar lanterns which will only work for six or so hours this lantern will stay lite for at least two full nights on one charge.

Budget Survival - Garden Support Jobs

Large home gardens will become commonplace in the post collapse society. As food prices soar more and more people will convert those manicured lawns into lush vegetable gardens capable of sustaining their families. Regional industry and needed jobs will be developed to support these home horticulturists.

Garden tilling will become a necessary and steady job in the post collapse society. No one has a tiller and hand turning a one acre sod covered lawn using a spade and hoe is backbreaking work. I would recommend purchasing an old tiller and either loaning out the device for trade or tilling for profit.

Canning and dehydrating foods is another lost art poised to make a strong return. Vegetables grown in the summer must be preserved to last the family through the winter. Visit you local Goodwill and pick up as many old pressure cookers as you can find. Purchase a couple of books on canning and start looking for old mason jars at garage sales. The home farmer brings his produce to your home for canning. You take a certain percent of the finished product as payment. Bartering at its best. Try to find some old dehydrators and instruction manuals this is an added service to your customers.

Heirloom seeds are the saviors of the human race. Hybird seeds that most people pick up at the store cannot be grown from season to season, they are sterile by design. Order a large inexpensive supply of non-hybrid seeds which can be grown season after season and sell them after the collapse. Once the crops have matured return to the farmer and offer to retrieve and dry his seeds for next season. You take a percent of the dried seeds as payment.

If you raise livestock the meat and dairy will not be the only products. Manure can be sold for fertilizer. Purchase a small wagon to haul behind your Geo Metro. Get orders in the winter. During planting season and in the fall deliver and spread the new black gold trading for a percent of the crops or profit.

Knowledge is your greatest asset in this environment. If you know the produce and how to grow it you become a valuable member of the community.

Budget Survival - Window Box Room Heater

When I think of cottage commerce for the post collapse society I see items like passive solar heaters manufactured from the shelled out remains of McMansions and insulated shutters built from the gutted remnants of the defunct strip malls that surrounding every city center as the new regional industries.

With the lumber from one backyard privacy fence and the duct work pulled from a couple of 4000 square foot tributes to illusionary affluence you could build several hundred of these simple yet elegant free heating systems. Salvage the nails, pull a few windows, assemble and you are set. You will just need a recipe for some flat black paint to coat the collectors.

They could easily be installed in small existing homes with a nicely exposed southern windows or hung from cut holes in the side of your survival trailer. The small, well insulated homes with good southern sun will be the mansions for post peak world.

Insulating those new compact homes is another cottage industry. Think of the billions of square feet of fiberglass insulation that will be rotting in those huge strip malls and uninhabitable suburban homes. A wonderful trade item would be custom made insulated shutter for windows. They would be closed at night to retain daytime heat and provide an additional layer of protection for the family snuggled inside.

For the post collapse society money will be of a much lesser value if not completely worthless. If you cannot grow your own food you will need to provide meaningful items for trade. Without fuel oil or natural gas supply structures people absolutely must have an alternative method for heating. They will die with out it.

Speaking of growing food. Those millions of square feet of plate glass currently sitting in the offices building and malls of this country could be easily retasked into tough greenhouse coverings. They would make good quality well insulated greenhouses...unless of course the zombie hordes break all the windows.

Survival Car

Survival is defined as "living or continuing longer than, or beyond the existence of, another person, thing, or event; an outliving."

The new Bug Out Vehicle is a 1978 Ford Fiesta. These small tough cars were made in Germany and very much remind me of the old VW Beetles or early generation Rabbits. The car is very speedy, maneuverable and fun to drive. This ugly little orange beast has a 1.6 liter engine with a 4 speed manual transmission and gets about 44 miles to the gallon.

The Fiesta is one of several ultra fuel efficient models delivered during the oil embargos of the 70’s. Automakers quickly responded to the skyrocketing gas prices by building and delivering economical automobiles based on high fuel standards. They were small, simple vehicles built soundly and offered to the public at a reasonable price.

