Preparedness for when

Hollyberry

In our last house, we had a chimney that hooted like a foghorn when the wind was in the right/wrong direction. It had been lined, so that may have been the cause, but it certainly made me jump the first time it blasted out its call! :eek: I never found a way of stopping it, and it was certainly good at spooking visitors.

The three chimneys here are thankfully quiet - two are sealed and completely silent, while the third has our open fire and whistles a bit, but that's (fortunately) it.

Hollyberry

I just found a really interesting link to what a week of groceries looks like around the world: http://healthydebates.com/week-groceries-looks-like-around-world/. It's from photographer Peter Menzel, whose book, What the world eats, I bought a couple of years back. The book has some fascinating insights into how differently we all live, and some unsurprisingly sad moments. The one that really struck a chord with me was him asking people about their favourite foods, and one family commenting that they ate everything. They were so hungry that the concept of a favourite food was totally alien to them. Sobering stuff.

If I had to choose one table to replace our shopping then I think I'd go for Mexico, but without all the fizzy pop. I was surprised that the Australians had comparatively little fruit and veg on their table, as I remember the supermarkets being absolutely crammed with beautiful, cheap and exotic produce. The quantities are also very interesting; I wonder if the French family eats out at lot, as there is relatively little there for the family group portrayed. It certainly made me wonder what our table would look like here, and relatively speaking how much we'd need to store for a decent prepping stash.

[Deleted User]

I was thinking earlier, how some people don't like the idea of paraffin lamps in the home.

An alternative is, of course, gas lanterns.

However, on investigation, I find the price of buying and running one rather :eek:

Take this one, the Gelert Mighty Lantern.

£15-98 from Amazon UK.

That's about 2.5 times the price of this Paraffin Hurricane Lantern.

Now we come to fuel costs.

A Paraffin Hurricane Lantern will burn for about 40 hours on 1 litre of paraffin, and 1 litre of paraffin costs about £1-50.

That gives us a cost of about 4p per hour.

Now to the gas lantern.

According to the description on Amazon, the Gelert Mighty Lantern uses 78 grams of gas per hour.

The cheapest price I've found, for a Coleman C500 gas cartridge, is £4-50.

It contains 445 grams of gas.

That gives us about 5.7 hours of use, which is about 79p per hour.

That's quite a difference.

Of course, the gas lantern does give out more light, but 3 Hurricane lanterns could be bought for about the price of one gas lantern, and those 3 Hurricane lanterns could be run for less than 1/6th the cost.

Not forgetting that, three lanterns can be used, simultaneously, in three different locations.

For the odd camping trip, the cost difference isn't a major concern (what's a tenner, for two gas cartridges, over a year?), and of course, one gas lantern occupies far less space in your pack, than three Hurricane Lanterns.

However, for long term use at home (and if you live in the back of beyond, you could be without power for days or even weeks), the cost of gas cartridges could well become significant.

cornishchick

:(I have to come to hand over my preppers safety pin secret badge,

in the last week....
the electric went out.... yes had my camping lantern in the house,, forgot to put it on charge,, had to use candles.

water went yeterday , due to a burst main in the town... DH had to drag himself to the shop to buy bottled water...

TP stash was down to 1 yes ONE roll....


I now stand, with my head in my hands ready to be drummed out of the preppers club,

alice-mary

cornishchick wrote: »

:(I have to come to hand over my preppers safety pin secret badge,

in the last week....
the electric went out.... yes had my camping lantern in the house,, forgot to put it on charge,, had to use candles.

water went yeterday , due to a burst main in the town... DH had to drag himself to the shop to buy bottled water...

TP stash was down to 1 yes ONE roll....


I now stand, with my head in my hands ready to be drummed out of the preppers club,

Don't worry, it's 3 strikes before....oh hang on a bit...ooops!:o

You can just tell us that you did this deliberately as a lesson to the rest of us to not assume that the things that we HAD in place are actually STILL in place


THANKYOU for the reminder to check these things, you must have PLANNED this in advance to help us all :A:rotfl::A PREPTASTIC

Alice
xx

jk0

cornishchick wrote: »

:(I have to come to hand over my preppers safety pin secret badge,

in the last week....
the electric went out.... yes had my camping lantern in the house,, forgot to put it on charge,, had to use candles.

water went yeterday , due to a burst main in the town... DH had to drag himself to the shop to buy bottled water...

TP stash was down to 1 yes ONE roll....


I now stand, with my head in my hands ready to be drummed out of the preppers club,

I think there's a lot to be said for having a 'prepping cupboard' that does not get raided for day to day use.

Also, why not put your lantern on a timeswitch, so it gets an hour's charge daily?

mardatha

Oh
My
God
How
Awful
I am deeply, deeply, (yes and highly too) ASHAMED OF YOU CC!
:rotfl::rotfl:

GreyQueen

jk0 wrote: »

Have any of you guys recently stopped up a disused chimney? Mine whistles like a milk bottle when the wind blows over it.

I've read that one way of doing this is to stuff an old feather pillow up the chimney just above the fireplace. It was suggested that you do this with a string dangling down as a reminder that the thingy is there.

You can apparently buy special chimney blocking balloons, but I've never seen one.

Flying visit before archery club - twang!

lillibet_dripping

cornishchick wrote: »

:(I have to come to hand over my preppers safety pin secret badge,

in the last week....
the electric went out.... yes had my camping lantern in the house,, forgot to put it on charge,, had to use candles.

water went yeterday , due to a burst main in the town... DH had to drag himself to the shop to buy bottled water...

TP stash was down to 1 yes ONE roll....


I now stand, with my head in my hands ready to be drummed out of the preppers club,

Oh Cornish - worry not. I fear I am about to join you....
You know how we were talking about wanting to be 'tested' to check whether our preps were up to scratch?

Well, I find myself in the unenviable position of having £1.34 in the bank until 23rd when the tax credits go in. (I put my last £10 note in the fuel tank today as I need to get to work to earn the bliddy money in the first place!!)

Anyhoo, this will be a test of my storecupboard prepperness as that, and the two under-counter freezers, are all we have:eek: My cleaning/toiletries are well stocked up as are the pet foods (cats, dogs and chickens). I have a 30 bottle wine kit which has just finished bubbling (phew, just in time) and plenty of YS meat/fish.

Watch this space!!!

Actually, a few 'snow-days' off school would be good to save petrol, but then I have to put MY heating on:o

System

jk0 echoing GreyQueen re the chimney stuffing/stopping..... also if you know a friendly builder or someone doing some renovation/extension work, an offcut of Kingspan or equivalent does the job pretty well speaking from experience - if you still have a few gaps good old scrunched up newspaper should fill them..... just don't forget it is there and try to light the fire like I did once !!

many thanks for the warm welcome everybody x