Survival in Emergency in your House is about this Architectural company and how they prepare themselves and their clients to constructively deal with disruptive emergencies in the houses they design.
Polly and her human mom & dad are enjoying free afternoon heat during a cold winter day, because the Architect designed this house to admit the cold weather Sun during the day, which heats the floor, then rises, heating the rest of the house above.
This Architect almost titled this online post: SURVIVING THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE IN YOUR HOUSE. But thought better of it.
Emergencies of all sorts and duration can happen. an hour, 4 hours, a day, 2 days, a week, 10 days, a month, 2 months, 3 months, a year. Where is your pain threshold, or dying point? If you said a couple of hours or just one day, you are not prepared. But you should be. Especially if you have a wife or husband and possibly children or others that are entirely dependent on you for food, water, heat, shelter, defense and other necessities. If you are not prepared, but go on an expensive vacation or buy a fancy vehicle or other purchases, then say “I can’t afford that,” you may want to rethink that.
And how your Architect designs your new house can help or hinder your ability to survive in an emergency.
There are several Federal agencies that have descriptions of emergencies, but it doesn’t appear that any of those circumstances are actively looking at how people can better be prepared in their own homes. Those agencies appear to be mainly focused on what their agency does, not how the average citizen can be better prepared. This online post article does that, so read carefully.
BOTTOM LINE FIRST
Rather than make readers of this article have to dig to get to the punchline: How Much Do I Have to Spend to Be Better Prepared?, this Architectural firm wants you to know that upfront:
Around $5,000 (US dollars) for most items, but not including the following:
Larger LP gas tank (1,000 G) around $6,500+/- for set up and first fuel delivery.
Installation of a 20kW whole House generator (around $10,000 to $20,000 depending on particulars).
So, if you wanted to include several major items (but not include a bunker): perhaps $26,000.
And this does not include the $20,000+ for a Bosch replacement HVAC system, nor the $4,000+ for the updated heat pump HWH.
And that all does not include the recently added $2,500+/- solar powered battery-charger. So you could be pushing $30,000 with many of the above items.
And for those of you with lots of cash to prepare, seriously consider a Whole House Solar Energy Power System. The Architect is planning this and it’s going to be $68,400 for his house, however, there’s a $9,000 check back from the commercial power company and a Federal $20,000 tax incentive. In other words, the real cost after the benefits: $39,400+/-. And most solar contractors will hook you up with free financing for $30k of that, same as cash for 1 year. So you spend $38,400 up front, then nothing for a year, and in the meantime you get a big fat check from your utility company and a huge payoff on your taxes, so the amount left to pay after the first year might be about free. But this is a very involved option and this Architect is going to make that a subject for another online post article. The idea: if you can afford it: you might not ever have another electric bill again, and even enjoy some payback from the Power Company when you pump some of YOUR solar power back into their grid. Ha! And you might not ever go down again. Especially if the power company and your own generator are your backup sources (2 of them), not your main source of electricity.
Alright. So if you were thinking a couple hundred bucks: no. That won’t make you much better prepared. But $5,000 should help you significantly. But $20k would be far better. And the whole $26k to $64.4k much, much better. Read on to see the things you can do to be better prepared than you are now (unless you happen to be a “prepper” and have all this covered).
Note: some people in the world might consider so-called “preppers” to be paranoid nuts. And maybe some of them are. Until disaster strikes. Then they are the geniuses whom we all want to know and visit when and if we aren’t prepared.
ORGANIZATION OF PREPARATION ITEMS IN THIS ARTICLE
1. LIST OF POSSIBLE EMERGENCIES that can disrupt your life and services
2. LOCATION OF YOUR FOREVER HOME/FEATURES
3. WHOLE HOUSE EMERGENCY POWER GENERATOR
4. LARGER LP GAS TANK
5. SURVIVAL FOOD & RELATED ITEMS
6. SURVIVAL WATER STORAGE, WATER SOURCES
7. EMERGENCY COOKING
8. EMERGENCY DEFENSE
9. HOUSE DESIGN FOR WINTER HEAT
10.EMERGENCY HEALTHCARE
11.EMERGENCY LIGHTING
12.TOILET PAPER AND PAPER TOWELS
13.EMERGENCY HEAT
14.SOLAR ELECTRICITY
15. CONTACT ARCHITECT THAT KNOWS HOW TO DO THIS
This article will not completely prepare you under any emergency circumstances. However, it will help you to possibly be better prepared that you are not. This article in no way attempts to be all-inclusive and no doubt misses several important items that you should have to survive. Just start thinking about it and prepare.
MOST PEOPLE DON’T WORRY
Most people, the Architect included, have spent most of their lives completely dependent on having a Krogers, Ingles, Albertsons or other luxury food supermarket within a mile or two of their homes, and also counting on them to have everything they need to have good food and other items whenever they want or need them.
Do you remember the Covid emergency? Some supermarkets had bare shelves for a while. Remember the run on toilet paper? Did you miss any meals or have unpleasant bathroom experiences? Not fun. Were you prepared for that? No? Well, what about next time? That’s what this article is trying to do: make you think about it. Boy Scout motto: BE PREPARED. Good advice.
