By Ourselves, For Ourselves: Part 2.1

My apologies for taking so long to get this posted. Once you get towards the end of this, I think you’ll see where I got stuck. Anyway, shall we continue….

In Part 2.0 we discussed some of the items you’ll need to have at home when times get difficult. Today, we will talk about one that matters a great deal, but which most folks take for granted.

Electricity

Unless you’ve already taken steps to get yourself off the electrical grid (wind, solar, hydro generation), the electricity coming into your house is created and supplied to you by “Someone Else”. If you are off the grid, you certainly don’t need me to tell you the who-whatsit.

Whomever that “Someone Else” is, they have no responsibility to keep your lights on beyond their want to charge you money. Just as the police have no responsibility to protect you, the electric company will only suffer a minor loss of income and some bad press for not keeping the juice flowing.

So when things get ugly in the real world, you will not know how long you will be in the dark and without food refrigeration because the extent of the resources to restore your electricity are finite, while the number of things that can go wrong with the supply are quite numerous.

From a trees falling to vehicles crashing and taking out a supply line to transformers going pop, either due to overload or to someone intentionally taking them out, it is sometimes almost a small wonder we have a day-to-day working grid at all.

In order to make sure that you aren’t left in the dark with spoiled food, you will have take into consideration one or both of the following choices: 1. Making your own electricity, and/or 2. Storing your own electricity.

Making your own:

There are myriad ways of creating electricity, all need an electrical generator to do so. You can use a bike to pedal your way to light. You can use foot power, like this little kick generator. You can also use a wood-fire a boiler to run your very own steam power plant that turns a small turbine.

Unfortunately, each of these takes loads of time and energy and yields very little benefit on the small scale. Though, for extreme SHTF preparations, I wouldn’t count any of them out completely.

Your most common method of electricity generation is going to come from the work of a gasoline or diesel generator.

The size of your generator will vary depending on your needs: Are you just wanting a few lights and a radio, or do you also need to power up your refrigerator, freezer, stove and furnace?

A small 400-600 Watt generator will take care of small needs such as the lamps/radio and the recharging of handheld devices such as phones and flashlights. It will also use the least amount of fuel and have the lower purchase costs.

However, if your needs include keeping food cold, cooking/boiling water, and making heat, you will need a minimum of 5000 Watts, and even with that, you cannot run all those things at the same time. The prices for these will start at $700 and use at least a gallon of fuel for every two hours running.

While this is not an endorsement, the Honda line of generators are very highly regarded, and their price reflects it. I have one of the Generac models, which are very well liked by folks I trust to be in the know. Their prices are only barely under that of the Hondas, but remember that ninety-nine percent of the time you get exactly what you pay for.

The difference between models that run on gasoline and those that use diesel are as such: initial cost, noise level of the exhaust and fuel supply/storage.

Because of their lower operating RPMs, diesel generators will not create the same jarring exhaust note that a gasoline generator will, especially under load. They do tend to rattle a bit due to their ignition design, so you will have to choose. Also because of their lower RPMs, diesel generators will generally outlive a gasoline model. Basically, they beat up on themselves a lot less. This is all depending upon proper maintenance, of course.

Diesel generators are also quite a bit more expensive than gasoline models. This is not only because of materials/manufacturing costs, but because of the laws of supply and demand. Most folks are reluctant to semi-permanently install a generator in their home garage, and very few businesses need models small enough to only run a home, and opt for something humongous to keep their operations moving.

While untreated diesel does store somewhat longer than untreated gasoline (three to six months as compared to one to three, respectively), it is not as common and generally costs more. We’ll get into the storage of fuels in just a bit.

One distinct advantage it has for some is that there is a version of diesel called “Farm” or “Red” Diesel, which is sold at a much cheaper rate than the diesel used on the highway and can also beat the price of gasoline. Intended for use in farming equipment, it has a dye added to it that colors the entire fuel system red for identification by the policing authorities and heavy fines are meted out to violators.

After you have figured out what your needs are and you make your purchase, your first step should be to learn the machine’s maintenance needs. If you don’t know how to keep it running, it probably won’t stay running for very long. Some manufacturers recommend synthetic oil after a certain number of hours; others do not. But above all: Read Your Manual!

Next, you’ll want to figure out how you are going keep a fuel supply for it.

If you’re keeping food cold via your generator, you’ll need to run it a minimum of four hours a day to maintain the proper temperature. With my generator, that means I will need 2.5 gallons per day just to keep the food cold, or a 75 gallon supply to cover me for 30 days.

Depending on your habits of keeping your vehicles fueled up, you can have anywhere up to 30-50 gallons sitting in your driveway, though siphoning it out can be dangerous to your health (which is why having a drain plug installed is a good idea).

