No prepper considerations whatsoever. I have watched people getting paranoid about Everything’s Going To Be Broken Before The End Of The Year continuously since at least 1972 (and probably before), with the rationales shifting according to who was doing the predicting, and as should be obvious, it’s always been alarmist bullshit. I suspect that there has to be a ton of money being made by the misinformation sources, but I obviously can’t prove that there’s any cause/effect relationship that derives solely from intent to fleece the public, so I’m not going to waste my time with any conspiracy theories. (If that kind of thing blows your kilt up, have at it.)
OTOH, I have lived in hurricane-threatened areas for nearly my entire life, and I’m well acquainted with the resulting propensity for temporary interruption of utility services in the wake of such events, and I like being prepared for those very real and very probable situations.
That said, I have plenty of power stations already. And the budget is tight right now. So I’ll pass on these.
@werehatrack Count me in as another person with no prepper considerations at all. I am a ham radio operator, thought, and I like to go to different places to set up a temporary station for the fun of it, so I guess I have the prepper communications thing covered. I’ve wanted a portable power station for quite a while, but the prices have been holding me back. I think I’ll go for one of today’s Kenwood choices. Looks like the prices are really good and I’m well-acquainted with the brand. I’m still balancing capacity against weight and cost as I try to make a decision. I’m going to sleep on it and get one in the morning.
I live in a pretty rural area and the power tends to go out and not get fixed that quickly. I’ve got a couple rechargeable batteries. One with a solar charger. I should probably have a generator, but I opted for the cheaper plan. I’ve got a ton of shelf stable food. Both relatively normal stuff plus 6 months worth of actual prepper stuff in cans. (I haven’t used any of that yet.) I dehydrated a bunch of stuff as well. But that’s something I do anyway. I’ve got a water distiller. (You can do it without one, but it’s fiddly. This is a breeze.) I use tons of distilled water. I run the machine pretty frequently. Any time I have empty containers. Which is all the time. Because I have a CPAP machine. For my coffee. And for plants. Especially the hydroponic ones. Oh. I’ve got a bunch of hydroponic set ups. And tons of containers that will have vegetables in them again. And a small greenhouse. I do my own compost. Not sure how much of this counts as prepper stuff. I’m not setting up perimeter traps or anything like that.
@ItalianScallion@Skipbidder without a medical reason, you should not use distilled water to make coffee, however you should use filtered water, especially if you drink it black and use good beans
Feel free to google, there is a boat ton of shit on the subject out there
@Cerridwyn@ItalianScallion@Skipbidder so on the filtering I have a reverse osmosis system and it does make a difference. I agree it’s not same as distilled nor would I want it to be. My latest one came with re-mineralizion unit and UV light. I also got a 35-gal pressure tank instead of the 2-5gal ones that come with the units. I got the big tank after the Fukushima event (btw they are still releasing radioactive water into the ocean but that’s another story).
The big tank idea was for what they usually say: have 2 weeks of drinking water and I figured a big tank on the filtered system was the best way and not too expensive.
Also I got a radiation detector because for some reasons the West coast monitors went offline at the same time. Suspicious?
So I guess there is a bit of prepper in that.
Thanks @Cerridwyn for that most interesting article about water and coffee. I’m both a coffee aficionado and a coffee equipment geek (with an extensive collection of portable espresso makers and portable grinders). Now that I have a bluetooth-connected pressure sensor for my espresso machine and a bluetooth-capable scale that work with an app on my phone to create graphs during an extraction, maybe water will be my next focus.
@ItalianScallion I left out part of the story (since it really wasn’t germane to the prepper question). I have really hard tap water at home. I used to filter it for the coffee. But I distill a ton of water (and already have the machine). I use it for my CPAP and for hydroponic gardening (and in self watering pots with more traditional potting mixtures). I didn’t like the way that the tap water made the coffee taste and I had to descale the machine very often. I tested the water and looked up recommendations regarding hardness levels for good coffee. If I mix half distilled with half tap, I get pretty close to that. And I like it more than with either the tap or distilled. The machine very explicitly warns against using pure distilled water. I typically order a bag at a time of whichever whole beans I like that are priced best at the moment. And then I often get a smaller specialty bag of beans that I use for one cup at a time with a press.
@Cerridwyn@ItalianScallion Appreciate the link. You are right about using straight distilled water. I don’t do that. I’m not doing anything nearly as complicated as in that link (although I might think about it). I tested the tap water (which was very hard). I mix it half and half with distilled. It’s nice enough for the machine and also when I’m making a single cup with a press.
@Cerridwyn I know what you mean about descaling, @Skipbidder. I don’t do it often enough on my machine. I use Ascaso Coffee Washer rather than better-known Urnex Cafiza for descaling because the former was recommended either by the machine’s manufacturer, Vibiemme, or the place I bought it, 1st-line Equipment (I can’t remember which one, since I’ve had the machine for ten years). After not using the machine for quite a long time due to a problem I had to diagnose and fix that I put off for too long, I had to replace the pump and soak and clean a few other things because the buildup of scale had hardened like rock. I use Brita-filtered water and a small inline water filter (the BILT In Tank Rechargeable Water Softener you can get at 1st-line) in the tank of the machine that is supposed to be “recharged” every week or two (soak in salt water and flush with tap water for a few minutes), but I’ve been putting that off.