And don’t you dare say: “Oh, I’m not going to live my life that way, worrying about such things, my family and I will just die if those things happen.”
Well you know what? Shame on you. How dare you place yourself and your loved ones in direct jeopardy?
You’re an intelligent person. You earn a chunk of $ every year and have nice things. And your family depends on you. So be prepared. Stop denying that bad things can happen. Do something about it. NOW. Because you can do something about it. Read on and then get prepared.
Note: there are entire major groups of people in the world and the USA that are responsible citizens and do acquire long-term food and related items so that they can survive in emergencies and be self-sufficient. The Mormons, an American religious group, for instance, have 3 levels of preparing for emergencies:
–72 hour preparedness kit.
–3 months preparedness storage of food and other supplies to survive.
–a year or more of storage for longer-term emergencies.
Good for them. Everyone should be as responsible. There are 16 million of them worldwide. That’s a good start.
1. LIST OF POSSIBLE EMERGENCIES that can disrupt your life and services:
A. Natural disasters such as wind, rain, fire, flooding, lightning, snow, ice, earthquakes, tornadoes and other events that damage power poles and lines.
Result: electrical power to your house is off for an unknown period of time: perhaps several hours. Maybe several days, weeks or months, depending on the extent of damage to the electrical infrastructure and the time it takes for an electrical utility company to replace it.
B. Foreign enemies of the USA hacking our power grid, shutting it down. For how long? Who knows? Hours, days, weeks? Months?
EMPs (Electromagnetic Pulses) from such things as nuclear bombs can have this effect and worse, if they totally damage the devices controlling our electrical grid.
There are also GMP (Geomagnetic Pulses) which can be caused by solar wind that interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field. These can have similar negative damage to EMPs.
The US Dept of Homeland Security is very concerned about this and has an active program in their Science and Technology division studying these. Nothing secret here, this can be Googled.
C. Domestic terrorists inside the USA doing the above. Lots of people hate the USA, even inside its own borders and want to damage it. This makes no sense to those of us that are hard-working tax-paying citizens. But these haters exist. They are out there.
D. Foreign or Domestic terrorists creating/dispensing biological warfare viruses to kill people. Wuhan Covid ring any bells? Disruption to food deliveries, food production, power grid, law & order and other necessities are unknown: days, weeks, months, years? And recently there’s word that the evil people in Wuhan are now completing work on a new strain that is 100% lethal: attacks the brain.
E. Nuclear Attack(s): there have been regimes throughout the world declaring their intent to bomb the US into extinction. Who knows if one or more of them might succeed one day? Watch THE SUM OF ALL FEARS with Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck. Damage to our regular food supplies, shelter, electrical power, and other needs: weeks, months, years? Any of you raised in the Cold War era of the 1950s and 60s may remember the fallout shelters under some public schools and the classroom “duck & cover” exercises wherein kids were trying to help protect themselves if the school building was falling down around us, by huddling under classroom desks. Was that funny or silly? Not really.
US Dept of Health & Human Services Radiation Emergency Medical Management indicates Zones of Damage after a Nuclear Explosion here: https://remm.hhs.gov/explosion_damage.htm
That diagram indicates that a 10 kiloton nuclear device would have severe shockwave damage for about a half-mile, Severe thermal damage for about a mile, Flying debris for several miles and lethal radiation dose within about 3/4 mile. Radioactive fallout would occur in an irregular elliptical pattern in the direction in which the wind blows, lethal radiation extending about 6 miles.
The bad news: if you live in a major metro urban area, you’re going to likely be dead, or worse, if this sort of thing happens there.
The good news: if you live at least 10 miles or 25 miles or perhaps many more miles from a major metro nuclear attack location, you may be okay (as far as initial damage). But if you happen to be looking at the explosion, even from 50 miles away, you could still lose your vision. Best thing: don’t be there.
Target locations modeled by various governmental agencies are obvious: New York City, Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago and just about every other major metro area, especially those areas where US military bases are located. Note: if you’re looking for information on how to survive a near-direct nuclear strike, Google “bunkers”. Anything but buried steel reinforced concrete bunkers will not likely survive a nuclear strike from anywhere within one-half to 6 miles. This online article you are reading right now isn’t that.
F. Domestic Violence from Protesting Domestic Terrorist Groups. Rabid crazy people roaming the streets and neighborhoods seeking to hurt or kill you, because you are not one of them and you work for a living. Seattle comes to mind. And there, even the nutty politicians who allowed invaders to occupy a portion of their CBD, raping, killing and looting. were accosted at their own suburban homes by these roaming lawbreakers, and then those politicians begged the police (whom they had previously ordered to stand down during this illegal occupation of a portion of a US city) and others to come in and clean their mess up. That situation went on for weeks.
