Uncle Loki's Essential Seasonings

The important thing is the spices. A man can live on packaged food from here 'til Judgement Day if he's got enough rosemary.

- Shepherd Derrial Book, Firefly, "Serenity"

Yes, this is a cooking post. No, I'm not David in disguise, though it is indeed inspired by his Prepper's Pantry. While it's all about seasoning, it's not seasonal. 

The Basics

The top of the list starts with salt and pepper. I like my salt kosher, and my pepper to be coarse ground black. The coarser texture plays far more nicely with what and how I like to cook, and gives a bit bolder flavor notes. 

Past that, the biggest basic need is powdered garlic. Fresh cloves or pre-minced "jarlic" are better, but they don't keep as long as powdered does. I keep both on hand for just that reason.

The Scarborough Faire

Sage and parsley are okay, but more on the niche side. Shepherd Book knew what was going on, though; the real workhorses are rosemary and thyme. They're incredibly versatile, working to season soups, meat and poultry, and even savory baked goods. 

The Unconventional

Cinnamon and smoked paprika seem a bit odd, but again, they're very versatile, pairing well with meats, baked goods, soups, and some vegetables. They also are readily available and rather inexpensive. I also am never without at least one kind of smoked chili, be it ancho, chipotle, or generic chili powder. This adds both heat and a bit of smoky complexity.

The Out of Left Field

Have a bit of faith and hear me out on this. The last of my essentials is crystallized lemon and/or lime. Ambitious folks can make this on their own, but I personally prefer the True Lemon/True Lime brand. They add bright, bold citrus flavor without being overly tart or adding acid like citrus juice does. The other essential (and the only blend I consider such) is Tajin, and it's good on literally everything I've tried it with. Cheesy things, meats, even watermelon is delicious and zippy with Tajin on it.

Once you've got your own version of this list figured out, you can expand in any direction you like; the variety in spices and seasonings is virtually endless. Expand your palate, expand your options, and food will never get boring.

Stay spicy, folks.

Lokidude

Rotate Your Carry Ammo

We've talked at length about rotating your preps to keep your supplies fresh and at maximum benefit to you. While most of the time this applies mainly to food and fuel, it really should apply to all consumables you stock, even ones not traditionally considered perishable.

This point was driven home to me on a recent range trip. Having acquired some new carry ammunition for my 10mm, I decided to shoot the old ammo in my magazines, just for the heck of it. It's pretty well established that modern ammunition stored properly will last almost indefinitely, but while that is indeed true, it isn't foolproof. 

The rounds in my magazines were a couple years old, from a major US manufacturer. In the 15 rounds in my primary magazine (the one actually in the pistol) I had 3 failures to fire. On the range, this is an annoyance; in a hunting scenario, that 20% failure rate is bad, but recoverable. In a self-defense situation, however, a failure rate like that has an unacceptably high chance of being fatal.

While I don't have any conclusive answers what caused my failures, ammunition in magazines is subject to the conditions that tend to cause failure, namely humidity and heat changes. Even here in the desert, being out and about means you'll encounter some increased humidity, and obviously temperature swings are a thing.

Ammunition is definitely less perishable than food, and good ammo is expensive to rotate every range trip, so the schedule I'm implementing at home and proposing here is to shoot through your magazines of carry ammo on the same schedule as you change the batteries in your smoke detector, and for the same reason. Having fresh consumables in life-saving hardware can mean the difference between seeing another sunrise... or not.

Lokidude

Prepper Christmas: the Worksharp

I've mentioned before that in my life I've owned ton of flashlights, but I've owned even more knives than that, and along with those blades I've owned approximately 13.2 million knife sharpeners. My grandfather taught me to sharpen knifes on traditional whetstones 30 years ago, and I own a set to this day. I also love both the Smith and Lansky quick sharpeners, I've spent a huge amount of time on an old Spyderco Tri-sharp, and various others that I can't recall. To put it mildly, I've got a pretty broad experience putting edges on blades.

