UK crisis analogue prepping?

[mrcharly-YHT]

Power cuts are a feature of winter here, and always happen during extreme storms.

So, we have heating (solid fuel stove in living room).
Cooking (gas hob)
Water is gravity fed from a loch via a treatment centre. The treatment centre has its own wind turbines.
Torches and candles, natch.
Stock of food, erm there are shelves and shelves of stuff.

[aidan.f]

Oh, and a pox on the electricity regulatory folk for making it so difficult to have one's home solar PV and battery system act as a backup.

It's not that hard islanding your supply, with separate earth bonding, probably already TT where you are.

If I was changing your transformer tails I'd want to be damm sure there was not some dodgy changeover arrangements back feeding up my arm and through my heart.

[T42]

Torches, candles, wood fires, portable gas ring with lots of cartridges, lots of tagliatelle.  When the power went down for several days after our 1999 hurricane we barbecued steak on the kitchen fire. We also have an Idar-Obersteiner grill down in the cellar.

[Wowbagger]

I'm planning to be food for the neighbours.

[T42]

I'm planning to be food for the neighbours.

Given that a good percentage of the people in country villages have guns it'd probably happen here sooner than there.

[MikeFromLFE]

I started looking into the world of Prepping after doing an online course run by The Red Cross (  https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/natural-disaster-safety  ) which encouraged me to put together a 'grab bag' of things needed in case of having to leave the house in a hurry (below).

I've gone beyond that and now have a limited supply of tinned food, a small Camping Gaz cooker (and cartridges) and some bottled water in storage.

The problem with looking at this is - 'where do you stop?'. If you look at the various prepping forums they are heavily influenced by American mindsets of bugging out into the wilderness and living on stewed raccoon. Even without this there's a mindset among British preppers that you need survival skills (and the tools that go with it) - which is fine as a hobby-mindset but fails the reality that most of us live in a relatively densely packed country with excellent infrastructure and pretty good back-up services for when things do go pear-shaped. (Of course if you do live out in the wilds YMMV).
The plague times taught us some valuable lessons about what to stock-pile (in moderation) and the dangers of panic buying - we weren't overrun by Bad People breaking our doors down and we didn't need to arm ourselves to the teeth.

The Preppers also get heavily into Communications - whcih assumes that the mobile phone network fails completely. I'm in the lucky / unusual position of having a Ham radio licence (Amateur Radio) and have a range of HF, VHF & UHF radios in the house, including PMR (& potentially CB) - I really, really can't see the scenario where I'd need to resort to any of it.

For reference my Grab Bag currently contains:
Copy of relevant pages from passports; Home Insurance details (renewed every spring when the clocks change); Contact list (renewed every autumn when the clocks change)
Note paper & pencil; Two foil blankets; Two Buffs
One small bottle of hand sanitiser; One small cake of soap & Washcloth
Batteries - 5 xAA 10 x AAA (renewed every time the clocks change); Torch & Battery light
Five small chemiluminescent lights; Set of folding eating utensils; Two different small multitools,
Cash - £10 note, 2 x £5 notes, 30 x £1 coins (Total £50)
20 water purifying tablets; Wind-up Radio (MW, SW, VHF) includes USB charger, light & siren
Headphones (Earphone type); USB cables - both mini & C type
Painkillers - Paracetamol, Tramadol, Co-codamol & Ibuprofen
Simple mobile phone & Multiple new SIM cards; Velcro cable-ties
Spare glasses;  Toothbrush + small tube of toothpaste; Tooth repair stuff
Roll of loo paper + pack of moist wipes; Minimal First Aid kit; 1 litre empty drinking bottle

[Cudzoziemiec]

The freezer's fairly full and we have some tinned stuff. We have, obviously, bike lights, and also headtorches. We don't have containers that could be filled with water. And we won't have any of that, ever, because we live in a small flat. That's the factor that all this 'advice' ignores.

[andrewc]

Dehydrated water , ask at your local camping shop.....   


My flats water is via a pipe that runs up the outside of the building     It's been known to freeze & sometimes burst in cold weather so I always have a few 5L bottles stashed away , just in case.  Storage in flats is always a problem.  I'm fortunate in that being on the top floor I've got a loft. 

[phantasmagoriana]

The freezer's fairly full and we have some tinned stuff. We have, obviously, bike lights, and also headtorches. We don't have containers that could be filled with water. And we won't have any of that, ever, because we live in a small flat. That's the factor that all this 'advice' ignores.

Same here, and also in a flat with limited storage.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Dehydrated water , ask at your local camping shop.....   


My flats water is via a pipe that runs up the outside of the building     It's been known to freeze & sometimes burst in cold weather so I always have a few 5L bottles stashed away , just in case.  Storage in flats is always a problem.  I'm fortunate in that being on the top floor I've got a loft.

