Heating With Wood, by SGT B.

I don’t know that you would call my father a prepper. He was more just in love with the idea of economic independence and living in the woods. When I was nine (after the woods behind us were clear cut for an apartment complex), we sold our house in the suburbs, bought ten acres far enough out that he figured the developers would never find us, and built a home in the woods.

We heated this house with wood, and as any of you who grew up with a wood stove can already guess, that meant I spent a good chunk of my young life cutting, splitting, hauling, stacking, and burning wood.

Here are some of the things I learned while I was about it. This will by no means be complete, but will reflect only my partial understanding of a subject as old as fire, and as varied as the trees.

First things first: Why wood?

Wood grows. Wood in one form or another grows in most of the inhabitable regions of the earth. If you own land, chances are you own some wood. If not, probably your neighbors have some. Wood heat is renewable energy that anyone can harness. It can be had when the economy is bad as well as when it is good, it is absolutely EMP-proof (although your stove may not be, if it uses electronic components), and so long as you harvest it yourself, it is tax-free. Wood is not necessarily the best or only way to go, and should be weighed against other options. Even for off the grid situations, heat can be provided through heating oil burning stoves (I assume) or through electric stoves if you have a generator or other form of power. That said, unless you have a super abundance of electric capacity, you probably have many other demands on your juice in any sort of emergency.

The downside of wood is that it is not free. You will have to spend either time or labor to get it. Depending how much you use, this could translate to a lot of labor. The other aspect of this is that if you are injured or disabled, you will have a rough time of it. When my father injured his arm badly, I was in school, and our wood stack was at a low point. We were supported by members of our church fellowship helping with wood, and by using on the grid backup systems. In our case this was merely embarrassing, in some situations it could be worse. I’d say follow the rule of threes and have multiple means of heat.

Other considerations: You will have maintenance and cleaning chores with this method. On the plus side they’ll be things you can do yourself with the right tools. Own your own gear for cleaning the chimney. Don’t burn chemically treated wood, and you can use the ashes in compost, but mix them with other stuff or they’ll just form a smothering layer of gray mud. Avoid burning trash for heat if you can help it. Chemically treated wood and plywood can also produce poisonous fumes, so keep that in mind.

Woodstove Selection
 I am familiar with three ways of heating with wood indoors. There may well be others, but if so I don’t know them and am not qualified to speak on them. They are, a fireplace, a simple wood stove, and a wood burning water stove.

The fireplace: This is the most basic form of woodstove. They range from the small and basically decorative fireplaces of most modern suburban homes to the vast fire places of old manors, where large meals can be prepared at the hearth. Fireplaces are generally poorly situated to heat a home. They reside on one side of the room, radiate much of their heat directly up the chimney, or out through the sides, and are basically inefficient. That said, if that is all you have, it is well worth laying in a supply of wood for hard times. From a survival standpoint however, someone in such a position should probably focus more on securing their primary method of heat, with a generator or a supply of heating fuel depending what that is.

Free standing wood stoves. These are, at their most basic a big box with a fireplace in the middle, and with a stovepipe to take away the smoke. They can be situated anywhere in a room, and radiate their heat outwards. If properly designed and located, they lose much less heat up the chimney than a fireplace. They are not efficient for heating other rooms, and (like a fireplace) may be inadequate for heating a large home. Some designs can also provide a cooking surface and or an oven. I find this attractive enough to be a primary consideration, but you may feel differently. These stoves also require no electricity in their basic form. I’ve heard of designs that have some electrical features such as blowers, that can heat other rooms of the house, but I have no experience with them. (BTW, I have seen other posts on SurvivalBlog that speak of woodstoves that can handle coal. I don’t have any personal experience with this, but I think that it is a valid consideration during stove selection.)

Wood burning water [jacket] stoves. These are somewhat more complex. Essentially they are a woodstove wrapped in a water tank. Rather than radiate heat directly into a living area, they heat the water, which is then circulated through the rest of the house. They have some major advantages and disadvantages. This is what we had, so this section will be a bit more in depth perhaps.

Advantages:

  • Can be located outside the living area, which offers benefits in terms of:
    • Cleanliness: Lots of bugs live in wood piles, and they often hitch rides inside with the wood, no matter how careful you are. There’s also the risk of smoke drafting into the room, which is bad for you.
    • Living space not occupied by stove.
    • Safety, in that you do not have hot metal in the middle of your living area. If the stove is outside, which I have seen, it may reduce you fire risk, but you will need a shed to protect the stove.
  • Can heat larger dwellings, either through radiant floor heating or through a more traditional central blower (via a heat coil). We had a very large house, two stories with vaulted ceilings and a lot of windows, plus a full basement, and we had very good heat.
  • Can be used to heat your water through a heat exchange. The actual water around the stove is full of chemicals, but a heat exchanger can run it through a heat exchanger to heat your tap water without contamination.

Disadvantages:

  • This system requires electricity and a water supply. That means that if the power goes out, you have no source of heat. For this reason it is imperative that you also have a generator. My family put that purchase off until Hurricane Fran waltzed into central North Carolina and left us without power for over a week. Needless to say there were ten no generators to be had for love or money. Fortunately it was summer. By the time we got to learn about blizzards we had a generator. Still, between running our well pump and the stove there was less electricity for anything else.
  • You also can’t cook on these, so far as I know.
  • Unless you have backup heat or water heating methods, you will have to burn wood anytime you want heat or hot water. This means at least some wood consumption year round. BTW, when I say some, I really mean a lot.
  • Maintenance is more of a concern with these systems than with simpler designs, and there are certain unique things that can go wrong. For example, you have to monitor the fire to ensure than the water supply does no boil, or you will have “opportunities for fun” such as a flooded basement or a damaged heater, or both.

