Category: Fuel Storage & Distilling

Preparedness for Short Term Regional Disasters, by K.H.H.

I know this blog is primarily aimed at folks preparing for a long-term crisis, but I have a unique perspective on living without electricity after a regional disaster that I thought some might find informative. I live in the hills of northwestern New Jersey, and I have lived through three sustained (my definition: 4 or more days each) power outages caused by extreme weather events during the last two years. These power outages were caused, respectively, by Hurricane Irene, 19 inches of wet, heavy snow in October before the trees had lost their leaves, and Hurricane Sandy. I have learned …


Letter Re: Fire: Your Partner in Survival

Dear JWR: The excellent article, “Fire: Your Partner in Survival, by Pledger” mentioned the BTU ratings of certain trees. Wanting to know a bit more, I did some searching and found a chart of the BTU ratings of various types of wood. On another note, Pledger’s reference to a cord as 4×8 feet by 16 inches threw me. I looked it up and found that a “full cord” measures 4x4x8 feet, which is the number I was familiar with, ranging from 80 to 100 cubic feet stacked. The web site I found uses 90 cubic feet for its BTU ratings. …


Letter Re: Micro-Gasification Stoves – Taking it to the Next Level

Jim: Thanks again for the recent posting on my piece: Local Food and Energy from Top Lit Up Draft Micro-Gasification Stove. That was much appreciated! Are you tracking woodgas powered vehicles? You may have heard of it from WWII stories and FEMA manual. The old systems worked in emergencies, but were not really practical for long term use. Wayne Keith has a new book just out on practical applications, Have Wood Will Travel. In it are detailed instructions for building, operating, and maintaining a modern woodgas powered vehicle. Wayne has tinkered his way into the first system that is practical …


Fire: Your Partner in Survival, by Pledger

Eons ago when people lived in caves, one of their most important tools was fire.  Its ability to keep them warm, cook food, provide light, and scare away predators was of the utmost importance.  Some kind of a societal upheaval may not necessarily mean returning to a stone age existence, but when the systems that keep our everyday life humming along go down, fire will once again have a huge impact on our ability to survive. This fact was brought home to my wife and me two winters ago, when a February blizzard knocked out the power to several counties.  …


Surviving Snowmageddon, by Lugknut32

In January, 2012 Washington State went through what the locals called Snowmageddon. My family and I had just returned from being stationed in Germany for the preceding nine years. Some of our belongings were still packed up out in the garage. Mostly my “camping” things. Having just started at the new assignment, I had not yet taken the time to unpack everything. I had bought some heavy duty shelves for the garage (in anticipation of unpacking my gear). While in Germany, I was stationed in Bavaria (Schweinfurt and Graffenwoehr specifically). I had been raised in the Midwest, so I was …


Start Where You Are, by Sanders

I’m older than you are. I’m female. Wanted to get that out of the way early, so you can decide whether to keep reading or not. I assume you’re new to being prepared. Long-time survivalists wouldn’t want to read an article titled “start.” But you do. You’re interested in the subject of preparation, but you’re also a little overwhelmed by what you’re seeing on survival sites. You don’t think you can do all that stuff. The fact is, you probably can’t. You’re a bank teller, not a former Marine. You’re alone, not affiliated with 30 like-minded survivalists. I’ve read all …


Local Food and Energy from Top Lit Up Draft Micro-Gasification Stoves, by Doug B.