In the way back early days of this blog, I admonished all of you never to use a grinder to sharpen a knife, and I hold to that admonition. Grinders remove material very rapidly, and can easily destroy an edge if you're not very careful. However, there is one tool I've found that eliminates virtually all of that risk: the Worksharp knife and tool sharpener. 

https://amzn.to/3to639e

There are a few versions available, but my personal unit is the Mk 2. It has a two-position angle guide, using 25 degree angles for pocket and working knives and 20 degree angles for kitchen knives and other blades that need a finer edge. That blade guide, as well as speed settings designed to control the amount of material removed as well as the amount of heat imparted to the blade, protect against all of the major damage risks presented by freehand use of a grinder. 

The reason folks want to use grinders to sharpen knives is because they think the grinder will be fast, and they're right, in theory; the problem is that the speed of a grinder leaves zero room for error. It also imparts heat to the blade, which can destroy the temper (the heat treatment that gives a blade its hardness). The Worksharp is definitely faster than you can run a knife on a stone by hand, but moves much slower than a standard belt sander or grinding wheel. This limits the amount of heat that builds up in the blade, and gives some forgiveness if the user gets a bit off kilter on the angle pulling the blade through. 

https://amzn.to/3RIXW0n

The kit comes with 6 belts in 3 grits. These are an 80 grit for very coarse sharpening; what Worksharp says is a 220 grit, though it feels far finer to me; and a 6000 grit extra fine for finishing. These do an adequate job of putting an edge on a knife, but they really feel lacking when taking a blade from stone dull or if the edge geometry needs changed to meet the new angles. Luckily, the Worksharp takes 1/2"x 12" belts, and variety packs are readily available. 

https://amzn.to/3RIB94S

Leather strop belts are also available for putting that super-clean final edge on. With a bit of practice and good belts, I can easily take a blade from stone dull to a quality level of sharpness in about 15 minutes. What's better, the way the guides are set up makes it almost impossible to screw up your blade while you're getting that practice.

There's a whole lot of ways to sharpen a blade. If you have someone in your life who makes serious use of a knife, this will almost certainly become one of their favorites.

Loki

Prepper Christmas: Stocking Stuffers

It's coming up on Christmas at Blue Collar Prepping, and the staff got to talking about what to get that hard to shop for prepper in your life. Since I love gadgets and getting new toys, I wanted to do my gifting suggestions in two parts: stocking stuffers and larger gifts. The things I recommend are things I personally have experience with, and would happily buy for folks in my life.

Flashlight

Streamlight Microstream

As much as I joke about electricians being good in the dark, I don't actually have natural night vision. I've gone through countless flashlights over the years, and the little Streamlight Microstream is one of my all-time favorites.

• It's slightly smaller than two AA batteries end-to-end, meaning it fits wonderfully in my jeans pocket. 
• A single click on the tailcap switch gives a 50 lumen beam that is bright enough for about 90% of the situations I find myself in, with a runtime in excess of 3 hours. 
• Double-clicking the switch bumps it up to 250 lumens, which is incredibly bright for a light of this size. In high-power mode, the battery lasts about 1.5 hours. 

It's not the cheapest light out there, but it's tough and reliable. Mine gets pulled out of my pocket several times a day, and it shows minimal wear after over a year of daily carry.

Pocket Knife

I'm specifically talking about what's commonly called a Swiss Army knife, and I have a couple favorites here. 

Personally, I carry a Gerber Armbar Drive, and have for a couple years. Depending on your tool needs, the Scout and Trade versions are also excellent options. It's rare for a pocket knife like this to have a locking blade, but the Armbar series use a solid liner lock with a stout sheepsfoot blade.

Gerber Armbar Drive

However, the classic that comes to mind when folks say "Swiss Army Knife" is the Victorinox Tinker. While the traditional scale color is red, these are available in a variety of other colors as well. My personal tastes lean towards the Evolution, with sculpted scales for a svelte look and a bit more comfort and control in use. 

Victorinox Evolution

Either of these knives are available with an increasing number of tools. These added tools come with a sharp increase in both cost and size, making them more cumbersome to both carry and use, so I tend to lean towards the more basic models.

If you're having trouble deciding, Victorinox knives have a wider range of tools in roughly the same total size, but the Gerber has a far superior cutting blade. If your intended recipient does a lot of cutting, then the Gerber is a better option. I reviewed my Armbar Drive a while back, and you can read that review here.