All said, my father, reluctant though he was to admit defeat, came to regret the water stove. It became a beast that swallowed a whole lot of our labor, and wasn’t particularly more efficient than living on the grid and using your labor for other things. Other pursuits, such as gardening, livestock, and hunting, suffered due to the need to feed the machine. Neighbors with regular wood stoves used much less fuel, had fewer problems, and had no need for concern with heat when the power was out. I do not recommend these unless you absolutely must heat the entirety of a large structure.

Woodlot Management

If you have a wood lot, you want to manage it. Second growth forests are often too dense for optimum growth, and culling and thinning the trees permits faster growth by the rest. I’ve heard it said that you can expect a cord a year, per acre, from temperate deciduous forest if you manage it well, but I don’t know it for an ironclad fact. Selecting which trees to cut is important. Unless you’re trying to clear a field (or field of fire) it is not a great idea to clear-cut. Pick out individual trees and cut those to clear space for other trees. Start with downed trees before they rot, and move on to wolf trees that take up a lot of space. Plan ahead too, and make sure you take advantage of downed trees on willing neighbors property. Also make sure they’re willing, otherwise it’s theft of a tangible resource. A significant chunk of our family’s firewood came from other people’s lands. People who have invested in woodlands but not yet built on may be particularly willing to allow you to take storm-downed trees. I know people with sizable woodpiles that only harvest other people’s trees. Coppicing is an interesting idea that is worth looking into, but I have no personal experience with that.

I won’t go into different types of wood here. My knowledge of that is limited and regional, and there is very good, technically detailed information out there about the burning properties of various woods. We always cut a lot of trash trees, because despite the poorer burning properties we wanted them gone from our land. YMMV, and watch for creosote buildup vigilantly. Removing trees that produce large quantities of fruit or nuts fall can reduce the presence of game on your land, and/or remove a significant emergency food source. In general quality hardwoods with long straight trunks are worth leaving to grow, in a pinch you can sell them or use them for lumber.

Cutting wood
I won’t say much about the mechanics of cutting down trees. I’ve never been much of a chainsaw artist, and others could tell you much better. I do recommend having multiple chainsaws in every size you use though, because it is darn hard to cut down a tree with a broke saw. Also, following major storms, at least one of your neighbors will want to borrow one, without fail, and it is an easy way to help someone out a lot. Barter is of course always a consideration as well. Other tools that are nice include come-a-longs, wedges and a heavy hammer – for freeing up a bound saw, log rollers, and a machete for clearing small branches and underbrush. Orange reflective tape on the ‘chete grip will save time wondering where you put it.

It is of course possible to bring down trees with hand-powered tools as well. Following the rule of threes I’d say have a felling axe and a two man cross cut saw in addition to the chainsaw. If you’re worried about noise for security or wildlife purposes, or if you live alone, you might also want a single man cross cut saw. Axes are pretty much the least efficient of these in my mind (but great exercise). Bear in mind that there is a difference between a splitting axe and a felling axe. Felling axes can also come in single bit (that’s the sharp part) or double bit (like the classic battleaxe) and can have curved or straight handles. I like the double bit, but that’s a matter of preference, and I am only modestly experienced at felling with an axe.  I have no experience with two man saws, and therefore won’t comment on them. I will say that you should always have maintenance and sharpening equipment (and know-how) for any cutting tool you keep. Finally, machetes can also be used for bringing down saplings and underbrush, and can provide a lot of small wood.  This can increase the depth you can see into the woods, and reduce fire risks around your home (so long as you clear away the hacked brush of course). Machete hacked stumps can be fairly sharp, like little punji sticks, and you may wish to break the points down with your boot as you cut to prevent future tripping and foot bruising.

Safety first when cutting (as always). Always clear any potential fall area of people when bringing down a tree, and bear in mind that a severed trunk can jab out backwards with a few tons of force behind it. That can kill you very dead. Also always check your root bole holes when cutting free a storm-downed trunk. A state worker got crushed to death while taking a squat in one after Hurricane Fran because his buddy didn’t check. Also make sure anyone you’re working with is practicing good safety and understands what they’re doing. A friend of mine got the side of his face caved in by the end of a log once because I instructed another friend poorly. He was lucky. A inch or so higher would have caved in his temple. Which brings me to the always wear appropriate safety gear rule. Always do. Period. Long sleeves and pants, boots, gloves, helmet with a face-guard or safety glasses, hearing protection. I’m losing my hearing and not quite 30 years old. I now wish I’d worn it.  In very cold weather avoid steel-toed boots as they can promote frostbite.  Remember too that after a tree has torn itself free of the surrounding canopy there may be sizable limbs left suspended that may come free and drop with a breeze. Dead trees can also break apart as they come down, or even with the vibration of the saw, so helmets are important.

Younger family members can be included in hauling small wood and burning brush and waste wood while you cut, but make sure you watch out for them. They can be hard to see, and may lack a proper sense of safety, or at least the attention span to remember it. You’ll also want to monitor horseplay. I busted a friend’s teeth out with a piece of firewood at the woodpile at the age of five, and got severely burned in a brush clearing bonfire when I was six. We weren’t working at that age, just horsing around in a work area.

When sectioning trees, make sure that there is sufficient clearance between the bottom of what you’re cutting and the ground for you to stop. Even occasionally grounding a moving chainsaw blade is too often. Also make sure the two sections won’t twist free of each other when you separate them and strike you or your assistant.