A survivalist does not simply prepare for the future downfall of our social/economic structure by stocking beans and bullets. They must be flexible enough to adapt to the environment as it comes apart…adjusting until a time when we remove ourselves from the ruins and zombie hordes. Stay ahead of the curve.

Staying ahead of the curve is exactly what I hope to accomplish with this small old car. By cutting my monthly fuel cost by 80% I can continue buying those beans and bullets.

Many people are considering the purchase of a new hybrid…I would recommend against this. This is unsupported debt in a time of unparalleled economic turmoil. The Prius for instance may get slightly higher gas mileage than the Fiesta…but I picked up the Fiesta for $500!

Craigslist.com is a great resource; it’s where I found the Fiesta. I called soon after the posting and went to test drive the car. Ten other people had called by the time I got there. Apparently older fuel efficient cars are in demand today.

The truck is staying but will only be used for hauling.

The auto industry really should dust off these old blue prints and start producing inexpensive fuel efficient vehicles again.

Budget Survival - Solar Oven

Solar Oven - Improved Model

The new model solar oven is simple to build, easy to move and captures a great deal of heat. An old coffee can and lid painted flat black was used as a pot. A variety of beans were prepared daily during my stay at Bear Ridge using this setup.

The solar oven I built back in December of last year was grossly over constructed and very heavy. That unit was a 2x2 foot box that tapers from 14” to 10” on the sides. It was lined with sheet metal painted black and there was a one inch gap between the metal and the wood. The front was covered with an old storm window. The temperature inside this unit was between 150 and 170 degrees.

The new solar oven was constructed using an old post office tote, a reflective emergency blanket, a piece of glass and a couple of bungee cords. Take your emergency blanket and place it over the tote. Secure the blanket around the top of the tote with the bungee cords, make sure the blanket is tight across the top of the tote.

Place you cooking can in the center of the emergency blanket and push it down until it rest on the bottom of the tote. The emergency blanket should now slope down from the totes lip to the cooking can. Cover with glass and allow the food to cook for several hours. The temperature hovered between 170 to 190 degrees. Beans were cooked through the day. It worked great...just like a crock pot.

This unit is very light weight and can be easily moved for maximum solar gain. We will need to see if this design works in the winter months. Although most winter cooking of this sort is done in a dutch over on top of the wood stove.

Total cost for this solar oven was roughly three dollars.

Budget Survival – Survival Trailer

The point of the survival trailer is to live rent and mortgage free allowing you to either save considerable amounts of money, quickly pay down debt or buy a few homesteading acres to eventually settle. One payment and you have a transportable home. You are not tied to a city during an economic collapse because you cannot sell your house or fighting to come up with first month rent, deposit and moving money to get you to a new city. Simply hook your house up and move it wherever there are jobs.

Recently I seriously considered this as a lifestyle change when I happened across a twenty five foot Holiday Rambler Deluxe Travel Trailer. The old boy only wanted twelve hundred dollars for the fine example of early 1970’s luxury camping accommodations. He said it was missing the refrigerator and toilet but other than that it was in excellent shape. My cabin does not have a toilet or refrigerator either so that was not a great concern. He exaggerated slightly about the shape but I will get to that in a minute.

What necessities did this home on wheels need to make it livable for me. To be honest not a lot, most of the change would need to be reduction and simplification on my part, which must happen anyway. It needed a lot of windows to combat claustrophobia, an air conditioner to keep the dogs cool on warm days and storage enough for at least a years worth of food (fifteen five gallon buckets). It easily met all of my requirements.

The inside would need considerable work, carpet replaced, bedroom redesigned with more under bed storage for buckets, biblical cleaning but otherwise the lay out was good and it was doable. Best of all you could do it while staying in the trailer and it would not cost a huge amount.

Two close people could live in this trailer. It would be very cramped but with two rooms at least you could get away from each other. If you had children I would not recommend it. Yes the couch would make out into a bed but that is a lot of bodies inside a two hundred square foot metal box. Additionally I think one person could possibly get by inside a cab over truck camper. These can be picked up for a few hundred dollars. I have two little dogs and a partner so the cab over option would not work.