Lensatic Compass

While any compass can point you towards magnetic north, a lensatic compass is far more functional for actual navigation. This metal-case unit from Stansport is actually an upgrade from the plastic-cased model I've been carrying for almost 20 years.

Stansport Lensatic Compass

Hand Warmers

I happen to live where it gets cold, and I don't always have the luxury of working in places with functioning heat. If that describes someone in your life, a set of electric hand warmers can be an absolute game changer. I keep mine in my hoodie pocket, and they make it so pleasant when I stick my hands inside.

Rechargeable Hand Warmers

Hopefully I've given you some useful ideas for stocking stuffers for the prepper in your life. Next time, I'll share one of my favorite ideas for an under-the-tree (or Festivus Pole) gift.

Lokidude

The Case Against the Nalgene Bottle

Polish your pitchforks and light the torches, because I'm about to make one of the most controversial statements I've ever put forward: Nalgene bottles are overrated and really not that good from a prepping standpoint. There, I said it, I stand by it, and I'll even bring facts to show how I got here.

If you somehow don't know, a Nalgene bottle is an inexpensive single-walled plastic drinking bottle. While there are a few variations, they are most commonly seen in a 1 liter / 33 oz. size with a wide mouth. All of these things make it a fine drink bottle, but also make it less than ideal beyond that.

https://amzn.to/3p5o7mw

Let's start with the plastic, single-wall construction. While this makes the bottle inexpensive and lightweight, it also means that it doesn't handle heat at all. Purifying water with heat or flame isn't possible, and even trying to drink a hot beverage from it can burn your hands. This means that filtration or chemical purification is required, and it's only useful for holding cold drinks (great in the summer, not so much in the winter).

The gigantic mouth makes it easy to fill the bottle with water and ice, but also makes drinking on the move a very sloppy affair. Additionally, this leads to the biggest fallacy of the Nalgene bottle: the concept of the Water Bottle Survival Kit. With a very wide mouth and lots of space inside, a Nalgene bottle seems like an ideal way to carry all sorts of survival gear. First aid kits, fire kits, a spare knife, a space blanket; they all fit in the bottle with room to spare. The rigid material also protects the contents from damage, and that's great.

However, a problem arises when you need a water bottle and you've got all this great gear standing between you and the ability to carry a drink. But if you empty the bottle to fill it with water, where do you put all the loose hardware you had to dump out? Like so many other prepping notions, this is great in theory but bad in practice.

Don't read any of this as a general indictment. I have several Nalgene bottles and clones, and they're great in their intended work space. I frequently carry one at work, and always have one handy in the house; I drink a lot of water, and they're a great mix of easy to keep with me and large enough I'm not constantly filling it. Beyond that, however, is where their performance starts to fall off and where I start looking for other bottles to carry my water.

Now that I've put arguably the most popular water bottle in the free world on blast, where do we go from here? If you don't get a Nalgene, what should you be getting? In my opinion, water bottles are a pretty personal item. Instead of telling you what to buy, I'll lay out some considerations and then I'll tell you what I use.

If you're going to heat or boil water in it, your only real option is a single-wall metal bottle, because the insulating nature of a double wall bottle will prevent heating, and a plastic bottle will just melt. You'll want something either uncoated, or with a heat-resistant finish, possibly anodized or enameled. You should do a test boil in your bottle to make sure that the coating won't burn or melt off before you use it in the real world.

With that said, my preference is for a double-walled metal bottle and a separate pot to boil my water in. I know my pot is safe to heat water in it, since it's intended for exactly that. It also has a wide opening, making it very easy to pour water into and out of it. I can see when it's boiling, or use a Water Pasteurization Indicator. The insulated bottle prevents burning my hands and keeps warm drinks warm if I need them to be.

Make your choices based on your needs, test your gear, and be safe.

Stay hydrated, my friends.

Lokidude

What is Fatwood?

For as long as I've been in prepper circles on the internet, I've heard of something called fatwood. Folks talking about it make it seem like it absolutely litters the forest floor, and that if you merely let it look at a fire lay and say Shirak*, you'll have an instant roaring bonfire. 

