Posted on 04/06/2011 5:26:51 AM PDT by Kartographer
With the abundance of bad info out there, its easy for new preppers to make a lot of mistakes. I, myself, am a new prepper by some standards. Ive made many mistakes and Im sure Ill make more, but thats part of the learning process. To help you speed up this process, here are some common prepping mistakes youll want to avoid:
(Excerpt) Read more at urbansurvivalsite.com ...
Just about...but as a Katrina survivor - I know that I can’t depend on electricity to power my computer to read it when I need it. Thanks for your hard work!
it also says drinking urine is a waste of time. That’s not true. You can do it a few times. after that, probably not such a good idea unless you have your water filter in which case you can do it indefinitely. The thing about the solar stills is that you need to build several of them and they work best when you have supplies of non potable water available to distill. If you only have one and you’re throwing bits of cactus in it to distill, it might not be worth the time. The article states that you’ll waste more sweat than it’s worth. That’s why you build it at night or early morning. In the desert, during the day, you should find shade and do as little as possible unless you have lots of potable water.
Liquid bleach does lose effectness fairly quickly.
You might want to consider storing some Calcium Hypochlorite (Pool Shock). It retains its chlorine a long time and a little bit goes a long way. Instructions on its use are in my manual. WARNING do not store with your other preps. Calcium Hypochlorite is corrisive. I store mine in my paint cabinet sealed in mylar and in a used plastic coffee can.
OOOPS! I built a Berkey Water Filter. Used berkey filter and a couple food grade 5 gallong pails.
Filters $99.00 (e-Bay)
Sipgot $7.75 (e-Bay
Buckets FREE (From Walmart Bakery)
Plans in my manual.
well, If the container is sealed, it should last pretty much indefinitely. I don’t think chlorine will sublimate through the walls of the container or the lid. If the outside temp is high, the Chlorine should evaporate within the vessel and enter the gaseous phase but that should just result in an increase in pressure within the sealed bottle. If I were in doubt, I would just smell it and take a chance if it burned the nose a bit.
bookBUMP
Someone PM’d me and kindly asked if I would post where I got the tank...
I went through an online vender called Plastic Mart; here is a link to the actual tank I ordered.
http://www.plastic-mart.com/class.php?item=3698
Plastic Mart is a Nationwide wholesale broker for plastic tanks of all descriptions. The reason they tell you to call for a shipping quote is because they have manufacturers all over the Country who they broker these tanks for. They find the closest manufacturer to you and ship it from there.
I checked locally at my feed store about ordering one of these tanks, and it worked out like this:
Retail Price: $305.00
Sales Tax (8.2% 25.01
Delivery Charge $25.00
Total: $355.01
When I called for shipping info on the tank, he told me there was a manufacturer 10 minutes from my home. I paid him $250 (wholesale cost), he gave me a call number, and I went and picked it up myself.
Total Cost: $250
Total Savings: $105.01
Even with the plumbing supplies I needed, I’m still money ahead by getting it wholesale instead of retail. Now consider that you would need 6 of those 50 gallon rain barrels that Home Depot and Lowes both sell for $100 a pop, not to mention that you have to find a way to hook all six together in one place to have 300 gallons of storage, and you can see how attractive these tanks are.
The top fitting is 1 1/2” NPT and the bottom is 2 1/2” NPT. I use the top fitting for overflow and it goes directly into my drip irrigation system in the garden. I chose the dark green color on the theory that passive solar heat will keep it from freezing.
I’m going to work on putting up a thread here about constructing a system like this, because it is not simply a matter of setting that tank anywhere. Water weighs 8 pound per gallon, so when that tank is full it weighs over 2400 pounds. The foundation has to be properly built, level and solid; and describing how to do that properly takes more space than I have here, and I don’t want to hijack the thread any worse than I already have....
I also have a rainwater collection system for my henhouse roof that ensures my chickens never go without water, and I don’t have to haul it or buy it from the City....
Cheers!
I have never preserved my dehudrate stuff in this way.
How about you ChocChipCookie?
I read about doing that somewhere.
Thanks for the reminder!
Bump For Later...
How would sodium hypochlorite in water would find it’s way out of a sealed vessel?
Anyone know much about using alcohol as fuel - for lighting, cooking & to run autos? Saw this info - go to alcoholcanbeagas. Is a still something that can be purchased?
It’s just an idea. If I were terribly concerned about extreme long term storage, I would be looking at freeze drying and mylar/#10 cans/etc. Actually, come to think of it, I have also been contemplating attaching a vacuum pump and an extractor pump to a freezer and seeing if I can rig up a freeze dryer.
Plastic ‘breaths’ one reason for long term storage plastic vaccuum bags aren’t enought and thus you use mylar.
From:http://www.clorox.com/products/clorox-regular-bleach/faq/
What is the shelf life of Clorox® Regular-Bleach?
Clorox® Regular-Bleach should be replaced every year and stored as directed for optimum performance.
More here on the shelf life of bleach as well:
http://chemistry.about.com/b/2011/03/13/chlorine-bleach-shelf-life.htm
What about a back up hand pump? If things really get bad, you might not be able to count on getting replacement parts.
That’s true for oxygen as we know but the Chlorine molecule has a considerably larger covalent radii so would it escape the vessel or just evaporate in the bottle and then escape every time you open it? Of course clorox says to replace your bleach annually and if you were opening it regularly, that would make sense. In a sealed vessel though? I think someone’s kid has an excellent science fair project here.
This is my next purchase for cooking. ChocChipCookie uses one all the time for outdoor cooking. I might try waterbath canning on it this summer, but I’m not brave enough to try pressure canning on it unless I have to.
Oooops! Forgot the link: http://www.stovetec.net/us/index.php
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