G. Immense natural disasters: Yellowstone volcano for instance. Google it. Happens every 640,000 years or so. Is it overdue to happen again? Some say yes, some say no. Guess when it happens next, we’ll all find out. Sounds foolish to prepare for such a wild thing? Unless you’re the one that lives through it? Toxic ashfall around the world, certainly from coast to coast in the USA and certain death for people near to Yellowstone. And there are other volcanoes around the world. Does this mean you should huddle in an expensive bunker right now? Probably not. But your choice of main home location might in some way be affected by knowing this has happened before. Interesting that there’s not a lot of population near Yellowstone. Perhaps people are being somehow guided.
H. Unemployment. This can happen to the best of us from time to time, no matter how infrequent. If you don’t have a lot of liquid savings to support you and you lose your paycheck, what are you going to do? Mooch off your relatives or friends? Lose your house or other living quarters? How about: be prepared and think about what to do and take action long before you lose your livelihood. When that happens, you’ll say: “I’m okay. I have food, water and the necessities of life. I’ll be alright for ___months (fill in the number).” The more months you can enter into that sentence, the better you’re going to feel. At least if you’ve done some preparation you won’t immediately be wild with concern. Create some significant savings that you can tap into if you need it. Otherwise, park it to grow interest for you.
2. LOCATION OF YOUR FOREVER HOME/FEATURES
With all the above in mind, do you have some thoughts as to where your forever home might want to be located?
As far as safety and survivability, one might think:
– Far away from major recognized metro areas.
Why: very bad things can happen to people living there during an emergency with no power, food, water or police.
100 or more miles would be better. Up in the country where no foreign power would ever think of bombing.
– Far away from military bases and stockpiles.
– Places with ample good quality deep potable water sources from nature.
Particularly at higher headwater elevations and not downstream.
– Locations very far away from ticking super-bombs like Yellowstone.
– Have your home designed by a competent licensed Architect that knows how to help you be prepared.
– Glass areas that admit the sun during winter and keep it out during summer.
– Use of exterior materials that are largely non-combustible.
– Materials that are very durable.
– Higher insulation levels to keep heat in winter and avoid it in summer.
– Systems included that help your survive: deep well, power generator, larger LP gas tank, gated entry, fence.
– Location in community that does have a good grocery store, but understand that source of food could stop in an emergency.
– Location not uppermost in the minds of people who live in major metro areas. And far away. You do not want to be convenient to troublemakers.
And there will be more on the subject of your house’s survival features later in this article.
3. WHOLE HOUSE EMERGENCY POWER GENERATOR
This is one of the best (and most expensive) ways to insure that you and your family will have continuing electrical power when commercial power goes down.
This generator is a 20kW Kohler, yes the quality plumbing company. And one of the most reliable generators in the world, being installed by Atlantic South Power, one of the top generator systems people in the SEUSA.
This is for a fairly modest 2,188 HSF (Heated Square Feet) house. So do the math for whatever size your house is. If you have a 4,400 HSF house, then you’re likely to need at least a 40kW generator, possibly more, depending on your loads. Allow your generator supplier to do calculations along with your Electrician to make sure you get what you need.
Expensive. And very helpful. This will keep you up and running when everything all around you goes down.
Price: $10,000 labor + material, way back in 2018. Could be more than $20,000 as of this article’s publishing date. Check with your supplier.
4. LARGER LP GAS TANK
Here’s the thing about the power generator above: it only provides power until it runs out of fuel. And the fuel in this case is LP gas. Many people would be happy with a 250 Gallon tank of LP. However, that only provides about enough fuel for maybe a week, depending on power consumption for a house of around 2,200 HSF.
So, doing the math, if you’d like to have emergency generator power for perhaps a month, you’re probably going to need at least a 1,000 G LP gas tank, rather than a 250 G tank. Note: gas companies do not completely fill their tanks. They only go to 80%. That means a 250 G tank will have 200 G in it immediately after filling and a 1,000 G tank will have 800 G in it after filling. So with 800 G in the tank and a burn rate of 200 G/week, your 800 G will buy you maybe about a month or so for your entire house, assuming you have a whole house generator.
Note: you can have an emergency power panel in lieu of a whole house generator, meaning that only part of your house will have power, like your refrigerators, some lights, laundry machines and HVAC. However, just realize that doing so means: 1. That not everything in your house will function and 2. that the installation of the emergency power panel will cost you money, not part of a whole house set-up. The Architect felt that instead of wasting money on an emergency panel with reduced coverage in an emergency, he’d pay more for a larger generator and have everything covered.
Note: You have to be careful how much electrical power your home will draw with a whole house generator. For instance: this Architect’s wife had a new plug-in hybrid vehicle that pulled 9,600 watts when charging. That’s 9.6kW, or nearly half the drain on the 20kW generator. And the Architect didn’t want an electrical fault to occur in case there was an emergency event that turned on the generator when the car was charging. Therefore, the Architect changed out his HVAC system to be a variable speed high-performance heat pump with dual fuel furnace, so that when very cold temperatures (sub 25*F) occurred, the furnace switched to LP gas, rather than electricity. Also, the Architect switched out his 5 year old all-electric conventional HWH (Hot Water Heater) for a Heat Pump HWH, which uses only 25% of the electricity that the old HWH used. The result of these economizing measures was that the 20kW generator can handle everything and the house’s power bills are now lower.