@aetris@tinamarie1974 I think was discussed on this site at that time… solution is the bidet toilet seat. Ideally with the heated water. You’ll need little or no TP. I think this site has even sold them at times!
@aetris@pmarin would love to get a fancy bidet w heated water etc, but I would need to set up electricity or a hot water line. One day, when I remodel…
I helped a friend move. She had a ton of prepper buckets of stuff. Some of it really ancient. I wonder how much of it will actually be useable/edible if she ever needs it based on how old some of it is.
@Kidsandliz@yakkoTDI An hour and a half? Is this a movie? It does seem like must-see-TV, maybe the next time I’m stuck in the house when the weather is brutal.
I am prepped for things that have a non-trivial chance of happening. My car has tools, granola bars, clothes, jumper cables / air inflator, etc. I have two dual-fuel generators that can run my fridge, freezers, and run the furnance or a window AC. I keep an extra month’s supply of my prescriptions. We could live a few months without going to the grocery.
Now the whole end-of-society post-apocalypse “prepper”? Not my thing. I believe in the rule of law, and if i find myself living in a barren wasteland where anyone will kill anyone for a can of beans? Well I would rather go check myself out on my own time than live in that hell.
No but I have some stinky peppers.
My chilled batteries will be nice and fresh when the revolution comes. At least for a while…
Living in rural Nebraska, It’s not so much prepper but prepared for all the weather, all the time.
@kjady The exact nature of the local unruly weather varies, but nearly anywhere has something possible in that category.
I figure that whatever massive event causes the need to be a prepper… well, the world that’s left probably isn’t worth living in.
(I would probably offer to be the first person to be bitten by the zombies, if that ever happened. Just get it over with.)
@haydesigner But survival could be fun.
@haydesigner I, for one, welcome our new zombie overlords.
@haydesigner @yakkoTDI
This is fantastic! More?
@haydesigner @ItalianScallion wrong thread, so biting my fingers
@haydesigner “They’re coming to get you, Barbar–I mean, @Cerridwyn…”
Do you mean guns & ammunition? Also veggies and chickens. We’d be set for a while. Good community here too to support each other.
Not that I’ve given it much thought.
No prepper considerations whatsoever. I have watched people getting paranoid about Everything’s Going To Be Broken Before The End Of The Year continuously since at least 1972 (and probably before), with the rationales shifting according to who was doing the predicting, and as should be obvious, it’s always been alarmist bullshit. I suspect that there has to be a ton of money being made by the misinformation sources, but I obviously can’t prove that there’s any cause/effect relationship that derives solely from intent to fleece the public, so I’m not going to waste my time with any conspiracy theories. (If that kind of thing blows your kilt up, have at it.)
OTOH, I have lived in hurricane-threatened areas for nearly my entire life, and I’m well acquainted with the resulting propensity for temporary interruption of utility services in the wake of such events, and I like being prepared for those very real and very probable situations.
That said, I have plenty of power stations already. And the budget is tight right now. So I’ll pass on these.
@werehatrack Count me in as another person with no prepper considerations at all. I am a ham radio operator, thought, and I like to go to different places to set up a temporary station for the fun of it, so I guess I have the prepper communications thing covered.
I’ve wanted a portable power station for quite a while, but the prices have been holding me back. I think I’ll go for one of today’s Kenwood choices. Looks like the prices are really good and I’m well-acquainted with the brand. I’m still balancing capacity against weight and cost as I try to make a decision. I’m going to sleep on it and get one in the morning.
I live in a pretty rural area and the power tends to go out and not get fixed that quickly. I’ve got a couple rechargeable batteries. One with a solar charger. I should probably have a generator, but I opted for the cheaper plan. I’ve got a ton of shelf stable food. Both relatively normal stuff plus 6 months worth of actual prepper stuff in cans. (I haven’t used any of that yet.) I dehydrated a bunch of stuff as well. But that’s something I do anyway. I’ve got a water distiller. (You can do it without one, but it’s fiddly. This is a breeze.) I use tons of distilled water. I run the machine pretty frequently. Any time I have empty containers. Which is all the time. Because I have a CPAP machine. For my coffee. And for plants. Especially the hydroponic ones. Oh. I’ve got a bunch of hydroponic set ups. And tons of containers that will have vegetables in them again. And a small greenhouse. I do my own compost. Not sure how much of this counts as prepper stuff. I’m not setting up perimeter traps or anything like that.
@Skipbidder I’m curious what the difference in flavor is when you use tap water vs. distilled, and what kind of coffee you typically use.