The Holiday Rambler was a giant heavy thing. You can pick up these behemoths for next to nothing on Craigs List or eBay when you can find them. With gas so expensive it is not economically sound to tow them here and there for vacations but they are ideal for long term stay. Remember you need to have a vehicle that can pull the monsters.

For an information technology contractor like myself it would be ideal. When a job is up or you are bored, just unplug the house, roll up the awning, hitch it up and go. You are only limited by water obstacles. Even living at the cabin it would be helpful to have a home on wheels if I needed to work a few months out of the year.

I drove past a KOA campground on the way back into town this weekend. I noticed at least forty trailers on the grounds. Most of them had skirting to the ground and looked like long duration say units…in other words survival trailers. Out of curiosity I called the campground and a month stay is four hundred and thirty five. Amenities include wireless internet, 30 amp power, restroom/shower facilities, laundry, heated pool, hot tub, kennel and an exercise room.

KOA would be on the high end. I’m not sure what lot rent would run at a mobile home park but probably between two and three hundred. Parking behind a friends place or squatting on someone’s land would be free although with squatting you would have no power without solar panels.

My happy camper salesman did embellish the condition of the Holiday Rambler a bit. Not only were the refrigerator and toilet missing but also the heating and water systems. It had obviously been used as a survival trailer before, it was wired for phone service and the power outlets were connected to the outside directly with an extension cord. Also he did not have a title for the camper and I am pretty sure it was used as a meth lab due to the odd ventilation fans. But hey, no deal is perfect.

I had to pass on this one but will be keeping my eyes open. If you want to read more on Survival Trailer living check out Bison Survival Blog.

Budget Survival – Cheap Water Heating

When I first decided to build at Bear Ridge the one thing that I could not do without was a hot tub. There is nothing better than sitting in steaming water under an open canopy of stars. It was something I had to have. The two problems were lack of water and a method to heat it. Capturing rain provided plenty of water but heating it was slightly more involved.

Passive Solar

When I first started making the trips down there I would carry water in blue seven gallon plastic jugs. If I needed a shower the jug would be placed in the sun all day and by evening the water would be a comfortable temperature. I would take the jug into the bathroom, drop the water pump feeder hose for the into the top and shower. Real simple…cost nothing.

The main problem with using this solar heating method was that you had to have good sun. If it was cloudy no go, and forget about taking a shower in the morning or in the winter.

This summer I plan on taking an old refrigerator, removing the door and with a glass cover using this as a water heater for showering and such. The insulated refrigerator should keep the water warm throughout the night.

Propane Water Heater

I set out to build an efficient off grid water heating system that could be used to heat the hot tub or water for showering and dishes. The heater needed to warm the water quickly and be easily transported. This is what I came up with.

I took twenty feet of 3/8 inch copper pipe (HomeDepot $40) and rolled it around an old coffee can leaving a foot sticking out at the top and bottom, this is my heating coil. I then attached eight foot of garden hose to both ends of the copper with hose clamps. The bottom inbound hose is attached with hose clamps to a 12 volt bilge pump (Walmart $10). The top outbound hose needs a flow control valve (HomeDepot $10) attached to its end.

Get a turkey fryer, everyone has an old one of these laying around in the garage (new one run about $40). A gas grill will not work. Gas grills produce around 9000 BTU and that is not nearly enough, turkey fryers can generate 120000 BTU. You also need a twenty pound bottle of propane.

Place your heating coil over the burner so the heat is directed up through the center. Stack bricks around three sides of your coil then place a paver over the top. The side with the inbound and outbound hoses should be left open. Stack the bricks as close to the coil as possible.

Fully open the flow control and drop the bilge pump and outbound hose in the water tank. My water tank is a one hundred gallon stock tank and being that I am a chunky bitch I only need about 50 gallons of water to comfortably soak. Plug the bilge pump into the 12 volt power source and get the water flowing.

