Preparedness for when

elona

Happy Birthday BB

:bdaycake:

[Deleted User]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BB !!!!!

I would always opt for my little FIRESPOUT portable woodstove, for that you only need to have some dry firestarter material and matches/striker and you can burn twigs and bark and dry leaves which you can forage for wherever you are. I love that mine takes apare to 4 stainless steel sheets and weighs less than 1kg and if you just saw the metal sides you'd never know what it was. The newer ones are hinged and fold flat but unless you knew, you'd never guess it was a stove. Useful things!!!

nuatha

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

It is my birthday today and prep headed as usual DH got me a vaccum sealer and the outlaws bought me some greenhouse staging, a rhubarb plant and a couple of bags of compost :rotfl::rotfl:
...
Elona well done on the weight loss x

Many happy returns.
And seconding the congratulations to Elona

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

It depends on the gas being used.

Butane doesn't vaporise below 0 Centigrade.

Propane vaporises down to -42 Centigrade, but requires very strong (hence heavy) cartridges (actually cylinders rather than cartridges), so is really only suitable for transport by vehicle.

The 70/30 Butane/Propane mix (available in cartridges to fit a good number of stoves) will vaporise down to around -15 Centigrade, which should be OK for pretty much all conditions, likely to be encountered in the UK.

ETA: For your Spirit Stoves nuatha, try Bio-ethanol.

It's cheaper than meths, has less of a smell, and produces fewer unpleasant fumes when burning.

I'm a few years out of date - the propane mix cylinders were only just starting to be be more readily available but I hadn't seen them in fitment I use until the last couple of years.
Its not that difficult to get down to minus 15C ambient in the UK particular in some of the wild country.
I've had butane fail at +8C because the ambient temperature (windchill etc) was +2C. When LPG gases off, it drops the temps in the canister, at -1C it remains liquid and therefore doesn't work.
I have no experience of using propane mix in small cartridges, though as a cylinder gas it does work. Though given the size and weight of the cylinders I think I'd just opt for propane and have the extra margin.
I did try Bio-ethanol last summer at your prompting and admit to being impressed. I haven't done any serious trials with it (I have a decent stock of meths) but it seems to be gaining ground in availability. (I gave up buying meths in Scotland many years ago, it was easily available at phamarcies, but the interrogation that could go with buying it was just too much hassle)

GreyQueen

sorryImoved wrote: »

Lol. We had a sign on our front door that said NO SOLICITORS.

You could probably be sued for that, you know. Or tort-ured to death.

Sorry, too tempting to resist.

:bdaycake: Happy Burfday Butterfly Brain. Sounds like you're having a good day and that you family know your interests.

One thing which recently occurred to me is that it would be helpful to have a hand list (perhaps in the wallet/purse/handbag/ manbag/ kitchen drawer) of emergency contacts, such as UK Power Networks, your water company, things like that. So that if something is suddenly not there when it should be, you know which lot to contact.

I work in a local authority call centre. People will keep calling us when the water goes off or the leccy. We don't provide these services so the customers are wasting their time and their phone credit, as well as tying up the advisers and keeping us from the things which we can be dealing with for the other callers.

A bit of time finding out who does what in your area, and making sure you have valid contacts for them that are accessible even in a power outage, could be very useful. Streetlights, f'rinstance, should have numbers on them. If you want to take note of the numbers of the ones nearest your home, the ones which cause inconvenience when they're out, you could speed up the reporting of the fault.

One thing I think about prepping is that it soothes the anxiety of finding that your power is off, or that the water is off. These are mostly temporary problems but you won't know that at the time.

So, you encounter the absence of electricity and think Oh well, I'll use my camping stove with bottled water and they are stored here. Or the power is down and it's dark but you know where to drop your hands on torches and candles/ lanterns/ matches.

Maybe you are somewhere liable to be cut off by flooding or snow, and you've learned to have a good storecupboard by you to cope with the probable emergency.

Like that old line about camping; any fool can rough it, but who wants to be an uncomfortable fool?

[Deleted User]

Did you ever get a 1 egg frying pan GQ?

GreyQueen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Did you ever get your 1 egg frying pan GQ?

No, I did answer that already, it was the bigger pan but I paid Mum for it and have stashed it ready against the day the existing one wears out. I have three-bordering-on-too-shallow-to-be-usable drawers under the sofa and I have it stashed there. Along with a round griddle and some sardines and lasagne sheets.

Might seem a bit random but they're all flat(ish) and only 6 feet away from the kitchen.

Besides, what a woman keeps in her drawers is up to her, is it not?:p

[Deleted User]

Must admit, I enjoy a good rummage in drawers.

It's raining again round here.

Not heavily (as yet), but raining nevertheless.

Also (and, before anyone says it, yes I know I shouldn't have had those beans ), the wind is getting up.

Frugalsod

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

I got a Kelly kettle/Ghillie kettle depending on where you get it from, it needs very little fuel, just sticks and dried brush and boils very quickly, you can also get a stand to put on the top so that you can cook a small pan of something or even fry an egg.

Yes a Kelly Kettle is on my shopping list for just those reasons.

RAS

nuatha wrote: »

Given that the most effective method of preventing spread is strict barrier nursing procedures, I do have concerns if it enters the UK - Earlier this year Herself was in hospital in what was supposedly contagion isolation - I saw several consultants get the precautions wrong, not to mention nurses who ignored warning signs and procedures. The people who got it right were the cleaners. (Failures to glove gown and mask before entering, failure to remove said items before leaving the unit (not helped by the only safe disposal point not being near the exit).

Hopefully they would understand the sense in self-preservation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1054557.stm

Although many of the nurses who were infected were those treating patients very early in the outbreak before they knew what they were dealing with and start isolation procedures.

nuatha

RAS wrote: »

Hopefully they would understand the sesne in self-preservation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1054557.stm

Although many of the nurses who were infected were those treating patients very early in the outbreak before they knew what they were dealing with and start isolation procedures.

I suspect part of the problem might well be that haemorrhagic fever outbreaks are relatively uncommon and the early stages appear to be very similar to other far more common infections such as malaria, typhoid, dengue fever among several others.

The current Guinea outbreak is the most serious in the 38 year history of Ebola, and is the first in a major population centre. Hopefully it will serve as a wake up call for barrier nursing everywhere - unfortunately I'm less than optimistic.