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Consider getting a 1000-gallon propane tank, or another 500, if you already have a 500-gallon one--especially if drying is included. I'm in a dryer (but much colder) climate and will routinely be using a greenhouse-like structure for drying clothes.

I got the greenhouse, however in my neck of the woods we are langley challenged. For those months I have an Aspen wood stove in the greenhouse and a floor rack for drying.

I am fairly constrained on space because of the geography (hills) and will be stuck with 500 gallons. I definitely want the tank buried. I'll do my own corrosion work on it.

I have the solar panels (30 helios) stored away. I also have stacked inverters with 16 L-16 batteries. I do recommend this charger. They just work. I use a generator for now to charge the batteries during power outages. In a SHTF scenario that will be limited to a couple of weeks and not because of fuel, but advertising. Plenty of time to get the panels up. Everything is prewired including the ground. The south side of my house faces my own ridge and woodlands. It is very private. I have designed for 5KW a day. The minimum is 3. It is amazing what can be turned off to get by. Water, hygiene and refrigeration are really all that matter. Can do those on the low end estimate. Prefer the higher end for lighting and coms.

Heating will be mostly wood and passive solar when we have sun. Western PA can be very dreary during winter. I keep five full chords (2 year seasoned) available at all times. This covers the 6000 HD days here. Built a nice shelter last fall. Will post a picture someday. We are lucky to live on acreage with hardwood. I do the cutting and splitting. There are some great non-electric splitters available now for the big stuff.

The possibility of EMP strikes preceding other nuclear weapons strikes is also becoming more likely than in the past. Many of the preparations for that possibility are the same as for an economic decline except for the extra shelter/electronics preparations.

That actually is one of my greatest concerns lately. NEC requires everything to have a common ground. I understand that and the shock potential issue. Sadly, keeping boxes, inverters, batteries and transfer switches on one ground creates a greater risk for EMP damage. I am working with the electrician on this one. Good guy. Tough problem to get the stamp of approval on. We have had to ground (batteries) damage to the panel meters from lightening. Let the smoke out. Probably will go with two separate grounds bonded together with a knife switch. Hope he understands. I really need a large spark gap. EMP is really my greatest concern from the service side. Reflexive insulation can go a long ways to provide shielding from line of site damage. I am very concerned about the FETS in the inverters. That is a large expense (backup units) that I am having some trouble with.

Another consideration that is often missed is that of routine, good hygiene combined with a good physical exercise regimen (starting light and building up from that). For those of you who can, be clean in everything, and become a PT (physical training) animal.

Agree. I do masters competition swimming, that firewood thing and the other chores a ridge home with a 350 foot driveway requires. Strait up and strait down. Just finished the new planters. We are well covered on the hygiene and medical front. Neighbor is a surgeon and wife MD. We have stocked away enough supplies to get us over the hump. Neighbor is an interesting guy. If you know hunting then you will know his father. His father was a very famous hand trauma surgeon who founded the International Safari Club. Very good people.

Only a few, random suggestions. As for cannibalism between Americans, and the like, I'm a little more than skeptical (having trained and served in several disciplines, sports, duties and jobs involving extreme violence). There are some parallels between our USA and other cultures, but we're not Albanians, Croats or Serbs, either. There's still a Protestant influence here. ;-)

I hope you are right. My wife and I have an extensive library on WWII. Stalingrad comes to mind and that includes both sides of the siege. A very troubling thing.

Speaking of which, I recently moved about 300 cubic yards of earth--much of it, stone--with a shovel and another family member (also using a shovel). That "work ethic" thing, you know. *Sniff*

Motrin stores well. ;-)

Thanks for the very thoughtful response. We have been at this for a very long time. Oddly we arrived at our extended prepper mentality out of necessity. A blizzard cut us off here during our first year. We thought at the time we were prepared. Not. On a well toilets don't flush without electricity. The "awakening" was as simple as that. Yeah we could survive without any of the "basic" amenities of modern life. Why?

Feel free to contact me by Freepmail for security related issues. Thanks again for the thoughtful reply.

You’re more than welcome, and I appreciate the information in your post from knowledge, experience and different conditions from mine (off-grid, high elevation, sunny, extreme cold, no trees, windy). I wrote a glaring error, however. I also misunderstood “langley” the first time and now might understand (shading instead of lack of sun days?).

I mentioned drying as being expensive with propane (my error). It’s not, really, because of the short duration of usage in a day. Water heating can be (frequency of usage, lack of insulation and thermal mass). I loosely figured propane usage for various home utilities.

Cooking doesn’t use much—maybe less than 4 gallons (< 20 lbs.) per month, unless much baking is done. Water heating is a culprit at 30 gallons or more of propane per month for about three people. ...probably more. That’s with a common water heater. A much more well insulated water heating tank would help propane to go much further.

Here’s the reason for bringing up propane storage and tanks. A thousand gallons of propane used only for cooking might go about eight years or more. Water heating will take a big bite out of that and reduce the period to less than three years.

Because of your mention of drying and my rethinking, I might also go with a propane dryer. We probably won’t be using propane for refrigeration (electric with Sundanzer freezer and fridge instead) and won’t use an electric range, dryer, coffeemaker or water well pump—a gravity-fed water system w/ pump and cistern over 400 ft. up the hill from the power plant. The well pump is AC with generator now (not too bad w/ the cistern) but will use a slower pump powered by a small solar plant in the future (more than a lot of sun days here and savings on plant-to-pump power line).

After doing most other things for energy, we’ll probably go for a propane backup generator here. Propane lasts virtually indefinitely, although generator maintenance should also be considered. It might be used once, twice or never here, and fuel storage longevity is key. If we were to need a generator more frequently or for more than a year or two, I would go with diesel for sure (less engine maintenance but with shorter fuel stability than propane, longer than gasoline).

Thanks for your link to the BatteryMINDer—great for grid-tie systems (most systems) and will keep batteries charged until needed. For off-grid, I’ll suggest the following for those who sometimes see days of clouds (different purpose). Off-grid systems are always charging batteries on sunny days (not an advantage over grid-tied systems).

http://www.solar-electric.com/pomax12vo45a.html

Various models up to 100 amps of charging and does bulk, absorb and float modes. But all who are off-grid and need more charging, go with more PV modules now, while you can get them relatively cheap.

You have a beautiful place, BTW, and you certainly earned it, mentor. Well done so far. I need to get camera batteries but will get a website and post some pics later on, along with some DIY-er stuff and test and weather data promised to others.

As for security, yes. I’ll try to get some info together on DIY, low-cost, automatic camera systems, too (the kind that upload to remote servers w/ software motion detection and the like).