Splitting wood
For splitting wood you should have a variety of tools, because not all wood is created equal, and I’m pretty sure some trees were created specifically to build the character and fortitude of wood splitting youths everywhere.

Tools I used for various splitting tasks were a hatchet, a small axe, a large splitting axe, an 6 lb maul, a 14.5-pound maul, a sledge hammer and an assortment of wedges. Most of these are not used most of the time, but I recommend having them all, especially the wedges. Sometimes a large piece of wood will decide not to give back your maul. Small axes and hatchets can allow children to participate (and boy don’t I know it), but make sure you give them clear safety instructions and supervise them. After years of replacing handles I have given up and determined that I will never buy another wooden handled striking tool. I have not yet personally owned a fiberglass-handled axe, but plan to get one. With the heavy maul I use a steel handle.

I advise against using a chainsaw for splitting unless absolutely necessary, because it is a lot of wear and tear on the saw, and because it isn’t generally necessary. I also advise against splitting even small wood with a machete, you’ll have better control with a hatchet.

Remember to always bend at the knees when you bring down the maul/axe. This reduces the risk of back injury, and also ensures that if you miss, the arc of the maul will intersect with the ground rather than your shin or foot. I also advise against swinging from behind the back. I find that that increases strain on your back and arms and leads to significant injury. It also reduces accuracy and doesn’t add enough force to justify it. Others disagree. They have their ways and I have mine. I bring the axe gently to an overhead position, with a wide grip, and only then begin the swing, bringing my top hand down along the shaft as I swing.

I consider myself a minor artist with a maul, and am more conceited about it than anything but my fire building, but when I again heat with wood, I will have a gas powered pneumatic splitter. Yes, the purchase cost is high, yes, it requires gas. But it will save you many, many hours of labor. In my case it added days to my year when we rented a friend’s for just a week.  Pick a centralized location, and then one person brings the wood to the splitter while the other one feeds.

I would however not be caught dead without the tools for the older methods. Gas runs out. Machines break. It would just about take an Arc Light [bombing] mission to destroy a steel handled maul. Also some times it is easier to use a maul than a splitter, and sometimes you just need to blow off steam by breaking things apart (I mean firewood, not people who stress you out).

Always wear boots. Always wear gloves. Always have extra gloves in depth.

Hauling wood
Own a good quality wheelbarrow. [JWR Adds: In addition to a wheelbarrow with an air free (foam-filled) tire, if you have an ATV, then buy a sturdy steel trailer for it. Unless you live on a mountainside, an ATV can get to the farthest corners of your wood lot.] Keep spare parts for everything but the bucket. You will need them. Always store the wheelbarrow upside down if you keep it outside. Always check for snakes when you turn it back up to use. For obvious reasons I recommend using a motorized vehicle for hauling long distance up hill. Even if you have to clear a path, it will save time. Plus, you also burn whatever was in you path. Even the trunk of a sedan can be used to haul a fair bit of wood. Human chains are great for loading/unloading operations. I advise resisting the temptation to toss the wood to one another, but for short, steep gradients, throwing wood down can save a lot of time. Just don’t try to catch it. Make sure to switch sides periodically to vary which muscle groups are getting the strain.

Stacking Wood:
Stacking wood is an art form of its own. There are many ways to do it. Just remember the basics:

  • Never just pile the wood up for more than a short while. It will rot quickly on the bottom, and why should you lose wood you’ve already worked to cut and haul.
  • Always stack on [scrap wood] runners. This permits airflow underneath and greatly delays wood wasting rot. It also reduces bugs, which is good if it’s by your house. It may provide runways for little furry critters, but they are going to be there anyway, so don’t sweat it. I recommend at least one full-time outdoor mouser. Bring her food in at night to encourage hunting and to reduce instances of being woken up by her fighting off coons and possums.
  • Do sweat the snakes and spiders. Once more, always wear gloves. We had a problem for a while with a nest of copperheads. This taught us to always check the ground around the wood stack. It also taught us that in a hot enough stove, a copperhead can pop like a big meat popcorn. Remember to burn at least the heads, and that they can still bite when dead. Ant nests can be a problem too, and necessitate seeking out the wood they have built their home in and sending them on a vacation to a warmer place. Ants just sizzle though, they don’t pop. Sorry.
  • Stack tight, and stack stable. Put the longest and the heaviest pieces at the bottom. Put oddly shaped pieces off to one side and then stick them on top. Think of the stack as a puzzle and make it tight. End posts are nice with permanent stacks. BTW, small stuff burns quickly, and can cause a fire to rage out of control, with a water stove, this can be a problem, causing your water to boil. Stack skinny bits of wood separately from the big stuff, or put them on top.
  • Cover your stacks against the rain. If you use tarps, make sure they are taught, or you will wind up with pooling water that will reduce the life of your tarp and seep into your wood. I advise using solid overhead cover for at least your near term use wood. I feel that over time in a humid climate moisture and heat can build up under a tarp and permit decomposition.
  • When bringing in wood from outside, keep an eye out for vagabond critters scurrying away from you into your house. If they enjoy eating your wood stack, they’ll likely love your nice warm house. Sweep up all debris when finished and throw it in the fire. And never store wood in the house. Things that are dormant under bark in the cold weather may revive in your cozy abode and frolic, to your detriment.
  • Wood stacks can be used to provide tactical landscaping, as others on this blog have mentioned. In addition to providing cover or concealment, they can also block your fields of fire, or avenues of maneuver. Site them wisely.
  • Rotate through your stacks on a modified FIFO basis. In general this means oldest stack first, but sometimes a newer stack may be drier. Use the dried wood first. The water in wood consumes heat energy as it evaporates, reducing useful output, and also add bulk to the smoke, encouraging it to flow back out into the house.

