Hurricanes have indeed prepared many of us in TX/SE TX for *living off the grid*. It’s, at the very least, given us a taste of roughing it.
Now you have my curiosity piqued....what is your running water solution, when there is no running water? (I’d very much appreciate your top few, out of your 10 ways, if you care to share. TIA :)
Running water when there is no running water:
When water doesn't come out of the faucet, it disrupts the family. No running water at the kitchen sink and no running water at the bathroom basin and no running water for the bathroom shower. Early in my preps, I fixed this problem and can have running cold or hot water.
Camp showers are a bag (numerous sizes to choose), with short hose attached, and shower head at the end of hose and a cut off switch. On the ones I have, there is a temperature gauge on the side. Put the filled bag in the sun, wait until the temperature gauge shows the water is as hot as you want it, take it inside and have running hot water.
About the hot water: Don't think it will take a long time in the sun to heat the water in the bag. If the one you have has no gauge, never put your hands or your body under the shower until you test how hot it is. You can end up with a burn as the water gets to just below the boiling point in full sun and leaving it there for a while. Just check how hot the water is before exposing skin to it.
The house operation is much easier with running water and people in the house are comforted by having running water.
I'll list some of the ten ways to cook in another post.
Kartographer, ping to 148, then this one.
Let’s see if I remember, without looking them up, ten ways I have to cook.
First, men tend to think BIG, even if it is not easy to do but works. I tend to think SMALLER and it’s easier and works. That is the way I approached a way to cook.
1. I bought “Safe Heat” at Sams (like Sterno but cheaper). Whenever you go to a buffet, there is a can of this under every hot food dish, keeping the food warm or hot, according to how close they have the can to the bottom of food pan. It is just as safe to use in your home as it is for the restaurant to use these cans. You are going to cook/heat food using it, not heating your whole house, so there is no danger of burning it the length of time you need it to cook/warm food.
The cans I got burn for six hours. I figured how much time a reasonable meal would take to cook (also added time to heat water to make coffee), added more time to cook soups, then added up the time it would take for cooking a year’s worth of food and bought that many cans. I have used these for every hurricane that took out my power.
Also bought metal Sterno stoves, four of them, in which to sit the can when it is burning. The stove gives a surface on which to sit a pan or pot. I use the canned heat when power goes off because it’s the easiest way to cook in the house.
2. I have a Japanese ceramic grill – can cook a meal using 6-8 charcoal briquettes in a short amount of time. It is fast cooking due to the ceramic bottom and walls so the heat radiates as well as there is a flame. I put this on a table just outside the back door – a deck which has a roof over it. Below you can see one. Again, I counted up the time it took to make a meal and got enough charcoal to last six months cooking with this grill.
3. Weber propane grill. It’s hooked to a large bottle of propane, have three large bottles of propane.
4. Outdoor fireplace. This unit is made to use to cook as well as to heat the deck. There is a drawer to put charcoal and a grill over that for cooking food. The fireplace uses charcoal for cooking and also burns wood or any other fuel you would use in a fireplace.
5. Weber outdoor charcoal grill.
6. Outdoor oven using small propane bottles. This oven works exactly like your kitchen oven. You can bake bread in it due to the thermostat that keeps the oven at the required temperature. It really is your kitchen oven made portable (and prettier).
7. Jar Candles. Light a jar candle and put your finger in the fire – damn, that’s hot and burns your finger. Don’t underestimate a candle. It cooks food with that flame. I used math to figure out how long one of my jar candles would burn and figured enough jar candles to cook food for a year and bought that many.
8. Indoor fireplace. I have iron cookware to use in my fireplace. The fireplace has natural gas logs and would use the gas and iron cookware until the gas was gone, would then go to wood stacked outside for the fireplace.
9. Thermal cooking pot – extends cooking time without additional fuel. You have to bring to a boil whatever you want to cook. Do that any way you can, using whatever fuel you can find, like gather wood. Once the contents are boiling, put the pot in the insulated pot and it will continue to cook. These come in various sizes from small, medium, and large.
10. Rocket Stove – THIS IS THE ULTIMATE BACKUP WAY TO COOK. I left this one for last because it’s the best for always having a way to cook and if you don’t have one, GET ONE. I’d rather cook in my house using canned heat, but if I ran out of that (and any other way I prefer to cook), I’d still have a way to cook forever.
Kartographer wrote about a rocket stove (it was new to me then) and he made one. I bought one and here is what I wrote about it in the pepper articles I wrote for a website.
After I wrote about this stove, a lady wrote to thank me for this information - that she was getting one because she lived in a high rise and had no way to cook if power went out and she would use this stove in her fireplace. There were many trees around her condominium so plenty of sticks (fuel) to get for this stove and she would store sticks outside on her balcony.
Because she said she would use it in her fireplace, I did research on that and it’s fine to use in the fireplace as long as the vent to fireplace is open. I also read about very large rocket stoves being used for heating next to a fireplace with a large flexible pipe taking the smoke into and up the fireplace. These are large enough to warm a large room. Here is the article:
Rocket Stove:
I got a Rocket Stove from http://stovetecstore.net/
All Rocket Stoves are not equal. I think Rocket Stoves from this company are the top of the line – the best. A Rocket Stove is a new type stove and is small (but heavy duty) compared to most outdoor stoves. It is highly efficient, will burn twigs or sticks or any biomass – even sea shells. Water/any fluid, can be boiled quickly. I call this the last resort stove because you can find fuel anywhere and it only takes a small amount to last a while as it is designed to totally burn the fuel down to a few ashes at a hot temperature. This is the finest emergency stove.
Outside, or in your fireplace, this heavy duty Rocket Stove is the best choice when propane or wood logs are gone, or is the main stove to start with if you have no other outside stove. Think about outside around your house or apartment. Do you see twigs anywhere? That’s efficient fuel for this stove. I’m wondering if places that deal in wood, such as Lowes or Home Depot, have wood trash around – small pieces of wood left over when they have to cut wood of any kind. A lumber yard should have trash wood around. If one could get some of this wood trash, that’s a supply of fuel to have. However, you likely have trees/bushes somewhere close to you and that’s good fuel for the rocket stove.
When you read their website, you will read about other biomass fuel one can use. “Biomass” means don’t put plastic in it. Only put what nature made so it can be burned completely up down to a few ashes. A chemical log would not be “biomass” as that is manmade. The door or doors if you get a two door one, cannot take a large log. It’s designed for small fuel sources.
Description from their website (Note to Freepers: I coped this from their website a couple of years ago, so their wording is likely changed by now as I see the website looks different now):
“StoveTec Stoves are perfectly suited for camping, hunting trips, a day at the beach or just to have handy in case of emergency. With a StoveTec Stove you can easily boil water for drinking, cook a stew for dinner or prepare freeze dried meals in case of an emergency all with very little fuel that can be found just about anywhere! StoveTec Stoves are made of the highest quality materials and are engineered to burn wood or any biomass fuel efficiently and cleanly.
A StoveTec Stove utilizes completely natural fuel sources so there is no need for expensive and potentially dangerous fossil fuels like gasoline, kerosene, propane or lighter fluid.”
There are several models of this stove and there is a video that explains the difference between the models. The cheapest one is in the 80+ dollar amount. I got the Eco Ceramic with one door. If you are interested in this small but heavy last resort stove, watch the video to decide which model is best for you.
Kartographer may join in and tell how he built his rocket stove.