@ItalianScallion @Skipbidder without a medical reason, you should not use distilled water to make coffee, however you should use filtered water, especially if you drink it black and use good beans
Feel free to google, there is a boat ton of shit on the subject out there
https://coffeechronicler.com/best-water-for-coffee/
@Cerridwyn @ItalianScallion @Skipbidder so on the filtering I have a reverse osmosis system and it does make a difference. I agree it’s not same as distilled nor would I want it to be. My latest one came with re-mineralizion unit and UV light. I also got a 35-gal pressure tank instead of the 2-5gal ones that come with the units. I got the big tank after the Fukushima event (btw they are still releasing radioactive water into the ocean but that’s another story).
The big tank idea was for what they usually say: have 2 weeks of drinking water and I figured a big tank on the filtered system was the best way and not too expensive.
Also I got a radiation detector because for some reasons the West coast monitors went offline at the same time. Suspicious?
So I guess there is a bit of prepper in that.
Thanks @Cerridwyn for that most interesting article about water and coffee. I’m both a coffee aficionado and a coffee equipment geek (with an extensive collection of portable espresso makers and portable grinders). Now that I have a bluetooth-connected pressure sensor for my espresso machine and a bluetooth-capable scale that work with an app on my phone to create graphs during an extraction, maybe water will be my next focus.
@ItalianScallion I left out part of the story (since it really wasn’t germane to the prepper question). I have really hard tap water at home. I used to filter it for the coffee. But I distill a ton of water (and already have the machine). I use it for my CPAP and for hydroponic gardening (and in self watering pots with more traditional potting mixtures). I didn’t like the way that the tap water made the coffee taste and I had to descale the machine very often. I tested the water and looked up recommendations regarding hardness levels for good coffee. If I mix half distilled with half tap, I get pretty close to that. And I like it more than with either the tap or distilled. The machine very explicitly warns against using pure distilled water. I typically order a bag at a time of whichever whole beans I like that are priced best at the moment. And then I often get a smaller specialty bag of beans that I use for one cup at a time with a press.
@Cerridwyn @ItalianScallion Appreciate the link. You are right about using straight distilled water. I don’t do that. I’m not doing anything nearly as complicated as in that link (although I might think about it). I tested the tap water (which was very hard). I mix it half and half with distilled. It’s nice enough for the machine and also when I’m making a single cup with a press.
@Cerridwyn I know what you mean about descaling, @Skipbidder. I don’t do it often enough on my machine. I use Ascaso Coffee Washer rather than better-known Urnex Cafiza for descaling because the former was recommended either by the machine’s manufacturer, Vibiemme, or the place I bought it, 1st-line Equipment (I can’t remember which one, since I’ve had the machine for ten years). After not using the machine for quite a long time due to a problem I had to diagnose and fix that I put off for too long, I had to replace the pump and soak and clean a few other things because the buildup of scale had hardened like rock. I use Brita-filtered water and a small inline water filter (the BILT In Tank Rechargeable Water Softener you can get at 1st-line) in the tank of the machine that is supposed to be “recharged” every week or two (soak in salt water and flush with tap water for a few minutes), but I’ve been putting that off.
I have kept at least three month’s worth of backup strong&soft toilet paper in a secure location since late 2020. Keep that to yourself, please!
@aetris same here. I have a case squirrled away just incase. I did not enjoy forraging for it in 2020
@aetris @tinamarie1974 I think was discussed on this site at that time… solution is the bidet toilet seat. Ideally with the heated water. You’ll need little or no TP. I think this site has even sold them at times!
@pmarin @tinamarie1974 - I got one but unless you sit on it a LONG time you are going to need TP. Not as much as if you don’t use a bidet, but some.
@aetris @pmarin would love to get a fancy bidet w heated water etc, but I would need to set up electricity or a hot water line. One day, when I remodel…
I helped a friend move. She had a ton of prepper buckets of stuff. Some of it really ancient. I wonder how much of it will actually be useable/edible if she ever needs it based on how old some of it is.
@Kidsandliz Depends on what is stored and how well it is packed. Just ask Steve.
@Kidsandliz @yakkoTDI An hour and a half? Is this a movie?
It does seem like must-see-TV, maybe the next time I’m stuck in the house when the weather is brutal.
@ItalianScallion @Kidsandliz Steve is like Post 10 and the question is always “Did I just spend xx:xx time watching that?”
Post 10 drain unclogging.
I am prepped for things that have a non-trivial chance of happening. My car has tools, granola bars, clothes, jumper cables / air inflator, etc. I have two dual-fuel generators that can run my fridge, freezers, and run the furnance or a window AC. I keep an extra month’s supply of my prescriptions. We could live a few months without going to the grocery.
Now the whole end-of-society post-apocalypse “prepper”? Not my thing. I believe in the rule of law, and if i find myself living in a barren wasteland where anyone will kill anyone for a can of beans? Well I would rather go check myself out on my own time than live in that hell.
@KNmeh7 Bravo!!
Instincts? Yes. Am I doing anything about them? No.