THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Karmacat

mardatha wrote: »

It's currently battering down with snow here and the world looks like a bucket of milk is being poured over the house. Lovely

Wow! Wowowowowowow!

As long as I didn't have to do my commute in it, I always loved snow :j

Dahn sarf here, it's just been rainy. Stopped now. The highest tip of my multi-crowned rhubarb is about eight inches high ...

moneyistooshorttomention

fuddle wrote: »

Do you craft at all money? I know you like to cook but do you turn your hand to anything? The reason I ask is it a fantastic way to occupy yourself should you feel like climbing a wall. You can teach an old dog new tricks. I think I'm an old dog now and I'm still learning.

I've tried my hand at a couple of things over the years - pottery (yep...I was the class dunce at that:rotfl:), dressmaking (ditto), knitting (ditto), card-making (ditto), carpentry (ditto).

There's a lot of very artistic/creative type people in the area I'm now in and they tend to be of a pretty high standard at that. But they don't mind teaching newbies the "basics" I've found. Well - I then decided to try basketry and you got it - class dunce again:rotfl:

I'm not a bad cook - but I'm uniformly awful at anything creative.

I guess I've got one advantage over my city mother then - as she can't even cook.....though she admits it...

GreyQueen

If you happen to be one of the 20% or so people described as introverts, you are likely to do a lot better in quiet circumstances than an extrovert who needs a lot of external stimulation in order to be happy.

Re gas, yes, it requires an electical supply. Even the big industrial gas boilers in the Mothership (aka boiler house) have electrical controllers which have to be re-set by an in-person visit from a skilled gas engineer.

One regular gas fitter, on the subject of the industrial boilers, said he wouldn't go into the Mothership on a bet, you'd be insane to meddle with those things (there are twelve, apparently) unless you'd been properly trained on industrial systems.

zeupater

kittie wrote: »

I am rural, in a village with some neighbours but no shop or pub. Everything in my house is based on electric. The best prep for me is being so well insulated, having some candles and being able to use my portable stove. I keep some dried goods that can be used instantly but that is now pretty well it. I would still be able to survive for 6 weeks, even now eg pasta into boiling water. Switch off and cover with a towel, it still cooks

2010, having moved here in july, we had that winter and spent 6 weeks not going anywhere, seeing cars spinning on the lane was enough. I had not built up stores but me being me, we had plenty of food, even though it got boring. Cabin fever was the worse thing. Dh went on his turbo (cycling) and I bounced on my rebounder for exercise

You, esp mrsLW have taught me a lot and my next home will have to have at least a chimney, this now is one of the first things I look for on rightmove, that and storage for wood and coal

Hi

Although we have solar panels for generating electricity & vacuum tube thermal panels for hot water & GCH, we're still reliant on the power grid being available because our generation needs a frequency & voltage to sync to and if anything's out of specification, the system shuts down for safety reasons .. we don't want to electrocute someone working on the mains cables!

A couple of years down the line (when prices are more realistic!) the plan is to install a home battery storage system which will allow us to be more independent from the grid, although we'll not be going completely 'off-grid' ... at this point, as long as we're sensible, we should be able to carry-on pretty much 'as normal' (LED bulbs etc) if power outages occur and they're not too long!

As you mention, insulation is really the key to comfort and is probably the best way forward for most ... our bills are miniscule compared to most and it's all really down to keeping the heat that we pay for inside the house for as long as possible ... there's an idea of what level of energy saving (gas & electricity) is possible on a site that I use for renewable energy news & weather forecasting here ... Saving Energy ... reductions from "in excess of ~40000kWh of gas and ~5000kWh of electricity" to the what's used now (approx -95% & -75%) should be a target for everyone to at least aim for on money saving grounds alone, if not also to provide a form of sustainability&independence! ....

HTH
Z

[Deleted User]

zeupater, you probably know by now that I have a state of the art eco house, not a posh house btw. The full works, no battery storage. Going to a new home is a bit daunting when it comes to epc ratings and having to decide how to increase insulation. Anything else has to be cost effective wrt payback time, I doubt I would get PV but could get solar thermal, depends

zeupater

kittie wrote: »

zeupater, you probably know by now that I have a state of the art eco house, not a posh house btw. The full works, no battery storage. Going to a new home is a bit daunting when it comes to epc ratings and having to decide how to increase insulation. Anything else has to be cost effective wrt payback time, I doubt I would get PV but could get solar thermal, depends

Hi

Good to see that someone else has an energy efficient property, but let's leave the EPC aside, I'm not really a fan of RdSAP or the professionalism and/or competence of assessors! ...

We love our solar thermal, it provides all of our DHW from Feb/Mar to Oct/Nov and lightens the DHW load on the GCH boiler in-between & the family has had thermal since the late 1970s ... having mentioned that, if it came down to making a choice between PV & thermal due to space restrictions, I'd go for PV every time as it's a more flexible solution! (including water heating), but if there's room for both (& it's affordable) it's an amazing sustainability solution.

HTH
Z

GreyQueen

Folks might like to look at thermodynamic hot water systems. They have panels on the roof and these provide the energy to heat the hot water tank. Tank requires a small electrical supply to power its 'sacrificial anode' which is an element designed to draw minerals out of the water. When it's fully gorged, it gets a bit smelly and is changed for a fresh anode, hence the term sacrificial.

My teeny-tiny council flat and its contents sip elastic trickery at 2.5 kwH per 24hrs and that's even with an MSE addiction, lol.

Cappella

Originally Posted by thriftwizard View Post
I sometimes wonder whether those who find prepping amusing live mostly in the cities & suburbs? If you live close to 24-hr shops & hospitals, with roads that get regular maintenance and good public transport, it'd be easy to wonder what could possibly go wrong.

I think there is a little truth in this, but but my sisters, who both live miles from anywhere both tease me because although I live in a city I have been a low level prepper for over 40 years. Supermarkets in cities empty VERY quickly if shortages are threatened, and so do 24 hour shops I have seen shelves denuded of bottled water, bread, and sugar at various times so it makes sense to me always to have flour in the house, and at least a months supply of dried goods. Those shops may look full today, but a lorry drivers strike or road closures could change that very quickly. Bomb scares can close roads, and that hass happened twice in the time I have lived here so I see nothing wrong in being prepared. Though it is really low level disruption I prep for.
And very glad I was too when our wiring suddenly had to be replaced a fortnight ago and we had no electrically generated heat, hot water or cooker for 10 days. Although we normally Rely on our gas fire and Gas central heating for heat we also still have an open fire, we rarely use it but keep the chimney swept just in case I am very glad we did keep it too, as it meant that we just brought up bags of wood from the wood burner in the allotment shed during the day so that we were warm in the evenings; and as we also have paraffin lamps, candles and camping cookers light and hot food was not a problem, I was glad when power was restored but being prepared certainly paid off for us.

Cappella

Mrs.Lurcherwalker - thank you for the pm
No idea why I had random numbers and exclamation marks through my last post? It will let me edit them out but then puts them back when I repost. Apologies. It happens when I use the apostrophe key on the iPad. Still no idea why but whole words don cause the problem.
Very odd.

maryb

Intrigued as to what's happening with your post - I can usually work it out but it took me a while to realise that it was substituting !!!8217;t for every apostrophe. Is it just me and do I need to do something about my computer?