Timing:
Generally we cut down trees in the late Fall or Winter. It was a good time for hard labor with the cool weather, the underbrush is less dense and buggy, and the sap isn’t running in the trees. We would usually try and get the years supply down and cut into rough lengths. This lets it dry faster. Generally we would leave it in place or rough stack it in place and move on, and then collect it in a later season to haul to the house. This let us make the most of the time when the sap wasn’t running to bring down trees.

Once the wood is rough stacked you can leave it there for a while. I don’t bother to cover wood I leave in the woods. The rain won’t hurt the inside of the wood much, and it will have time for the outside to dry when I bring it to the house. This was an issue of space around the house for us. If you have a big wood barn, like one of our neighbors, there’s not much reason to leave it in the woods.

As for splitting wood, some say it’s easier when wet, some say dry. After trying it both ways I think it depends on the type of wood, but ceased to look into it once I discovered powered log splitters. I do know that wood dries much faster when split, and stacks better too, so I see no reason not to split wet wood.

Thanks to Mr. Rawles and to all the SurvivalBlog contributors. God bless you all and remember to change your socks. – SGT B.

Letter Re: How to Make Your Own “Black Out” OPSEC Window Panels

James,
Another good product for light shades is Reflectix Insulation.

Basically Reflectix is bubble wrap with aluminum foil bonded to one or both sides. I have used it to make thermal drapes for my home, and know that it blocks all visible light. You can buy it at most Home Improvement centers. It commonly comes in 25′ rolls that are 16″, 24″, or 48″ in width.

Last winter I bought a 4’x25′ roll and had enough to do my entire house. (9 windows of various sizes) the cost was about $40.

Manufacturers claim that reflects up to 97% of all radiant heat, so not only will you save some energy, I would expect it to be somewhat effective against infrared and thermal imaging.
I know that the temperature in my old Mobile Home came up a good 10 degrees F in just the 45 minutes it took me to put up my blinds.

While I made my blinds so they can be rolled up during the day time, it would be very easy to find some way to anchor them on the sides and at the bottom so they would completely block all light at night.
Thank You JWR for a great site. – Fanderal

Letter Re: Where to Store Food When There is No Simple Answer

Mr. Editor:

Like Margy, I also found myself building an ‘above ground cellar’ for temperature stable storage of food and other goods. Working with a detached three-car garage that had just a two-car door, I converted the extra ‘bay’ to a bonus room. With standard framing and insulation I noticed that that room remained noticeably more even in temperature throughout the day.

I also have warm summers, 100F and occasionally more. Winters rarely drop below freezing for more than a day or two.

I did some research once on passive temperature control and learned that water has a high specific heat and in significant quantity can stabilize the temperature of a given space. I acquired several 55 gallon plastic drums and placed them in a row along the interior wall of my room. I filled them in place with water I treated with bleach and sealed them. Within days I noticed that the temperature remained nearly constant regardless of time of day. The barrels are about 3′ high by 2′ deep, and it is easy enough to construct shelving above them.

I improved on this further by adding more barrels and increasing the insulation. I bought 2″ thick foam panels at Home Depot, the kind with reflective metal coating. These I cut to shape for the windows and blocked them off. I also bought a box fan and some furnace filters. This I mounted in a window on a clock timer. The fan pulls cool night air into the space, pulling air through a furnace filter and an exterior screen. Now that the summer has passed I have disabled the timer and will cover the fan assembly with an insulation panel as the temperature drops. I may even use it to pull warmer afternoon air in during winter.

With these steps and no significant heat sources inside the insulated envelope I have found that with no energy consumption I have managed a cool place for long term storage.

Water is cheap and readily available. Once purified, it requires no maintenance when properly stored. – Vlad

Economics and Investing:

The Other Chris sent the link to a New York Times piece: Foreclosures Mark Pace of Enduring U.S. Housing Crisis. Here are some key quotes: “Every 13 seconds in America, there is another foreclosure filing. That’s the rhythm of a crisis that threatens to choke off hopes for a recovery in the U.S. housing market as it destroys hundreds of billions of dollars in property values a year.”

“Michael Barr, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for financial institutions, said more than 6 million families could face foreclosure over the next three years.”

“The Centre for Responsible Lending says foreclosures are on track to wipe out $502 billion in property values this year. That spillover effect from foreclosures is one reason why Celia Chen of Moodys Economy says nationwide home prices won’t regain the peak levels they reached in 2006 until 2020. “The default rates, the delinquency rates, are still rising,” Chen told Reuters. “Rising joblessness combined with a large degree of negative equity are going to cause foreclosures to increase,” she added. Anyone doubting that the recovery in U.S. real estate prices will be long and hard should take a look at Japan, Chen said. Prices there are still off about 50 percent from the peak they hit 15 years ago.”

Reader Jim H. sent this link: U.S. states suffer “unbelievable” revenue shortages

Items from The Economatrix:

Whodunit? Sneak Attack on the US Dollar

Job Competition Toughest Since Recession Began

August Trade Deficit Narrows Unexpectedly to $30.7 Billion

Oil Prices Nearly Flat as Dollar Strengthens

US Job Levels at Lowest Level in at Least Nine Years

Britain Overtakes US as Top Financial Center

10,000 Apply for 90 Factory Jobs

Jim Willie: Death of Petro-Dollar, Told Ya So!

Odds ‘n Sods:

Why does society loathe well-prepared individuals? See: Soldier suspended from school. My, things have changed since I was in high school 1970s. In that era, many of my classmates carries a Buck Folding Hunter pocketknife in a leather belt pouch, and nobody said “boo” about it. (Thanks to LSC for the news link.)