However the main point of this discussion is the if you install a larger LP gas tank, your emergency generator will provide you with electricity for a longer period of time than if you used a smaller LP tank. Note: adhere to your gas company’s recommendations regarding a safe distance from your house for the tanks in question so you are safe.
5. SURVIVAL FOOD & RELATED ITEMS
No, this is not about stocking up on canned tuna or canned soup. What if the siege lasts longer than the expiration dates on those? And the quantity to last for longer emergency periods? Let’s talk about surviving an emergency that lasts 3 months for at least 2 adults and a small dog. Do the math for more people and pets. And you may even want 6 months to a year for something really bad.
Survival foods are typically freeze-dried. You have to boil some water, then add the food to that and let it sit for a few minutes, then eat it. Freeze dried foods. That is a highly specialized process. Nothing you’re likely to be doing in your garage. There’s one company that the Architect noticed: WISE. Also called READY-WISE. Same long-term survival foods. here’s an image:
That’s 12 buckets, which is what they call a 6 month supply for one person. However, with 2 people, those 12 buckets would = for 3 months. Now then, best not to store this is your garage, unless its conditioned. A crawlspace that’s encapsulated that’s also dehumidified and relatively even temperature year round would be okay. Unless you have a very large pantry room inside your main house. And a shelf or two up off the floor. A place where there’s no bugs. Don’t let Terminix spray the buckets.
These 3 month+/- supply buckets are typically the main food. You might want to also get a fruit bucket and a vegetable bucket for a more rounded emergency diet. That will also give you some more staying power for a longer time.
At the present time, the 12 main meal buckets are around $1,399+/- plus tax. Adding in fruit and vegetables will kick that up a bit higher. $179.99 for the fruit and $174.99 for the veggies. So with tax perhaps around $2k or so. Shipping is supposedly free.
Nothing magic about 3 months. If it’s the Yellowstone Volcano (which might not blow for another 100k years?), it might take longer to blow over. If there’s wide spread supply chain disruption, you might start off feeling food about your decisions, but if that disruption continues past 3 months, you’ll wish you got more. But how much is enough? Hard to say. People will call you paranoid until a big emergency pops up, then they’ll call you a genius and want some of what you were smart enough to stock up.
Note: remember what was said about having an emergency storehouse/source for water and ability to boil it to reconstitute the emergency freeze dried food? Don’t forget that.
Another thing about these emergency foods: they don’t provide them in single serving packets. Many of the pouches inside the buckets can hold 2, 4 or 8 or more “servings”. So, you’re going to have to be careful to save and clip the pouches closed between meals.
And don’t forget your pets. Buy organic canned dog food/cat food, or they are going to have a problem. For at least 90 days. Is that 90 cans? Depends on the size of your pet and how much they consume a day. If you have a bigger dog, and they eat a can/meal, that might be 90×3=270 cans. And how about treats between meals? Might want to stock up on those, too.
6. SURVIVAL WATER STORAGE, WATER SOURCES
Hopefully you have a house hundreds of miles away from the zombie hordes down in the big cities.
And perhaps in a higher altitude in a mountainous zone, the sort of place people call “Survival Country.”
Now then, if you are in a community that has shared water and that saves you the expense if installing your own well, that’s sounds nice. However, your community may be putting chemicals into that water, like chlorine and others. So that is one source of your drinking water. Okay. Nothing wrong about having 2 sources of water.
How about installing your own deep well? Something in the zone of 500 to 1,000 feet deep (but not in sulfurous elevations). At that depth, the State testing lab will likely find it as close to pure as possible and hopefully no chemicals will need to be added. So that becomes your primary source of drinking water and the community well becomes the secondary source, which you don’t use if you don’t need to do so. And you install a 4 stage whole house clean water filtration system (Aquasana or equal) with UV final stage to kill any viruses.
Sounds like you’re in good shape, right? Not so fast.
You have to have a pump to pull that good water up out of the ground and into your water system in your crawlspace. And that pump needs electrical power. And you won’t have electrical power if your commercial source goes down due to electrical grid disruption. So, your emergency power generator kicks in and if you have a large LP gas tank, that might extend your private power ability for another month. Then what are you going to do? For 3 months or longer? Have you ever been without water in your house for even a day? 2? longer? It’s not fun at all. Things like using the toilet start to become complicated and downright unpleasant. Hopefully you have a gravity fed septic sewage system. That’s very important. You don’t want a pumped septic system. Those can’t handle your sewage if you run out of power.