I've been doing the backwoods thing for a while now, and I've never actually encountered fatwood, so I decided to do a bit of poking and figure out what the buzz is all about. It turns out fatwood is resin-loaded pine wood, harvested from stumps left behind by logging operations. As the stump wood ages, the resin from the roots concentrates in the stump. 

This explains two things about fatwood. First, being loaded with pine resin is what gives fatwood its legendary fire starting status. Pine resin, better known as sap, is well known as a flammable material; concentrated within the wood, it would easily take flame and burn hot for a decent time.

Second, this explains why I've never encountered fatwood. Utah doesn't have many pine forests, nor much logging of them. The pine forests we do have are pretty rough access, and aren't made up of the most resinous trees. Basically, I haven't encountered fatwood because it doesn't really occur here.

I may not be able to find it in a local forest, but I can apparently harvest it from the Amazon (the one with Prime, not the one with piranha) where it can be had for between $2-$4 per pound. I've got some on order, and I'll test it when it comes in. I've also got a few other fire-making gizmos to play with in the near future.

Lokidude

*Yes, nerds, I know that Shirak is the command word for a light spell, not a fire spell, but it amused me. Allow me my hidden nerdy fun.

The Boy's Axe

Sometimes it's great to be a boy... or at least, it's great to use their tools.

Recently I was cruising through a hardware store, getting parts for a work project, when I stumbled across a most curious tool. It was a compact axe, and it was so striking that I had to bring it home with me.

Before I say much more about my new axe, allow me to set up the hole that it fills. In my life, I've encountered 3 common axe-type objects: the hatchet, the full-size axe, and the splitting maul. All three are great for certain tasks, but have weaknesses that are very limiting. 

• Hatchets are light and easy to carry, but their light weight and short handle leave them lacking in actual chopping power.
• Splitting mauls are the exact opposite, with heavy heads and long handles. They hit like sledgehammers, but packing 6-10 pounds of maul isn't anyone's idea of a good time. They're also useless for tasks like felling trees or cutting downed timber to length. That big head which splits firewood like a dream makes them very difficult to control in anything but a straight downward swing. 
• The full-size axe is a decent middle ground between the two, but it's still a bit heavy to carry in a pack, and the full-length handle is a bit cumbersome to pack around as well.

Enter the Boy's Axe, so named because it's an axe suited for young men to use. With a 2-2.5 pound head and 24-28 inch handle, it's about half the weight of a standard axe, and about 10 inches shorter. Its compact form factor is still a foot longer than a hatchet, with roughly twice the head weight, which means it hits far harder than the hatchet while being much easier to carry than its full-size brother. The longer handle also allows for (almost demands) 2 handed use, granting even more control and power than the hatchet can muster. 

https://amzn.to/3zrUBss

As with most tools, prices vary from "the cost of a decent meal" to "I'll never financially recover from this." And as with most tools, you get what you pay for (to a point), but buying the most expensive one isn't going to garner much of an advantage. 

If you're buying online, find one that has a substantial number of reviews with a consistently high rating, like the unit linked. If you find one locally, handle it a bit; the handle should be comfortable to hold, with no burrs or snags, and move easily in your hand. The head should have a decent edge, be firmly affixed to the handle, and have some kind of finish on it to minimize rust and corrosion.

If you do pick one up, have fun hitting and splitting.

Lokidude

Slow Matches

The slow match/lighter shows in this video can be bought on Amazon. 

Lokidude

What is a Core Charge?

I was shopping online for parts for my car this week, and underneath the price of the part was a "core charge" price. My brake calipers were only going to cost me $62 per side, so what was this other $60 tacked on to each of them? If you didn't know any better, it would feel like some serious dirty pool, but core charges are a legitimate thing, for a very good reason.

So what is a core charge? In essence, a core charge is a deposit you pay a parts supplier which gets refunded when you bring back a rebuildable core part. In my case of buying brake calipers, I would pay an extra $60 for each caliper until I brought the old ones from my car into the parts house, in which case my deposit gets refunded and they send the core off to be rebuilt and resold. It serves to keep remanufactured parts in the system, allowing for far less expensive auto repairs. Using my truck as an example (I can't use the car mentioned above, because new-manufactured brake components aren't readily available), buying a brand new rear left caliper starts at $61. A remanufactured caliper is right around $30. Half price is a pretty hefty savings in parts. "Reman" parts usually come with a warranty, although it may not be for as long a term as a new part, and are regarded as being of perfectly acceptable quality for general use.