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Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?

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Don’t forget that Safecastle’s final Mountain House sale for 2009, ends today (October 11th). They are offering 25% off on all Mountain House canned long-term storage foods Don’t miss out on the sale pricing for these excellent foods, most of which have a 30 year shelf life.

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‘Ravenwood’ Comes to America, by Chuck Baldwin

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Reader “Maddog” mentioned this WND piece: 2012 forecast: Food riots, ghost malls, mob rule, terror

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. You do not do that. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them!" – Sergeant Alvin York

Where to Store Food When There is No Simple Answer, by Margy

It’s been almost two years now since I became serious about preparing for TEOTWAWKI. In that time I’ve followed the instructions of the Lord upon the death of my husband to “shore up and seal up my house” but there was always one haunting question. That was, where would I have enough space to store adequate food for my family that I could control the temperature.

Living in a mild climate in the heart of America, we have long hot summers that sometimes kiss the thermometer in excess of 105? making outdoor storage of any kind almost impossible. I’ve always stored extra paper products and a few canned goods in the garage but due to the heat, I knew I couldn’t successfully store food there for a long period of time. Soil in our region consists of a high content of clay so digging a root cellar is not a fruitful enterprise.

Although I have a relatively large three bedroom home, I wasn’t willing to fill closets with survival food, plus I wanted it to be hidden from eyes that didn’t have a need to know. I worried about this at length, feeling that I had been instructed by the Lord to make preparations for my family of eight.

A friend of ours who is a construction person often does odd jobs around the house for me. He is someone I trust like a brother and whom I attend church with. We were standing in my garage one day as I expressed my dismay over the food storage situation when he pointed to an alcove in the garage and said, “You have a closet right there. All you have to do is wall it off.”

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it previously, but the moment he said that it became very clear this would be “the” place. Within in a few days, I had my son in the garage with a measuring tape, pencil and paper and we figured the supplies I would need to make the closet come into fruition. He went to work and I went to Home Depot to arrange for a delivery of 2 x 4s, sheet rock, insulation, electrical boxes and wiring, light fixtures and screws and the complete list to make a well constructed, insulated closet with electrical outlets and ceiling fixtures where tool laden shelves once stood.

The process of moving all of the shelving and items stored on the shelves was exhausting, but I could see the benefit of this project and knew I would either get rid of what was stored there or find another place to put it. Luckily, most of the shelving was the heavy duty steel shelving on casters that we had bought at Sam’s a couple of years before. They were easily rolled across the garage and out of the way of the construction crew, their contents in tact.

The next weekend, my son and his friend came with tools in hand and began a long day of construction on a simple closet, fifteen feet long by five feet wide. Once their equipment was brought into the garage, the door went down and stayed there during the construction process. Although my neighbors are nice people, they are not on the same political thought process I am and I didn’t think they needed to know what was happening in the garage, nor did the city inspectors!

Two by fours were affixed to the concrete garage floor with a Ramset HD 22 single shot hammer device. Once the 2 x 4s were securely fastened to the floor where they would serve as the grounding base for the wall studs, the 2 x 4s for the studs followed and were stabilized by being attached to the ceiling. Next came the exterior sheet rock wall and insulation. I did hire an electrician to do the wiring of the closet as well as additional dawn to dusk lighting around the perimeter of the house.  In addition to the extra lighting in the ceiling of the closet, we added two outlets in the interior and one on the exterior wall of the storage closet so I would not lose the capacity to plug in extension cords for electrical outdoor tools. The closet door I selected was a metal exterior door already set with a lock and key arrangement.

We installed a silvery [Reflectix] insulation that was about 1/4″ thick with bubbles sandwiched between the aluminum-looking [mylar] layers. We completely wrapped the walls of the storage closet with the insulation in hopes that it would solve any temperature problems. We  lined the room with it as tightly as if we were hanging wall paper, stapling it to the walls with an electric, heavy duty stapler. It looked good, clean and professional. My nine year old grandson stepped into the room and asked “Wow. What is this place for.” We dubbed it the “beam me up Scotty” room and have jokingly referred to it as that ever since. I put two thermometers in the room – one at each end –  and watched with dismay as the red line continued to hold at 90?. This was a problem that would only shorten the longevity of the stored food.

Once the closet was done my other son came to begin building shelves. My original plan was for wooden shelves but he wasn’t long into the project until he convinced me to buy metal shelving from Home Depot. We purchased three sets of Workforce Five Shelf Heavy Duty Steel Shelving Units that would hold up to 4,000 pounds. These free standing shelves were easily put together, very strong, and by using two units, I could make them tall enough to go from the floor to the nine foot ceiling. Each unit cost around $89 which was a little more than I had originally budgeted, but now that they are in I’m thrilled with them and very glad we went to this plan. The shelves are clean, smooth and without splinters and I don’t worry about weight loads plus the shelves are adjustable if I so desire.

My hot water tank is housed in a small closet inside the food storage room. I knew we had put the tank in almost immediately after we had moved into the house eleven years previously and it was a ten year tank. While I had not had any difficulty with the tank and found it still supplied me more than adequate hot water, I felt as though it would be prudent to have the tank replaced now, before the closet was full of food and shelving units. Also, I didn’t want to take a chance on the tank going out over a weekend or some other rushed time and I would be at the mercy of an unknown plumber to come fix it. Instead, I bought the tank and hired my construction friend to install it at his leisure, knowing full well I could trust him to be discreet about the contents of the closet.