Okay. Back to the water supply issue. There’s a company called BayTec in Texas that makes HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene) FDA certified water tanks for drinking, no BPAs they say. The Architect likes their 500 G tank. That’s 48″ in diameter and 71″ tall. That can fit in the corner of some garages. And a garage is often directly next to a pantry or kitchen in a house, making it easy to get to. Water is heavy: 8.3 pounds/gallon. So you really don’t want to be having to haul that up or down all day long during an emergency. And a gallon isn’t going to go far in terms of usage. So you’ll likely be filling a 5 G bucket of water = 41.5 pounds. That’s heavy. Not many homeowners are going to be able to haul that around. Best to keep the 500 G big tank near the kitchen/main house entrance from the garage. A 500 G tank of water = 4,150 pounds. You don’t want to have that heavy a load on wood floor joists. Might break your floor. Better to keep that on a concrete slab like you’ll find for most garages. Check with a structural engineer to make sure. Here’s what that tank looks like:
That tank is about the height of a 6′ tall person and much wider. Make sure your Architect plans a good location so it doesn’t get in the way of your day-to-day walking around.
Note that it appears the tank comes with a brass lower drain, to which you would screw on a drain hose, and a slightly higher valve so you can fill a 5 gallon bucket for food preparations, drinking water and toilet flushing. Note: guys should pee outside during an emergency situation so you don’t waste your drinking water on that.
There is some anecdotal information online that says a person can live off 1 G of water a day. If you have 2 people for 90 days, that would = 180 gallons. Plus you have a dog and perhaps the luxury of a sponge bath or laundry washing once in a big while. So hopefully the 500 G big tank might work. Just treat it like gold. Because if you don’t have electricity you’re not getting any more drinking water until you do. So this big tank becomes very important to your survival and the quality of your life under emergency conditions. This tank as of last month cost $1,573 with shipping. Cheap for such an important item. Plumber labor to connect to the house water line might be $500 or so, along with perhaps $100 worth of PVC piping and a valve. So all in all maybe $2,173+/-. This is a CRITICAL item.
A little about this tank: there’s some humorous testing a couple of the BayTec loading crew does on their website, slamming into some of their tanks (not this specific one) with a forklift, pickup truck and other torture tests and the tank survives without puncture or other failure. Seems to be durable.
The tank should be sprayed out in a horizontal position and drained through the removable top cap before first filling.
You should have your Plumber install a fill valve in the top of the tank, which is fed by your main water supply line through a side wall from your main house next to your garage. Make sure that doesn’t freeze. Use that to fill the tank. Drain the tank through the bottom valve/your hose to the outside at least once a year, if not draining a portion of the tank once a month, then refilling that portion drained to keep the water inside it fresh. Check and make sure the water inside the tank is free from anything non-potable and fix if required. Oh, does it need to be said? FILL this tank the same day you get it and have it connected to your water system, so you are prepared and ready for emergencies.
It will take some planning to properly locate a 4 foot diameter tank in your garage. Here’s what this Architect did:
He created a 4″ circle of construction paper and placed it on the floor of his existing garage, testing locations where that would work the best and hopefully be fairly close to the main house entry door from the garage. As you can see, he had to trim the corner of an existing storage counter with a sawzall to make room for the future tank. He also had to trim a work counter (to the right of the rolling table saw to the right) to make room for the tank. Note that the Architect did not allow the required space for the tank to intrude on the door width (to the left) going into the main house. He also pulled the tank about 3 inches out from the wall so his hand could operate light switches on the wall there. The supply water line will have to come up through the wooden floor (on the other side of the wall in this photo), but immediately behind this tank position are about 100 wires inside that wall, because that’s the main interior power panel for the house. So the supply water line will need to be drilled up through the floor inside the pantry (behind this wall) and several feet away from the power panel, but near to the wall, so the water piping can be taken up about 7 inches, then drilled through the wall and into the garage, then turned horizontally on top of the wall base in the garage and over near the tank position, but away from the switchbank immediately behind the tank, then run up the wall inside the garage about 6 feet high, then horizontally over to the top of the new water tank, then into a valve and down into the top of the new water tank.
So: do some planning before you place your tank. Lots of things to think about. Lots of obstructions to avoid and get around.
7. EMERGENCY COOKING
Remember about the freeze-dried emergency food requiring water to be boiled to reconstitute it? So if you have any LP gas left in your big tank that you haven’t used to run your emergency generator until its completely out, and you happen to have LP gas ranges in your kitchen, you might have a few days of being able to boil water. But what then? Well, you’re going to need 1, 2, 3 or 4 or more small grill-size LP gas tanks to run an emergency portable grill like this one:
This can be used perhaps in your garage, not far from the door to your house to boil the water you’re going to use to make the freeze-dried fruit usable again (although Wise and others say you can eat it raw, but we’re thinking that’s not going to be very nice for the long haul). But be careful not to expose this grill’s flames to gasoline fumes, which could result in a huge explosion. Be very careful. You may want to mainly use it outside.
And if you have work benches in your garage, like this Architect does, you can shove this emergency oven under it. Make sure you disconnect the gas source first and that the grill has cooled down first. And then it’s out of the way under everyday circumstances.
$84+/- Amazon. “Gas One” two burner camping stove.
Note: you’re going to need a few “clickers” to ignite the flame on this LP gas burner grill. Buy a few to have on hand. Otherwise, you won’t be able to ignite the gas and then you’ll have a real problem. About $5 each.