Unless you live rurally, your local Fire Marshall has most likely set the rules for the amount of fuel you can store. If you take the time to look those up, you’ll find that they don’t want suburbanites to have much more than 20-25 gallons (zero for urban residents). If your needs are like mine and you’ll need more than that, then you’ll have to do it in a way where folks won’t notice.

This means you have two options: Indoors or Hidden in Plain Sight

One of the best storage methods I have seen that would fall under the “Plain Sight” option was a friend who had kept his above-ground heating oil tank after switching over to natural gas. He unbolted it off the mount and had it flushed and a drain faucet installed (for rotation ease). After reinstalling it, he built what looked like a small, attached garden shed onto his house to conceal it.

150 gallons of unleaded sitting next to your house may not sound like a very good idea to some but, as long as you’re careful, it can work out. Myself, I’d only do that with diesel.

Another method I’ve heard of but never personally seen was a guy who had purchased an underground fuel storage container and had it buried in the terraced portion of the landscaping of his backyard. He did his own backhoe work and told his neighbors it was a backup septic system (I was told he even went and got the permits and dummy plumbed it). He had to mechanically siphon it out to retrieve or rotate it, but he had 550 gallons, so that seems a small price to pay.

You can buy steel drums, fill them and put then in your garage, though placing them in a garden shed would be smarter because you don’t live in your garden shed. Do not use plastic barrels as the gas will slowly but surely eat the drum. Then, just like the guy with the tank buried in his yard, you’ll need to buy a mechanical siphon to rotate and retrieve. Also make sure you keep them on the ground and on rubber mat to keep the static electricity from building.

Whichever way you choose, you will need to prep the fuel for long term storage, and in my opinion the only fuel prep that is worth even considering is from Power Research Inc.

Called PRI-G for gasoline and PRI-D for diesel, I have heard some amazing things about 5 year old unleaded gas prepped with this stuff and working like it came right out of the pump. I have used 2 year old prepped fuel in my fuel injected crotch-rocket cars in the past with nary a burp.

However, just because you can, I would rotate every 12 months. Carefully drain the stored fuel into 10 gallon container/s and use it in your car. When the storage container gets empty, fill the 10 gallon container/s at the pump. Then prep and date the container and repeat as necessary.

Another good idea for folks who believe they’ll be scavenging fuel after the SHTF is to have a decent quantity of the PRI treatments stored as they’ll clean bad fuel up to be useable.

Besides electricity, generators put out two other things: Toxic Fumes and Noise.

You can deal with the noise by looking for a factory “Hush Kit”, or if the manufacturer of your model doesn’t make one, getting creative with exhaust plumbing. If you think ahead when you’re getting creative, you can usually create a set up that will also vent the exhaust fumes out a door or window.

Otherwise, you’re going to have to operate the generator outdoors. If that is your case, then I hope you read Part 1 of this series because you’ll be popular, and not in a good way.

And that is about it for generators. They can be a real pain in the ass to maintain and feed, but when the SHTF, they’re very handy.

Your other option will be to have electricity stored in batteries.

Storing your own:

Folks living in apartments or condos are stuck with only the battery option for obvious reasons. I posted about my highly portable, medium wattage battery packs that would work prefectly for folks in that situation here and here.

Also, a few weeks back, our good man, Rivrdog, wrote a very excellent and informative piece at his preparedness blog, Paratus, titled AC power via DC inversion. I have no way of expanding on it, as it needs nothing, so even if you have your mind set on a generator, I urge you to read that post.

The main reason for my urging is this: Battery systems are portable and usable indoors without noise or exhaust worries. Also, you can charge them up while you’re running your generator to do other things. If you can run your generator for four hours to get another 8-10 hours of electricity, then you have a very good chance of having light on day 29. I cut and pasted Rivrdog’s post into word and printed a hard copy because both servers and the World Wide Web are unreliable. I would urge you to do the same.

You can build your own set-up, as Rivrdog describes, or you can buy ready made set-ups like this. If you decide to buy, make sure that you read plenty of reviews on what you’re buying. Some of the best sounding equipment from the best sounding companies has turned out to be a real disappointment to some.

Again, you need to figure out what your needs are and then decide how and where you are going to store your set-up. That can be half the battle, especially in urban living.

So, to review:

Your best bet is to work to get off Grid Reliance altogether. Some utility companies will pay you for making more than you can use or store, and getting your pound of flesh back from those guys will be a reward of its own.

However, because most of us cannot do that for whatever reason, generators are a PITA, but necessary and backing them up with storage batteries is an even better plan.

As always, suggestions/comments about this topic are very welcome either by email or in the comments.