Continuing to be concerned about the lack of control on the temperature inside the closet, my son and I climbed into the attic and put a roll of pink panther R-20 insulation in the area immediately above the food storage room and then a layer of pressed wood over that for flooring, thinking it would also work as additional insulation. Because of the layout of the roof line and the fact that the support beams for the ceiling of the garage ran crosswise instead of lengthwise, we weren’t able to get the insulation into the low lying areas under the eaves of the house. This worried me and I stuck as much of the blue polystyrene foam insulation back into the small crevices as possible.

As the weather began to get warmer, my concerns for the temperature of the closet room grew. Although my son had heavily insulated the new wall when he built it and I had a circulation fan going in the room at all times as well as the added insulation in the attic and on the exterior walls, the thermometer was showing an increasingly large red line. I knew enough about the longevity of  dried food to know this was not good and I would have to take evasive action.

My next venture was to add a stand alone room air conditioner. I did my research on line and bought one from a company in Austin, Texas. It looked like a great idea but looks weren’t enough! The information said it needed to stand near a window so it could be vented out like any other air conditioner. While I didn’t have a window in the room, I figured we could cut a hole in the wall of the water heater closet, run the venting tubing through that closet and up and out the vents in the attic.

My sister and I set about making this happen. In the early morning hours, before it got hot, she crawled into the attic with tools in hand and began cutting an opening through the ceiling of the hot water tank closet and pushing a very long length of flexible insulated dryer venting through the hole and then through the new hole we had cut in the wall of the closet. Pulling fifty feet of insulation isn’t an easy task, but we worked hard at the project and got it pulled through and affixed to the wall with metal brackets so it would be stable.

We followed the instructions on the stand alone air conditioner and attached the venting system to the flexible dryer vent and rejoiced when we turned on the unit and it dropped the temperature two degrees, almost immediately. We congratulated ourselves, went into the house and cleaned up and crashed in the family room. We were both very hot and exhausted but feeling good about our accomplishment as we drifted off to a well deserved nap.

A couple of hours later we went out to check our handiwork and were frustrated to find the room hotter than it had been before we began the project with the thermostat on the air conditioner showing 93?. We checked all points on the venting system to make sure nothing had come undone. I turned off the unit and set the fan back in the room; she went home. I thought about it over the weekend and tried to figure out what we could do to solve the problem. I had spent over three hundred dollars on the stand-alone unit that was only adding to the problem. Not only could I not afford that, it was maddening to think about.

After further research I came to the conclusion that the stand alone unit really is only a supplemental unit to be used in an area that already has some air conditioning but not enough. I’m sure it would work very well in that situation, but not in ours. On Monday, I called the company in Texas and told them I was returning the unit only to be answered by a Brian who wasn’t very nice about it and informed me that not only would I have to pay for the shipping back, which I expected, but I would now have to pay for the shipping to me as well since I wasn’t buying another product from them. That turned out to be about one hundred dollars down the drain. An expensive lesson in futility.

We were able to repackage all of the venting materials we used and return them to Home Depot for a refund, accompanied by a smile. At least they were nice about it which reinforces the virtues  of buying locally.

Several years before, I had added insulation to the attic of my home so I called that same company and had them come out to add more insulation, this time to the area above the storage closet in the garage as well as the original garage walls. To do so, they had to drill holes in the walls but I didn’t think that mattered – the idea was to keep the room cool enough to prolong the life of the food. It was an arduous task to remove all of the food, shelves and supporting items from the closet into another part of the garage, cover them with thick plastic to hide the contents from unwarranted eyes. Once the insulation project was done, I had to reverse the process and put everything back into the room.

Even with the added insulation, the room still wasn’t maintaining temperature below 90? on the hottest days. Although this was frustrating, I now knew I had to install a wall unit in the room. I decided the only acceptable thing I could do was to cut a hole in the new wall and put a small, one room, 120 VAC air conditioning unit in. I felt this was a gamble as well, but I now had several thousands of dollars worth of food in the closet and I didn’t want to gamble with losing it and not having food for my family.

Adding the 120 VAC unit was the smartest move of all. While they, too, are designed for windows and to be vented outside, we’ve been able to make this work. The condensation from the unit drains into a small plastic pan I placed on a shelf under the unit on the garage side of the wall. After a period of accumulation I pour that water into an empty recycled bottle, mark it “distilled” and set it aside for my iron. I’ve hung a small clip-on fan on the metal shelves, also on the garage side of the wall, next to the air conditioner. The fan blows across the unit and downward where the hot air is picked up by a larger fan and blown toward the garage door that I keep raised about two inches for circulation. 

All in all, the addition of the closet is amazing. I learned a lot of hard lessons along the way but knowing what I know now, I would have started with additional insulation as the second step in the entire process. The room is maintaining a temperature of 60 to 70? now, depending on how much I run the little air conditioner, which is normally shut off at night. I’m trusting by the end of September I won’t have to run it at all.

The closet has been constructed in such a way that I can completely disguise it by rolling steel shelves that we purchased at Sam’s several years ago in front of it. Those shelves are loaded with my husbands tools, chain saws, porta potty and anything else that is necessary for a normal life. In as little as five minutes, the garage can be made to look like a normal American messy garage where nothing could be found easily. Unless someone is looking for the closet with a metal detector, it would be very difficult to find.

The addition of the food storage room has cost me approximately $500 for building materials; $375 for additional insulation; $150 for wiring; $400 for shelving; $100 for air conditioning; $100 for shipping back the stand alone air conditioner, but the peace of mind is priceless.