8. EMERGENCY DEFENSE
This topic is going to be a tough one for some people. Until it’s not.
Say you are in your house and its the middle of winter and it’s 18*F outside. Electrical power’s been down for a week. People outside are going crazy. You and your family have prepared well and done everything indicated in this report, so you are okay. You’re surviving. You’ve heard through your phone/internet that what caused this was an unprecedented solar wind causing a GMP that has burned all the electrical power grid equipment at all substations in the eastern USA, where you are. Replacement of all this equipment is going to take another 75 days. People are on their own until then. People are roaming around, looking for birds, rats, and deer to shoot, to eat raw, even leaves off of trees. And no water. Suddenly a group of 5 armed men appear on your front doorstep, hammering on the door, demanding to be let in so they can take whatever supplies you have for their own use and then you will have nothing. As a matter of fact they are demanding that you vacate your house and go outside to live, because they are going to take over your house because they heard you have food and water and heat.
They each have rifles and handguns and are shooting at your windows and doors, right now. Kicking in your door, starting to climb through one of your shattered front windows. A gun is being aimed at your daughter. Shouts of promises to kill you all. You have about 5 seconds before they begin killing your family.
So: what do you do? What should you do? Let them kill your daughter, your wife, your son and you? Let them take your house, your food and your lives?
How about this: you have prepared and you have 1,000 rounds of 9mm 124 grain HP Speer ammunition (the same that Navy SEALs use) that works in both your Glock 17 and Ruger carbine rifle, which are fully loaded and ready, with backup magazines. You, your wife and children have been instructed in how to use those firearms, which are for home defense. You have those guns in ready reach. You give the carbine rifle to your son and you have drawn the pistol. You both have several spare cartridges, all loaded in your pockets.
Now what do you do? Say: “Ok, guys come on in and take what you want, we’ll go outside and freeze and starve to death while you steal our house and our lives?” We don’t think so. If there was ever a case for self-defense, this would be it. You must have been threatened first and they must have said something like they were going to kill you and they must be armed with weapons of one sort or another, and/or be capable of seriously harming or killing you and your family imminently, and they are crossing your threshold and entering your house without your permission. If you don’t act to protect yourself and your family, you are all going to die. So what do you do? Your choice. Hopefully you’ll be alive to deal with any consequences. Your neighbors or other people entering your community (the zombies) are not there to pass the time of day. They want what you have, because you prepared and they did not. Make your choice.
Them saying they could not afford to stockpile what you have in no way means you have to give what you have to them so that you, your family and dog will not have enough and you will die. We are the USA. You own what you work and pay for and what you protect as yours. The USA is under fire from political radicals, insisting on “equity” which is NOT equality. Not anywhere near it. Equity= you have to GIVE what you worked hard all your life to achieve, to other people, who, for whatever reason, didn’t make the choices you did and who now demand that you give them what you earned so they have what you have. No. Not in present day America. Equity is the pipedream of Marxists and Socialists trying to remove the backbone of capitalism that made America the strongest country on Earth. Don’t fall for it. Equality? Sure. Absolutely. Everyone is equal and free to make whatever choices they want. They have the ability to apply themselves and work hard and earn money to buy the things they want and need. If there are those in our free market system who choose to hire them and pay them to do those things. No one in America is inherently entitled to have everything that other people in our great country have. Our Constitution doesn’t say that. So don’t fall for the “equity” scam. It does not = equality. If you want so-called equity, perhaps you should move to Venezuela, China or Russia. It will take you about 30 seconds to discover equity isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, and why the citizens of those countries would give their left arms to become citizens of America, as it is today, not as envisioned by radicals trying to destroy it. Let’s put it simply: are you going to allow those crazies on your front doorstep to kill your family and take what you have? We don’t think so. Think about it.
Note: change out the rounds in your magazines every few months and leave some magazines not loaded. Why: so the springs inside the magazines that push the rounds up into the chamber of your rifles and pistols continue to do so, rather than weaken and fail to move the rounds. And keep your guns clean.
Once again, taking someone’s life is a very serious matter and a horrible choice to be made. But what do you do if you and your family are threatened? You may only have a second or two before you and your loved ones are killed. Board up your house for extended emergencies. Make it hard for people trying to get at you from the outside. And have a backup revolver for people in your family that could be called into defense action whom are not skilled with semi-automatic weapons.
9. HOUSE DESIGN FOR WINTER HEAT: passive solar
The first photograph of this report illustrates winter sun coming in for free and heating the floors of the house. Here is another look at that:
Here, you can see the sun penetrating the house about 28 feet deep into the porcelain tiled floor of the kitchen (which also has a concrete backerboard substrate under it adding to the mass and absorbing the heat). This and other floors and surfaces are heated by the lower winter sun, then this heat rises, heating the air in the house.