The less-obvious thing that a core charge tells you is that a part can be rebuilt, which means that the components needed to bring the part back to function are likely available on the open market. Let's keep running with the example of brake calipers for my truck: $30 is a pretty healthy savings over $60, obviously, but what if you could do them for under $5? A rear brake caliper rebuild kit for my 2001 Silverado goes for just over $3, but this steep price savings comes at the cost of needing to read a shop manual or find other instruction on how to do the rebuild and takes more time than just swapping the caliper itself -- but doing the whole job for under $10 instead of $120 or more can easily justify some education and time.

In this instance, I'm buying the calipers because I'm up against a deadline and don't have the time to do the rebuild, but if it wasn't for that time crunch I'd be all over rebuilding. Most component rebuilds are fairly simple, consisting of replacing rubber seals and other wear components. Read the manual twice, pay attention to detail and take your time, and you can keep your vehicles running for far lower costs.

Lokidude

Vehicle Rescue

I got a message from a friend just as I was leaving work today: his car broke down on the side of the freeway, and all my friends know I'm available and capable. He's one of my car guy buddies, so he has skills himself, but he needed a tow. While I've talked about towing trailers, I've never covered towing cars or pulling them out of tight situations.

Towing a car, or pulling out a stuck vehicle, is different than towing a trailer. With a trailer, you have a fixed and engineered system hooking everything together; when pulling a car you may have hooks in the bumper or under the vehicle, but everything else is a bit up in the air. Depending on what is available to you, you may be pulling with chains, straps, ropes, or other equipment. Also, because the towed unit is not rigidly fixed to the tow vehicle, it will require a driver attending to it. This person steers the vehicle, and also handles braking to avoid a collision between the two.

When given the option of what to pull with, I avoid chains whenever possible. They're heavy, and because they have zero stretch, they provide a very harsh towing condition and can even damage vehicles if not used properly. Straps are my favorite pulling apparatus, as they have more engineered strength than ropes, a very forgiving stretch, and can be hooked up in a wide variety of ways, depending on the attachment points available.

The biggest concern when towing in this way is avoiding damage to either vehicle. The ways damage can occur here are legion, and care must be taken to prevent them. Inspect your straps, ropes, or chains for wear and damage before hooking up. These items are under extreme tension when pulling, and if they fail, they can cause serious damage and possibly death. Make sure they are solidly hooked up to a point intended for pulling if at all possible. Move the tow vehicle very slowly to set tension on the towing line, avoiding a sudden load that can do damage. Towing in this way should only be done for a short distance, as it is hard on the drivers, and the vehicles, and can cause annoying traffic issues. 

If the vehicle being pulled has a manual transmission, put it into neutral and tow at a moderate speed, always trying to avoid that sudden shock load when starting from a stop. 

If the vehicle has an automatic transmission, it can be towed in neutral, but only at an extremely slow speed (20mph tops) and for the shortest distance you can get away with. Automatic transmissions require a pump to be operating for lubrication, and that pump is driven by the engine. Towing them without that pump operating will burn up a transmission in short order, requiring very expensive repairs. Automatics should be moved on a trailer or tow truck, and only towed in emergency situations.

If you want to see a true master of the art of towing and vehicle rescue, check out Matt's Off Road Recovery on YouTube. He's from southern Utah, and uses simple techniques, patience, and skill to rescue vehicles that seem impossibly stuck.

Lokidude

Ear Cleaning

Here's the link to the Earwax Removal Kit I review in the video below. 

Lokidude

Straight Cheatin'

"Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world." - Archimedes

I had a flat tire on my truck over the weekend. I tried to pull it off with my electric impact gun, but it wasn't turning the lug nuts at all. Apparently, the last joker to do anything on the tires ran them on with an air gun and no regard for proper torque. This meant I needed to apply more torque than my power tool could provide.