Letter Re: Documentary Examines a Terrorist Nuke Scenario

Hello Jim,
The History Channel has aired a two-hour long documentary titled ‘The Day After Disaster’.

It is a very detailed look at what they describe as our government’s top terrorist concern – a 10 kiloton nuke being detonated at/near the Capitol Mall in Washington DC. [JWR Adds: A re-run of this show is scheduled for October 16th at 8 A.M. and 2 P.M.. Tape or Tivo it!]

One of the things that became very clear for me is that, should this event occur in DC or any of the handful of other ‘primary target’ cities mentioned, our entire country will immediately go into a lockdown that will make the 9/11 aftermath look like a timeout for a five year old. This lock down will mean the immediate grounding of all air traffic, as we saw on 9/11, but also the immediate suspension of all trucking, freight, and port activity. The government will be searching for additional nukes, and to determine how the weapon entered the country. While not stated in the Documentary, there will be no just-in-time deliveries for what could be weeks, and I assume that rationing will be the method of disbursement for a time after that. There is an implied expectation that Marshall Law will be instituted at a national level as well.

If your not ready, this is yet another reason to get ready. Long term larder, and keeping out of the way will make for a much less stressful life than those who stand there like deer in the headlights.

Thank you Jim for all that you do, our prayers are with you and your family. God Bless, – D. McD.

Economics and Investing:

Reader KAF forwarded this: U.S. Budget Deficit Hit Record $1.4 Trillion in 2009

Illinois State Comptroller Dan Hynes Says State Finances A Mounting Crisis, Things Getting Worse. (Thanks to Jeff B. for the link.)

Matt in Tennessee alerted us to this video clip from Gerald Celente: The Dollar is Finished. And, BTW, Peter Schiff agrees. He announced “The carry trade [in US Dollars] is on!”

Items from The Economatrix:

Roubini: Housing Market Hasn’t Bottomed Yet

Treasuries Fall After Weaker-Than-Average Demand at Bond Sale

US Budget Deficit Balloons to $1.4 Trillion

Questions Remain About Iceland’s Banking Collapse

Latvia Threatens Foreign Banks with Huge Losses

Gold Hits New Record High for Third Day as Funds Move In

New Monetary Target: The Fed Under Fire

Dry Guide to “Recovery” (The Mogambo Guru)

Apartment Vacancy Rate Hits 23-Year High

Gold: Three Reasons Why the Price Will Go Higher

Odds ‘n Sods:

From Ben M.: Warning over global oil ‘decline’

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2012 Survival Conference Rocks Scottsdale October 17, Teaches You to Survive Mayan Apocalypse. [JWR’s comment: These folks have a downright goofy motivation, but I can’t knock them for preparing. I suspect that just like those that prepared for exclusively for the Y2K date rollover, their preps will languish, starting in 2013.]

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Development plans for the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) have been accelerated by three years. Hmm…. I wonder why? Some mullahs should be mulling this over.

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Regular content contributor Damon S. spotted this: Suspected Ebola outbreak kills 23 in south Sudan.

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 25 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) and C.) A HAZARiD Decontamination Kit from Safecastle.com. (A $350 value.)

Second Prize: A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $350.

Third Prize: A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing.

Round 25 ends on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Where You Live Matters: How to Assess Your Location and Develop Scenarios, by Brendan S.

A little foreknowledge will prevent you from becoming a victim. Most people don’t think about what they will actually do in the case of an emergency. One just has to see what happened after Hurricane Katrina to see how ill-informed the masses are. They simply expect the government to take care of everything. They meander like zombies to some location and wait to be fed and cleaned up after. Not me! I know what I’m going to do when any disaster strikes.

In this article I want to share with you my thoughts on how to:

•Assess the situation and your location.

•Assess your job location and commute.

•Assess any variables to your survival plans.

When disaster strikes where will you be? How well do you know the place where you live, work, or the space in between? Chances are that when a disaster occurs you will be either at home or at work or commuting in between. You may be ready to deal with things at home on a sunny afternoon, but what if you’re on the road in a downpour?

The main occupation of think tanks is to devise scenarios of whatever their specialty is; oil, food, military or political events. The same tactics can be done on an individual scale to find out what your reactions might be to disasters or events. You can plan out your reactions to events by knowing what your assets are at the time and how to be ready for any variables. Planning is simply about not being surprised. “When I am in situation 1, I will do X. When I am in situation 2 I will do Y.” Simple yet effective.

ASSESS THE SITUATION

A scenario doesn’t need to be the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI). Natural disasters are just as important and deadly. Not just in the initial disaster but also in the aftermath. Actually more people usually die after a disaster.

Living here in Northern California, earthquakes are an ever present fear and so ill prepared by people and neglected by the elected officials, city planners and developers. People’s houses might be able to take a moderate earthquake with little damage, but what about the roads, highways and overpasses? Chances are fire will spread unabated killing more people than the initial damage. Or, with the cops busy, looters will think it’s open season on home shopping.

So where does your house stand in the general theme of threats?

TASK #1: List the dangers that might affect your area.

Living where you do, you should already have some experience with some disaster inducing events. The United States has a very large variation in weather and its effects can be devastating. Floods near rivers, hurricanes near the coasts, blizzards up north, heat waves almost anywhere, earthquakes out west… the list goes on. You have probably dealt with something already.

Growing up in the Midwest we were always in danger of tornados cutting a swath through our neighborhood. Then in winter we had to worry about blizzards. But the situation doesn’t have to be devastating. What if a thunderstorm simply cut the power for several days? What if the basement floods? What if there’s an escape from a prison?

Could the effects be temporary or long lasting? Is it just power lines down or a blackout covering several states? Do striking rail workers mean food shortages? Is the riot from a basketball game or did Oakland finally collapse into chaos?