Once the water is moving light the turkey fryer. The water leaving output hose 30 to 40 degrees hotter than the water sitting in the tank. You should reduce the flow as much as possible, the longer the water is in the heat the warmer it gets. The bilge pump being used moves 450 gallons per hour not a lot but it is really efficient. My hot tub can be warmed to over 110 degrees in under an hour and the entire system can be carried by hand.

Do not use this heater indoors, it will kill you.

The next time I do this I will use forty feet of 1/4 inch copper tubing.

I was going to include a picture but the thing is in the backyard under about three feet of snow and I couldn't exactly remember where I put it.

Wood Heater

The next project is a wood burning heater based on the same principle with a copper tube lining a round barrel. Trash and scrap lumber can be utilized to bring the water to a nice temperature.

Budget Survival - Rain Water Collection

When I was six my dad decided he wanted to be a farmer. So he rented forty acres of rich river bottom land in northeast Missouri, very good soil but prone to flooding. Mom, dad and the three of us boys moved into a small farmhouse on the land.

The five hundred square foot house had a good producing well but you couldn't use it because pesticides from continued farming had leached into the ground water. Water for household use was pumped from a two thousand gallon cistern located under the house. The cistern was stocked by rain water and snow melt, and was only used for dish washing, showers and laundry. We got drinking water from my grand parents who lived in the nearest town. We never ran out of water.

Jump forward thirty some years. I wanted a soaking tub under the stars at the cabin. There is no well yet and it seemed wasteful to haul water for a hot tub. One summer evening, on a whim, I put one of the downspouts from the gutter into the one hundred gallon tub I had for soaking.

The cabin is located in the desert southwest and during the summer we get these huge monsoon rainstorms. Anyway, this big thunderstorm rolled in and within about fifteen minutes not only was the one hundred gallon tub full, it was overflowing!

Here is the math, there are 7.48 gallons of water per cubic foot. This breaks down to .62 gallons of water per inch per square foot. For the sake of ease and to take evaporation into account let's round it down to .50 gallons per inch per square foot. The roof is a little over six hundred square foot, so I can collect three hundred gallons of water per inch of rain. So even in the deep desert where you see maybe ten inches of rain a year you are still able to collect three thousand gallons.

One inch of rain on one square foot of roof yields 1/2 gallon of water

In a survival situation it would make sense to have some tarps that could be rigged to collect rain. A ten by ten foot tarp would deliver fifty gallons of water for every inch of rain, that's a lot of water that does not need to be transported to your retreat site, you just take the tarp. If you are hunkered down in your house you could divert your down spouts into a large trashcan or barrel to collect relatively clean water. If the water is roof runoff it should be boiled or at least filtered with a few drops of bleach added.

Keep at least one gallon of drinking water per person per day. I use plastic five gallon "water cooler" containers with screw on tops. The ones I picked up at Wal-Mart have a really nice carrying handle and screw on caps. I found a couple of old non electric freestanding water dispensers for a couple of bucks at the local ARC (just like Good Will). I keep one at the cabin and one at the house, they work great.

You need to keep enough drinking water for a couple of weeks on hand but for a long term crisis it would be prudent to gather rainwater. If nothing else your clean water supply could be kept for consumption, using the rainwater for cleaning and showers.

Next week I will talk about a really inexpensive way to heat water.

Budget Survival - Composting Toilets

Composting Toilets - They Ain't For Sissies.

A few years ago I decided I needed a proper toilet, enough going in the woods. We could not afford a septic tank and plumbing system so I decided to go with a temporary composting or chemical toilet. Then install the septic when the well was drilled. Here are my experiences with these evil but necessary conveniences.

Chemical Toilets Are Nasty

My partners parents had a small chemical toilet which we put in the bathroom at the cabin. This unit held four gallons of waste product and had a pump flush, I thought I was in Graceland it was so nice. Anyway, the thing really smelled bad, I used the blue deodorant you can buy and it helped a little but during the summer it nearly drove us out.