Torque is a measure of rotational force, commonly expressed in foot-pounds. One pound of force, applied at the end of a 1 foot lever, is one foot-pound. To increase the amount of torque applied, you either add more force or a longer lever. There is no practical way for me to increase the torque output on my impact gun, so I had to use a manual method of turning the lug nuts. Increasing applied torque with manual leverage is very simple: add more feet or add more pounds. 

I weigh in at right about 190 pounds, depending on what's in my pockets, which means I can apply about 150 pounds of force, give or take. (I have to stay on my feet, so a significant chunk of my mass is lost to that.) On a one foot lever, that means I apply somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 foot pounds of torque; if I have another person pull on the lever with me, we can apply double or more the amount of force I can apply alone. It works, but it's clumsy and cumbersome and sometimes you don't have another person. The easier way is to add more feet to the lever. This is commonly accomplished using an item called a cheater bar.

My cheater (L) and breaker (R) bars: the best nut-busting combo a guy could want.

In short, a cheater bar is anything that extends a lever. Most of the time it's a pipe of some sort slipped over the end of a socket wrench. My personal favorite cheater is a four foot floor jack handle; it will fit over the handle of any ratchet or breaker bar that I own and adds about as  much length as I can reasonably use. With a 5 foot lever I'm applying roughly 750 foot pounds of torque, and if that won't break something loose, not much else in my world will.

Archimedes was right: with enough leverage, you can move the world.

Lokidude

Basic Electrical Math

If you've been following the blog recently, you'll know that Erin got herself a CPAP machine, which got her interested in revisiting my homebrew battery box idea. Our conversation inspired some upgrades that I'll discuss later, as well as a bit of frustration on her end. I've done electrical math so much, and for so long, that I can pretty much do it in my head, and I forget that most folks can't. I promised her a primer on electrical math, and it seems fitting to share it with the whole BCP family, so here goes.

Most electrical math is based on Ohm's Law, which breaks everything into ratios. All of it is contained in a diagram we call Ohm's Wheel.

Watts are Power. Volts are Energy. Ohms are Resistance. Amps are... current.
No, we don't know why "I" was used to represent Current. 

The formulas to find Watts, Amps, Volts, and Ohms are given in the appropriate quadrant of the wheel, assuming you have any two other pieces of the data. The ones I use most are watts, volts, and amps. Amps are equal to watts divided by volts, as the wheel shows, so if I have a 100 watt light bulb on a 120 volt circuit in my house, it will draw 0.83 amps. I know the wattage of the bulb because it's printed on the glass, and I know the voltage in my house because all standard appliance circuits in US homes are 120 volts. Plug that in to the formula, and the result is 0.83! These formulas will work any time you know two of the four elements of the wheel.

The other big math question that arises, especially for preppers, involves amp-hour battery ratings. They are often presented as "How long will this battery run my equipment?" Once you know how many amps your device draws, divide that number by the amp-hour rating of your battery, and you'll know roughly how many hours you can run your item before recharging or changing batteries.

That covers the vast majority of electrical math that most people will encounter in their lives. If you have any other electrical math questions, please feel free to ask in the comments here or in the BCP Facebook or MeWe groups, and I'll happily answer them.

Lokidude

Battery Back That Thing Up: Big Battery Options

We've all seen the portable battery packs that charge cell phones and tablets. They work great for small electronics, but they lack the capacity to power anything that has a serious demand. For that you need larger, more advanced batteries.

I've used GoalZero's site and data as a reference when considering battery back ups, and for good reason: they publish actual numbers on their equipment, and their quality of build has made them the gold standard for backup power storage. Their equipment is also a self-contained solution, with the charging system, battery storage, and inverter all in one package. If you were to assemble a backup battery system for your home, you'd need to source a charging method, the battery cells, and DC to AC inverter separately, then assemble and mount or store them. GoalZero (and other companies) do this in a package about the size of a large suitcase.

The first step in deciding which system to get is to figure out how much battery you need, and this will depend on how much you need to run and how long you expect the power grid to be down. Notice that I said "need" and not "want;" the more you run, the shorter your battery pack can keep you rolling. In my area, blackouts rarely last more than 24 hours, and even those are uncommon, although in the past year we did have a windstorm accompanied by a nasty cold snap that took out power to some residents for almost a week. For somebody like Erin in a hurricane zone, though, a week without power is a regular occurrence. Look at your area's history for the past few years and decide how long you expect it to be dark.

