by Michael X., Survival Blog:
(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)
HEAT
We have a super-efficient wood stove in our basement that can heat our entire cabin. We can vent heat into various parts of the house. We have two propane fireplaces that do not use any electricity. I put all these in when we built the cabin as our electricity as always spotty and my belief is that electricity is going to be a problem in almost every society fail scenario.
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I have a wood lot and prepare enough wood to stay warm all winter. I have several chain saws and can split small wood by hand. For larger pieces I borrow from a good friend who lives nearby. I know that this it is not a long term solution at this time.
Our stovetop is propane so it can cook our preserved food as well as provide some heat on a limited basis. I have backup camp stoves and LP gas to extend the use of indoor cooking. My grill also can take some of the load. And I can cook on the wood stove if necessary.
Wood heat will be the most likely answer for heating, but procuring wood for wood heat for the long term, in northern Wisconsin, will be a hard life.
ELECTRICITY
Electricity will eventually stop, in almost every major scenario. As discussed in another article in December 2023, our power was out for a few days last winter. I had redundant generators, and eventually got one to work well. However, it is not practical to have to run a generator 24/7, and gas will eventually be gone or go stale, so it cannot be a long-term solution to keeping modern processes going.
After the outage I bought a solar-chargeable portable power station. We use it to keep a CPAP going. I should have purchased a larger one, but I wanted to “test drive” one before getting too deep into it. So far I have been very impressed. I may buy another. It can power our radios and charge other key electrical items we need on a limited basis. I have a few portable solar chargers to keep the phones/radios going for use in emergencies and to get the news, such as it is.
To back up day-to-day activities that currently use electricity, I try to keep as many manual, non-electric hand tools as possible for backup.
Use electricity until you can’t. Plan on it going out. Make sure you can function without it.
TOOLS AND MAINTENANCE
Speaking of tools, it is important to keep a wide variety of manually operated tools in excellent shape. I have been visiting flea markets and garage sales to build an inventory of manual tools to back up each electric tool. This includes many types of saws, wood splitters and axes, and hand drills. I am always looking for other useful items such as block and tackle and wood moving tools like come-alongs. I have a basic knowledge for using them, and will try to continue to gain skills in them so I don’t have to learn after I need them. I sharpen chisels and cutting instruments using an electric grinding wheel now.
And, speaking of maintenance, I have been upgrading my maintenance processes on virtually all my equipment, and thus the condition of many of my items is better than it has been in years. Keeping money sitting in the bank while the cost of services shoots up is not logical. I have purchased new tires for my vehicles and trailer. Everything is up to date as far as tune-ups, oil changes, and repairs. I am looking for replacement rechargeable batteries for my drills and drivers.
TRANSPORTATION
We have 4-wheel drive road vehicles. We have a UTV. We have a snowmobile. We have a speedboat. For fishing I have a canoe and a row boat. I store gasoline but have had problems with keeping the gas fresh so am very careful to use Stabil or Seafoam. I don’t see gasoline vehicles as a long term solution. But I do think they will be very useful at the start to make the final rushes to town for last minute supplies. As long as I have gasoline I want to use it for my priorities such as cutting wood.