When you “flush” it simply opens a retractable cover in the bottom of the bowl exposing a wet mound of fecal material and urine. The smell is somewhat cut down when the unit is closed up but it was still bad and attracted millions of flies. Imagine one of those porta-potty units that you see at fairs and construction sites sitting in your house. The worst part was emptying the thing. You take the container part off the bottom of the stool and find a place to dump it. I took mine to the local state park and dumped it down the permanent porta-potty hole, which consists of a building over a twenty foot deep poop pit. It stunk and got everywhere.

Commercial Composting Toilets

Now this looked like the answers to my prayers. These units hold many gallons of waste in a large composting bin that you stir one a week. When full simply transferred the product to your larger outdoor composting pile and let stand for a year or so. These units needed venting for odor and most require some heat and a bacteria activating agents. They were tastefully designed and would fit in the bathroom.

The big drawback for me was the cost. The low end units start at around one thousand and go up, and when a septic system would run twenty five hundred I couldn’t really justify the cost. Especially when they are essentially nothing more than big stinky buckets.

Sawdust Composting Toilets

Looking at different methods of waste elimination online I came across a book called the Humanure Handbook. It advocated a cheap and effective human waste composting systems that used 5 gallon buckets, sawdust and an outdoor composting pile. I have to admit , at first it looked to good to be true. I assumed that the unit would smell horrible, and the thought of an open bucket of poo in the house didn't really sit well either.

In a nutshell the system consists of five 5 gallon buckets with tight fitting lids, a box to fit over the 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat mounted on it and sawdust. A composting pile also needs to be constructed away from the house where you deposit the humanure to roast in the sun for a couple of years.

Put a bucket in the box and use it as you would any toilet. After making a deposit, cover the waste product with sawdust and close the toilet seat lid. When the container is nearly full put the lid on it and replace it with an empty bucket. On the fifth bucket take the others out and empty them on the compost pile. Wash the emptied buckets with warm soapy water then leave them in the sun to dry. Do not use bleach or antibacterial soap on the buckets, it will kill the good bacteria necessary for composting. The UV rays from the sunlight will disinfect and kill any bad germs in the buckets.

This is a great method and will only set you back about forty dollars compared to over a thousand for a commercial composting toilet. No smell, no flies and you are making a super mulch for the garden. You only need to make the trip to the compost pile about once a month, it is a very simple elegant system.

The author of the book recommends that you use wet sawdust from trees, not processed lumber. This was a problem for me and I ended up using dead leaves and dirt from under trees. It actually worked better than the sawdust and I didn’t need to cart the stuff from downed trees or a lumber mill. Cooled ashes work great to cover the smell but they don’t compost well and are not recommended.

Also I usually don’t urinate in the buckets, this extends the amount of time it takes to fill the units. Urine can be collected separately, mixed one to five with rain water and put on your trees. Or just pee outside.

Don’t let the full buckets freeze, they don’t like to empty if they are frozen. Be careful if you have bears in your area. I sat a couple of full buckets out behind the cabin this summer and a bear carried them halfway up the ridge. He didn’t get the lids off but there were huge tooth holes in the sides where they tried to chew through the plastic.

I highly recommend this method of waste management if you do not yet have a septic system. It also can be used as a backup toilet if you lose power or water.

HexaYurts - Easy Survival Structures

I don't know why I didn't think of this. It solves several problems for me; a warm sleeping structure on the ridge and an easily moved, insulated greenhouse.

This construction method utilizes four by eight foot foam panels and allows you to easily and cheaply build a small survival cabin. For a few hundred bucks you have a structure that, they claim, will last for twenty years. It would be warm in the winter and cool in the hot deserts. With proper venting you could use a military style wood fired tent stove for supplemental heat and a simper mister would "air condition" your summers days.

HexaYurts use foam insulation panels from Home Depot or Lowes taped together with six inch wide strapping tape. They would be water proof and have a high R value built right into the construction material. Foam panels are light enough to easily haul by hand into remote cabin sites. They could be reconfigured or moved and quickly disassembled and stored if necessary.