Now that you know how long you expect power to be down, figure out what you need to keep on. I would want to keep my lights, my refrigerator and deep freeze, and the receptacles* in my bedroom powered, at a minimum ( I use a CPAP machine when I sleep, so I need to be able to power it at night). During the winter, I'd also want to keep my furnace powered. I wouldn't make that choice if I had electric heat, but my furnace is gas, so the electricity just runs the controls and fan on a 120 volt circuit. I'd also stretch my power even further by turning off the breakers for receptacles I wasn't needing, and using the lights only when necessary.  

* A receptacle is where you plug something in. Outlets aren't always a receptacle; technically, any place you wire power to a device is considered an outlet.

All receptacles are outlets. Not all outlets are receptacles.

Big batteries aren't exactly cheap, but they're a great solution when your power only goes out occasionally, or if you're in a place like an apartment where you can't use a generator or other backup means.

Lokidude

Bad Gas

A friend of mine on Facebook has a dilemma in relation to fuel storage: it seems he has about five gallons of gasoline that has been in a container for a year or two. He's been burning a bit of it at a time in his backyard fire pit, but unless you're aiming for a raging bonfire, that's real slow going. When he asked if there were any ways to consume it faster, it led to a great conversation.

Why is old gas a problem?

As petroleum fuels age, they begin to break down. Diesel fuel stays good for about a year, while gasoline starts to come apart at about six months. As they break down, their ability to burn degrades significantly, and they leave nasty deposits in engines. This can be prevented by using stabilizers and rotating fuel, as covered by Chaplain Tim here. Sticking to his advice means you'll always have fresh fuel to provide maximum power and efficiency in your engines.

What if your gas does go bad?

If your fuel does go bad, all is not lost; there are a couple things you can do to salvage it. If the fuel is in a tank already, the Seafoam product Tim mentioned does a wonderful job of "recovering" bad gas. I use it in my track car, because I ended up with half a tank of old gas that I thought had been drained. So far, it still makes good power and starts every time I hit the key.

If your fuel is in a gas can, the fix is even simpler: just dilute it with good gas. A ratio of 10:1 or better will burn just fine, and shouldn't harm an engine in good repair. Running a higher ratio like 15:1 will burn your bad fuel slower, but will burn easier in your engine, if you're worried. For clarification, that means 10 or 15 gallons of good gas to every 1 gallon of old fuel.

You can also run old fuel in gasoline yard tools, diluted with good fuel. The ratio can be a bit shorter in gasoline tools, as low as 5:1, since their engines are simpler with fewer places that can get gummed up and minimal electronics to be affected.


Prevention is always the best course. Rotate your fuel stocks and use fuel stabilizers whenever possible. If all else fails and you find yourself with some old gas, you haven't lost that money or that resource; hit it with fuel conditioner or dilute it with good fuel and carry on.

Lokidude

(Battery) Back That Thing Up, part 1: Why Batteries?

Our benevolent editrix got to asking me questions over the weekend about large battery backup power solutions. She's curious about what it would take to reasonably back up her home, and if going battery is worth it compared to the alternatives. Since this kind of thing is pretty much my professional wheelhouse, I decided to make a series out of it. 

Providing for your own emergency power needs basically falls into two categories: you can generate it with fuel, or you can supply it from batteries. Yes, I am aware that power can be generated by windmills, water wheels, and various other sources, but those solutions are esoteric, incredibly specific, and often unreliable. I'm also aware that solar panels are a thing, but they only make power when the sun shines, so if you want the lights to be on after dark, we're back to batteries.

Generators

Generators are great. They're the gold standard for backup power, and for good reason: they're a tried and true technology that can be set up so that no user input is required for backup power; if the grid goes dark, the generator senses this and starts itself. They also supply more power than batteries and will keep supplying that power as long as they have fuel. If natural gas is an option for you, then you have virtually limitless power, but it will be expensive.