ASSESS YOUR LOCATION

TASK#2: Know your city.

As a pilot I know a lot about terrain. All day long I see the land rolling underneath me. Here in Northern California, from the air, I can easily see how land is managed and how cities and towns are developed. I see how many roads go in and out of town centers, suburbs, business parks and so on.

The place I live in is a small town in a valley with only a few roads leading in and out. If there was an earthquake along the Hayward fault line like the “big one” that is due to happen here any time now, and most of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco were apocalyptic hellscapes, the bridges might be knocked out and it would hopefully prevent refugees from setting up camp in our open land. We have a route to safety toward Sacramento if needed. And we have arable land that can be turned into farms quickly.

How dense is the population where you live?

Do you live in a dense populated city? A suburb? In the center or on the edge, close to farmland? If there was a disaster, where would most of those people head? You don’t need to fly over your area to assess it, Google Earth will do just fine. Take a good look at the main avenues of traffic and housing. Where is the most dense? Where do you not want to be? Where does the suburbs taper off finally into farmland? If Hurricane Katrina is any indication, people will congregate in a large open space like a stadium, park, school or the like. If you were a FEMA organizer, where would you tell people to go?

Where are the nearest hospitals?

When something happens these are most likely going to be the first place that people head for. There is medical attention, food, warmth and light. If you are uninjured, do you really need to go there? Would it be more dangerous? When the hospital gets overloaded after a disaster and turns into a triage; giving attention to the worst cases first, do you think that panicked people are going to simply wait calmly in the waiting room? Or will they start fights, demand attention maybe at gunpoint? Better to avoid it at all costs. (Or be the very first to show up through the emergency room doors!)

Is your home prepared?

Most time spent by people like us is in preparing our home for disaster, so this is well covered elsewhere and too vast to talk about here. But don’t just look at the stuff you have in your house. The wall of freeze-dried food will get you through the initial catastrophe, but then what? How adaptable is your house? Do you have a yard that can be turned into a garden with a little work? Where can you get more water? Are you near a stream or lake?

Is your neighborhood safe and secure?

You don’t have to live in a gated community to be safe, but how far off the main roads is your house or apartment? Would big city gang-bangers find it accessible and tempting? This fear goes up as the powered lights go out at night and all you can see is darkness out of your front door. Even temporary power outages cause hoodlums to go outside and behave like jackasses.

How well do you know your neighbors?

What would your kids do if you were stuck at work and they were home from school? Do they know your plan of action? Which neighbors could they trust? Which neighbors might want to come together but really are there to deplete your stockpile at twice the rate?

ASSESS YOUR WORK AND COMMUTE

TASK #3: Know your place of work.

If you are stuck at work how long could you last there? You could always sleep at your desk overnight but what about food? Do you think your boss would be ready or willing to provide for you and the other employees? Probably not. It would probably turn into surviving out of your car, especially if your place of work is damaged.

What would you do if stuck on the highway?

The cars are stopped because of an earthquake, flood, jack-knifed chemical truck, etc. Could you pull off and hike on foot? Which way?

When I lived in Tokyo we had to have a plan ready for commuting by train and an earthquake happened. I carried a small street map book so I could walk back to my home when the roads and train lines were disrupted. (Even harder for a foreigner.) The Japanese are far better equipped for disasters from typhoons to earthquakes because of simple occurrence. They know it is just inevitable that something is going to happen. There they can trust their government and employers to help though.

Where are your loved ones and do they know what to do?

Does your spouse know what you might do? Don’t expect your cell phones to be working. I have an agreement with my wife not to come looking for me. I will either go to work or home and she will do the same.

ASSESS THE VARIABLES

TASK #4: Game out some variables.

Once you have a plan of action and know what you want to do, you have to be ready for any changes. The emergency situation probably won’t stay static, but either gets better with quick action from authorities or more likely get worse through inaction and incompetence from them.

If rising flood waters block the road that lies between you and your loved ones, do you know the alternate routes? Where is the higher terrain versus lower? Once you know what you want to do, head straight home for example, what variable might change that course of action? Snow too deep. Flooded bridge. Tremors sending rocks to the road below. Pinhead cop telling you the road is closed.

Are you ready for the extremes?

Are you ready to spend the night in your car? Or several nights? You can find lists of things to have to make your car into a temporary shelter, but the main thing is not to be surprised and get taken by panic. Simply be ready to tough it out for a while until the situation is to your advantage. If you plan to stay at work, how long until you want to head home?

In conclusion, being prepared for emergencies is not just about sitting on top of your stockpile of food with an AR-15 and waiting. You have to know the game plan and how to implement it and expect it to change. As a pilot, I am always ready for an emergency situation by being mentally prepared for it and never panicking when it doesn’t go the way I’ve practiced. You can do the same for any situation.

Letter Re: How to Make Your Own “Black Out” OPSEC Window Panels

Sir,
In the film industry we use a very cheap and very opaque product to block out windows. We often need to shoot [indoor] night time scenes during the day and can’t have any stray light.

Product is called Duvetyne, it’s a very, very heavy black cloth. We even use it for flags and cutters, which are light-blocking pieces that we put in front of lights as big as 20K (20,000 watts) to deflect and control stray light. This stuff works great.

Here is a supplier of Duvetyne.

Has it for $8.25 per yard (60″ wide), so it really is cheap as dirt. You can buy a 50 yard roll for a little over $400, which has got to be enough to do the windows on two or three average houses. At that price I wouldn’t want to be using old rags and what have you. I hope that this helps. – Adam