These yurts can be stored unassembled and quickly erected in an emergency. With some paint they can be camouflaged giving you a warm, invisible retreat.

Over the next couple of months I will construct a small sleep cabin on top of Bear Ridge. The only problem I can see is with strong winds. Proper anchoring and binding should eliminate this issue.

HexaYurts

Budget Survival - Basic Food Storage

Hardcore survivalists say you should store one to three years worth of food for each person in the household. This means nothing to the average person. We are going to look at some realistic numbers that will help you visualize and plan for the amount of food you should store and how that relates to your daily nutritional requirements.

We use 5 gallon buckets for storage. They are easy to move and hold a considerable amount of food. Here is the math 1 gallon = 16 cups so 5 gallons = 80 cups of whatever you are storing.

Rice Stocks

Lets say you eat one cup of dried rice per day. This is a common high energy food so one cup a day would be reasonable. That's 365 cups of rice per year or 22.8 gallons. Lets round that up to 25 gallons for the sake of easy math which gives us five-5 gallon buckets per person annually.

Note that it takes about 30 pounds of rice to fill a 5 gallon bucket. It will cost you about $60 for your 150 pound annual rice supply.

One cup of dried rice will make 3 cups of cooked rice with a total of about 650 calories.

Bean Stocks

You should eat one cup of dried beans every day. Beans have a very high nutritional value and one cup should do. That's 365 cups of beans per year rounded up gives us 25 gallons or five-5 gallon buckets per person annually.

It takes 32 pounds of pinto beans to fill a 5 gallon bucket. This will cost you about $90 for your yearly supply. I would recommend purchasing several different types of beans for variety. Do not mix the beans in the buckets, each bean type needs its own container. Pinto beans are used in this example because they are a good average bean. All varieties will have roughly the same caloric values.

One cup of dried pinto beans will make 2 1/2 cups of cooked beans with a total of about 620 calories.

Flour Stocks

Using the following simple ingredients you can make one loaf of bread; 3 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of salt, 2 teaspoons (1 pack) of yeast and 1 1/8 cup of water. There are roughly 14 fat slices per loaf and you will eat 4 slices per day totaling two loafs per week. Our 5 gallon bucket of flour holds around 26 loafs of bread. At two loafs per week our bucket of flour will last 13 weeks.

You will need four-5 gallon buckets of flour per person annually. Now lets throw in an extra bucket so you can make bread for trade and possibly some cakes, that brings our total up to five-5 gallon buckets for one person every year.

Every bucket holds 25 pounds of flour and 26 packs of yeast. Just put the packs of yeast in with the flour this keeps everything that is necessary for the bread together. A five bucket supply will cost you about $82 per year per person.

One slice of bread contains 110 calories four slices per day contains 440 calories.

Other Stocks

Additionally you will need spices, sugar, barley (for beer), powdered milk and instant potatoes. We are not going to delve into amounts or costs of these items because they are not necessary for survival and will vary greatly depending on personal preferences. You should also stock a several year supply of multi-vitamins.

The base stock of food will fill you up on 1710 calories per day, not nearly what Americans normally consume but nutritionally adequate. Personally I would recommend augmenting this plan with some dairy (powered) or egg products (freeze dried) and some Twinkies. Only purchase dried foods that will not freeze, no canned food. This storage plan does not cover infants, growing children or people with special dietary needs. An adequate water supply for food preparation is necessary and not addressed in this plan.

Everything here can be prepared on a wood stove or in a solar over. The list is meant to hold you over until your garden can start producing. The basic one year per person supplies listed above will run you around $230 total, on a personal note I am ashamed to admit that I have spent more than that on a single meal. Think about how much we currently spend on food as a society and how many people that would feed world wide using this plan.

After analyzing the needs addressed above I realized that my partner and I only had about six months worth of food stocks rather than the one year supply I had originally assumed. Over the next couple of months we will be up stocking our supplies to total about two years worth of food. In January I am also going to attempt to live off the supplies listed above minus the Twinkies.