"Food and energy are the two keystones of any community economy anywhere on earth.   If we produce and distribute food and energy locally, we have the food, the energy and the money.   We establish the capacity to create and retain wealth in our community.   We put in place the two foundations of any human economy."  -David Yarrow. More and easier food and energy production immediately raise standards of living. Less time worrying about essentials, leaves more time to do everything else.  Do not overlook this simple truth in preparedness and future planning.  Top Lit Up Draft (TLUD) stove technology has …


Letter Re: Diesel Fuel Storage and Dyed Diesel Issues

Greetings, In a short response to Simon S. from “Across the pond” and his letter about using heating oil for diesel vehicles, please let me add one small bit of first hand advice;  The heating oil that you buy for your home is not only dyed differently for tax reasons, it isn’t filtered as well either.  I also live in Europe and I got the idea to burn heating oil in my diesel vehicle once most people started converting (wrongly I might add) to Natural Gas from Russia.  The people who converted were expected to pay a lot of money …


Letter Re: Diesel Fuel Storage and Dyed Diesel Issues

James, I don‘t know how things are in your country, but in most parts of Europe we have heating oil extra light for household use. This is red in colour and virtually identical with standard diesel fuel. The only differences are the colour and the taxation, because this is always very much cheaper than the vehicle fuel. For obvious reasons it is forbidden to use this as a vehicle fuel, but it is theoretically possible. Heating oil can be stored in large quantities without any special permits, which is not the case for vehicle fuels. Containers for it are readily …


Letter Re: Low Sulfur Diesel and Refinery Shutdowns

Dear Jim, I wanted to provide a technical article to explain to your readers why refineries have to shut down more often than they used to. There’s a good reason for this, and its not greed.   A few years ago I went to welding school. I wanted a post-oil survival skill that would make me money and have real value. During the course of my education I learned how to weld stainless steel, and one of the key components of welding stainless is something called the Heat Affected Zone. It turns out that when welding stainless steel you can …


Letter Re: Leaky Trufuel Cans

JWR, I just read the entry about TRUFUEL.  I use Trufuel in my chainsaw because it contains no ethanol and has a long shelf life.  However, the containers leak.  I bought one and it fell on it’s side on the way home.  It leaked into my truck seat.  I took it back to the store, and we started looking through the containers.  Every single container contained signs of leakage.  If anyone is looking to buy Trufuel for long term storage they may very well lose much of it through evaporation.  Otherwise it is a very good product.  – Frank G.


Letter Re: Gasoline Available in a Pinch at the Big Box Store

Hi James, I was recently at the chainsaw shop and saw cans of something called TRUFUEL. It is basically one quart metal cans of gasoline, with most versions premixed for 2-stroke engines.  However, they also have a 4-stroke version that my chainsaw dealer tells me is simply 92-octane gasoline with stabilizers and other additives that would be perfectly suitable for running a car or other vehicle.  Haven’t tried it myself yet, but if plausible, big box hardware stores, power tool dealers, and some auto parts stores could have fuel available in a pinch (and I imagine for only a short …


Wilderness Fire Making: We Have Ignition, by Brad M.

I have been a scoutmaster for 18 years. It is a lot of fun teaching scouts how to make fire using unorthodox methods.  Seeing the look in their eyes as they get their first fire built in the outdoors using no matches is a great experience.  As a matter of fact, in winter camps where the ground is not frozen I like to use a trench fire pit with rocks in it, then bury it and sleep on top for a very cozy and warm night. I too was bitten by the survival bug when I was a young scout, …


Long Distance Bug Out Planning, by J.B. in Georgia

There is a plethora of good, sound information and articles on SurvivalBlog.com that I have researched, absorbed, and adapted into much of what we have done to prepare.  I would like to personally extend my gratitude to all the contributors of this subject and let them know that the information they have freely shared has been very helpful.  In addition, there are countless other informative sites, books, and organizations gained from this web site that has also been very useful.  This article describes our particular situation, the challenges, and planning to make our escape from the crowded suburbs of Atlanta …


Pat’s Product Review: Emberlit Camp Stove

I’d like to believe that after Earth for more than 61 years, that I’m getting a little bit smarter in my old age. Well, maybe not smarter, but a bit wiser, might be a better description. There was a time, not too many years ago, when I could hump 50-pounds around the boonies, with a full-set of A.L.I.C.E. gear and a full combat load of ammo and some manner of AR-15. Those days are long gone! However, I’m actually in better shape physically these days, than I was 10 years ago, but that doesn’t mean that I want to pack …