Generators do have serious downsides, though. They're somewhat noisy, so running one at night might upset your neighbors. They also create toxic exhaust like any other internal combustion engine, so they have to be placed in such a way to keep that exhaust and heat from entering or damaging your home. Along with that placement, even fairly compact generators aren't exactly small; you either have to store a large, heavy unit somewhere until you need it, or you have a permanent machine placed near your home to deal with. 

As with all engines, generators require regular maintenance. Regular oil changes are a concern, and permanent generators have an "exercise" cycle to deal with, where they will start themselves up and run for a period of time on a regular basis to keep everything functioning correctly.

Batteries

Batteries don't have exhaust, they don't need much by way of maintenance, and they're silent as a church mouse. They're a bit limited in output, however, and they also tend to cost a bit more. 

If you want to take advantage of the benefits batteries offer, the first step is to determine how much battery you need. Consider carefully what you need to be running; you might get a few nice-to-haves on top of your needs, but focusing on the essentials will maximize your battery life. In addition to the amount of power you'll draw from your batteries, you need to consider how long you'll be drawing that power. Where I'm at, power outages are generally resolved within 24 hours; a friend of mine in hurricane country this year was without power for more than a week, and Erin tells me that's not an uncommon thing. Batteries used for backup power are sized in watt-hours or amp-hours, and those numbers are key to determining how much battery you need. 

Next week, we'll look at how long some common loads can be run on very popular backup systems.

Lokidude

Smoke Detector Installation

Last week, I talked about what you should look for in a smoke detector. This week, I walk you through the installation process, starting from scratch. 
 

 

Lokidude

Smoke Detector Basics

It's time for a new smoke detector at my house, so lets go over the basics of what you want in a detector and where you want to put it.

Lokidude

Heating and Eating When the Lights Go Out

A fascinating question was posed in the BCP Facebook group. At the least, it was fascinating to me, and based on the conversation there, it got the attention of a whole lot of other people as well. Paraphrasing, the question was "I have an all-electric house. How do I cook food and heat my home in the event of a power outage?" There are a lot of ways to handle these tasks, so lets break them down.

The first way to address a lack of electrical power is with electricity. I know that sounds trite, but it's true. I've talked about backup generators in the past, and they're the quick and easy way to power your house in an emergency. Another option is a solar array with a battery bank. Properly sized, either of these will keep you running when the grid goes down.

If you're not capable of generating your own power, you'll have to look at other means of heating. Lets start with cooking, because why not? If your home has a wood burning stove or a fireplace, congratulations, you can cook like your grandparents or great grandparents, and heat your home at the same time. This is winning all around. Simply heat food on the hearth of your fireplace or the top of your stove. It won't be gourmet, but it will be hot. Make sure that you keep your chimney or flue properly cleaned and that you have adequate fresh air, otherwise you can succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning with no real warning.

If you don't have wood burning heat available to you, then things get a bit more involved. A propane barbecue grill can be pressed into service to cook most things. Charcoal will also work for many things, but it's not as convenient or easy. If you live in a place where a full-size grill is not feasible, tabletop models that run on small 1 pound propane cylinders are available and affordable. They're designed for camping, and they excel at it, but riding out emergencies looks a lot like camping at home. I've personally used the model linked for decades, cooking everything from burgers and hot dogs to soup and breakfasts.

That covers cooking. Now lets look at heating your living space. If you're stocking propane bottles to run a tabletop grill, why not use the same bottles to run your heater? Mr Heater makes a unit that will heat a medium-sized room off the same 1 pound cylinders. It won't heat your whole home, so you'll have to gather in a single room to stay warm, but it will keep that room comfortable.

Burning any kind of combustible material inside requires that you have plenty of fresh air moving through, otherwise you have the same carbon monoxide issue that I mentioned above. Make sure any heater you buy specifies that it is safe for indoor use. In addition, you should have a carbon monoxide detector in your home as a matter of general safety, and make sure that it is in good working order and has fresh batteries, just like a smoke detector.

It's cold outside. It doesn't have to be cold inside.

Lokidude

Havalon Piranta

When I broke down my hunting pack in December, I promised to talk more about my Havalon knife. Here goes!

 

Lokidude