And because the high-efficiency Bosch variable speed heat pump also has a dual fuel LP gas furnace in the crawlspace, and the Trane high-end thermostat has been set to operate the heat pump down to 25*F, the LP gas kicks on below that, saving a huge amount of electricity in this Architect designed home. Note: the Architect trigonometrically calculated the angle of the sun in both winter and summer, which keeps the sun outside in warm weather and lets it inside in cold weather. Just one of the advantages of having an Architect-designed home. Particularly when your power is off.
Free heat over 70*F. The Sun coming through large south facing windows is providing all of this heat.
Sun continues to heat up the house by itself.
Sun continuing to heat the house for free.
Once the thermostat shows anything over 70*F, that means that the heat you’re getting is completely free from the sun using the Architect’s passive solar technique. And in this house, the thermostat shows 70, 71, 72, 73 and sometimes 74 from about 11am through about 8pm nearly every clear day when the sun is shining. That’s about 9 hours of free heat during every 24 hour winter cycle = 37.5% of the daily heat needs of this home are being met for free from the sun, thanks to the Architect’s passive solar planning. Note: after the sun sets, there’s no more solar heat input, however, the thermal flywheel (heated materials and air inside the home still giving off heat) continues to make the home interior comfortable (70* and above) until around 8pm, before the heat pump has to turn on to provide paid for heat.
Now then, after the sun has done its job and the sun starts to set, you need to pull down insulated blinds,, which will help keep in that nice heat you just harvested all day long. Especially if you’re in an emergency no power or limited power situation.
Here are some nice insulated (double sided) Levelor blinds in the Architect’s home.
10. EMERGENCY HEALTHCARE
Before you need them, buy small, medium and large band-aids, rolls of sterile gauze and medical adhesive tape. You never can tell when you might need such items. And Bactine, and z-pacs of antibiotics that your Physician might recommend to help you deal with emergency cuts and other situations. Possibly some sort of medical stapler for larger wounds that need stitches.
And alcohol (medical, not the kind you drink) to sterilize wounds. And of course, buy these before you need them so you are ready.
11. EMERGENCY LIGHTING
So what happens when commercial power goes off and after you have burned up all your LP gas running your emergency generator? Darkness at night. Back to the stone-age. However, if you had thought to buy several mobile solar charging lights, you could have light inside your house for hours after the sun sets.
This solar powered moveable light is called LEPWINGS. Yes, it is made in China. This Architect purchased 6 of them for his house: 1 in living room, 1 in Pantry, 1 in Master Bedroom, 1 in Master Bathroom, 1 in upstairs office, 1 in upstairs bathroom.
You pull open the “clamshell” design from the top middle.
Then, to charge them for free from the sun, you lay them out on a table oriented to the angle of the sun.
Then after doing this for one day, you do it again, switching the position of the main charging surfaces to orient more directly to the angle of the sun in the sky. Will probably take a 2 or 3 days to fully charge. There’s a red light on the side of the base that will turn green after it’s fully charged.
To turn on, use your little finger and gently touch the button on the top of the base. To turn off, same procedure. Note: if you do this too forcefully, it won’t work. To cycle brighter, use your index finger and press a little bit harder. The light will cycle up brighter, then down dimmer until you remove your finger.
Marketing material from the maker indicates 80 hours of dim light on a single charge.
$35.95 each on Amazon as of this article’s publishing. So perhaps a couple of hundred $.
12. TOILET PAPER AND PAPER TOWELS
You all saw the bare shelves at your own local grocery stores during Covid. This was attributed to panic buying rather than any real shortage. Whatever the cause, people get scared and buy a lot of this when emergencies start, then everyone else is without. Tip: buy a lot of extra toilet paper and paper towels NOW. Keep the plastic wrap on them and unbroken. Stack them up in your garage. Figure a roll of TP a day x 90 days= 90 rolls/12 pack megaroll= 7.5 (say at least 8) TP packages. Suggest getting 10. Don’t so this all at once. Buy maybe 2 packs every other day for a week and you’ll probably have what you need to 3 months. PT (Paper Towels) are usually about 8 large rolls to a pack. Figure one of those rolls lasting a week. So 2 PT packs should last for a 3 month emergency, but let’s be safe: get at least 4 packs. That will give you 4×8=32 rolls. You should be good for 6 months, unless there’s a real problem going on. Once again: stock up NOW and store inside the original plastic wrap and stack up in your garage. If you wait until the next emergency strikes, you will be out sooner than you hope.
13. EMERGENCY HEAT .
You are going to need a working wood-burning fireplace in your home. One with a through-roof insulated (multi-layer) exhaust flue.
Why: because that will end up being the only source of heat inside your house during an emergency when you have no more electricity or LP Gas.
So do you have to go outside in sub-zero weather and chop down pine trees and others for hours and hours to burn in your fireplace?
No. Why: order anywhere from 30 to 90 boxes of 4-hour manufactured fire logs from companies like Pine Mountain (see Amazon). $29.99/ 6 log box, each log with a 4-hour duration. About $850 for a month’s supply and perhaps around $2,600+/- for a 3 month supply, assuming you’re trying to keep your sole source of heat going 24 hours a day in your fireplace, one log at a time. If you intend to burn 2 or more logs at a time to get more heat, then you’re going to need a lot more logs. Do the math. Good places to store the boxes they come in: stacked on the floor under your garage work counters (on the concrete) and also in your crawlspace under your house. Be careful to store away from sources of ignition, as the sole purpose of these fire logs is to burn. However, they usually require an open flame to get them started. And these boxes of logs are heavy, so not a good idea to store on wood framed floors, especially when stacked up several boxes high. And a concrete floor in a garage is excellent, because concrete doesn’t burn and also can support the weight of your cars and trucks, so that slab can support thousands of pounds. But if you have an elevated slab on top of bar joists, check with a structural engineer as to how much weight they can accept and where.
You do not want to burn softwoods like pine in your fireplace: they will deposit creosote inside your chimney and cause a fire.
Even though Pine Mountain has a softwood business name for their product, they report they actually use hardwood chips recycled into their fire logs.
And you want very clean burning fire logs for a couple of reasons: 1. so you don’t have to clean your fireplace daily, and 2. So you won’t have a lot of smoke entering your home’s interior when you open the fireplace doors.
A double sided fireplace with heat tempered glass doors on both sides is a great choice. You have to keep one side closed so it draws. So you close either side to allow you to open the doors on the other side, which then allows a lot of heat from the burning logs to enter your house’s space and warm you.
And hey: remember the clickers for the gas grill stove? Well, you’re going to need some of those to ignite these fire logs. You’re going to run out of matches, which aren’t as safe. And the clickers typically have a long rod on them separating the trigger from the flame. Much safer. But purchase several. You don’t want to have all these logs stacked up to give you heat in winter, then have no way to burn them.
Note: There are also “Creosote Buster Chimney Cleaning Safety Firelogs” from this same manufacturer, that are claimed to actually clean the chimney flue and avoid a chimney fire. They suggest you burn of of these every 30+/- fires. Good idea. Might want to have at least a couple on hand to burn to clean your flue every few weeks during a heavy burning scenario of an emergency where you are burning a lot of logs. About $20 each.
NOTE: you’re going to want to have a fan on LOW on your hearth or on a small table about a foot in front of your fireplace. Why: because most of the heat from your fireplace will go straight up your flue, unless you pull some of that with a fan and have that fan blow some of that toasty air farther out from the fireplace into your room, where it can start to warm up the rest of your house. Be careful how you do this. You don’t want to pull smoke into your rooms. Experiment until you find the right distance from the face of your fireplace. And yes, you are correct, this will not look very nice. But this has to do with an emergency situation. What’s important is that you’re trying to not freeze to death in the middle of winter without commercial power in your house.
14. SOLAR ELECTRICITY
Lowes markets several solar electrical charging systems. One in particular caught the eye and imagination of this Architect. EcoFLow 1800 Watt Portable Power Station (1 Solar Panel Included). $1,314.72 Also called the “Delta 2” solar generator.
However you would need to also get a second charger/battery ($999+/-) because if you’d like to be able to continue powering appliances and other devices inside your house while you have to recharge the battery/charger that just gave up, you’ll need to have another one, ready to use. The Architect just purchased these today (2/7/2024). Lowes had recently emailed him a 10% off coupon, so he used that and ended up paying $2,228.11 including taxes, free shipping.
Why this is important: If you would like to have anywhere near the lifestyle you are presently enjoying during an extended power outage and you have no other source of electrical energy past 1, 2 or 3 months, this is one of the few sustainable means to achieve that, because the sun is nearly forever and the lithium batteries that come with the chargers are supposedly good for hundreds to charges. Nothing else we’ve seen has those capabilities.
Photos later, after the Architect receives the free delivery from Lowes for the solar collectors/chargers (which the manufacturer calls a “generator”, but for all practical purposes it functions like a powerful battery.
Reported to be capable of running refrigerators, microwave ovens, TVs, air fryers, toasters and more. One reviewer indicated over 32 hours running a stand-up freezer and still had more that 30% charge remaining. This solar system is about the closest you’re going to get to hanging onto to your electric lifestyle when your commercial power goes down. Unless you have a whole house LP gas emergency power generator. And a large one of those may only last you a month or so. What happens then? Better be safe and have a solar electric backup portable system. May be one of the smartest prepper things you ever did.
Note: THE SUBJECT OF A MUCH LARGER WHOLE HOUSE SOLAR POWER SYSTEM WILL BE the subject of a future upcoming online article.
15. CONTACT ARCHITECT THAT KNOWS HOW TO DO THIS
HOME ARCHITECTS ® is one of the few licensed Architects that design homes that know how to design your house to survive in, as well as enjoy every day. If you’re planning on doing a new house, why not a house in which you can survive, as well as enjoy all the time? Click here and send an email to reach an Architect now:
Rand@HomeArchitects.com
16. Yes: there was no number 16. But there will be other things you will encounter in a prolonged emergency no-power, no new water situation. As said, this is not all-inclusive.
But there has been an attempt over several years to keep track of emergency preparedness for this one house and share that with viewers to help others be prepared. All the best, folks.