The problem with the freezing pipe could be solved by connecting to a reservoir of said dehydrated water.

[Kim]

The problem with looking at this is - 'where do you stop?'.

Quite.  I'd say it's entirely reasonable to have a few days worth of essentials in case of boring things like illness or injury that prevents you leaving the house, a prolonged localised power cut or a burst pipe.  Beyond that, storing enough water becomes a challenge (unless it's dehydrated, but dehydrating water is prohibitively energy-intensive and therefore expensive).

As for proper collapse-of-civilisation stuff, the best approach is to be as disengaged from civilisation as possible.  But really, that's just prolonging the inevitable.  And civilisation isn't going to go with a bang, but with a whimper.  And the best way to prepare for that is not to be a member of a marginalised group, or failing that, try to run away from the fascism in a timely manner.  Alternatively, work to stop civilisation collapsing in the first place.

For many of us it's much simpler: Until the medication runs out.  (I consider stockpiling medication to be prudent, as insurance against boring everyday prescription fuckups.)

[Cudzoziemiec]

The difficulty is to disengage from civilization without disengaging from society, and therefore also from the people whose help you're going to need (and that's mutual, of course).

[ian]

The irony of the breakdown of civilization is that in practice it doesn't happen, under adversity on the most part, people start to cooperate and work together, look after one another. We've been inculcated by a bazillion movies that we'll go Mad Max overnight, but that really makes no sense, if we were like that we'd never have got together and built a civilization in the first place.


Though I'd get some canned goods, just in case.

[quixoticgeek]

I
For reference my Grab Bag currently contains:
Batteries - 5 xAA 10 x AAA (renewed every time the clocks change); Torch & Battery light

Just to pick up on this point.

If you use energizer lithium batteries, they have a 10+ year shelf life, as well as generally lasting longer. As such, you can keep a pack of them in your go bag without having to worry about needing to rotate out new stock regularly.

I have 3 of them in a camping lantern that works when you pull the lid up. In fact I gave some friends one of these lights each last Christmas, along with the lithium batteries so theu would habe something in event of a power cut. I was concerned that their approach had been largely candle based and fear them setting their homes on fire.

As well as this lantern, I have a Makita camping light that includes a FM and dab radio (and works as Bluetooth speaker), as well as a usb power output. The 96wh battery that lives in it is regularly rotated with one from my drills. This givese radio, light, and phone power in one unit. I can also recharge the battery from solar, of which I have a 150w setup that doesn't connect to the grid.

I have 12 1.5l bottles of water, plus about a week or so worth of long shelf life food. Plus camping stoves etc...

My main scenario for planning is being ill for a prolonged period whereby I can't goto a shop, floods disrupting the power and water, and Belgium invading (tho apparently I should perhaps more fear the UK invading based on recent news...).

Btw, you mention washcloth. I can highly recommend coin towels. They take up next to no space, and expand when you add water to them. I carry them on bike tours/races and they are often very useful. Drop a handful into the top of a bike bag and they just fill in spaces around other stuff. They are intended as single use, but they can be refused if dried etc...

Something you should all consider also is a fire safe. Make sure it's data rated, and keep your important documents in there, along your backup discs. Mine was about €100 delivered. Highly recommend.


J

[quixoticgeek]

Another one to add for the things in the go bag.

Sea to summit pocket soap. It comes in a pack with 50 dry sheets that you get wet and they turn into soap. I've used them for years to wash my cycle kit when doing long trips. They are really compact, light, and don't leak. I keep them in a zip lock bag in my bike frame bag, and some in my hiking pack. And have some for my go bag.

J

[Wombat]

Oh, and a pox on the electricity regulatory folk for making it so difficult to have one's home solar PV and battery system act as a backup.

It's not that hard islanding your supply, with separate earth bonding, probably already TT where you are.

If I was changing your transformer tails I'd want to be damm sure there was not some dodgy changeover arrangements back feeding up my arm and through my heart.

I must further investigate this.  I did ask my battery installer (Princes LHS, of Ellesmere) to make it capable of acting as backup in a power cut, but they were a bunch of muppets and didn't listen.  They were such arseholes I'm not letting them in the house again, so I'll have to get someone else to do it.

I thoroughly agree that bulletproof arrangements have to be made for disconnecting from the grid to avoid electrifying the poor folk fixing it.  Mine can also be manually disconnected, as we have a generator input point, and a manual "grid-off-generator" switch.

[aidan.f]

Oh, and a pox on the electricity regulatory folk for making it so difficult to have one's home solar PV and battery system act as a backup.

It's not that hard islanding your supply, with separate earth bonding, probably already TT where you are.

If I was changing your transformer tails I'd want to be damm sure there was not some dodgy changeover arrangements back feeding up my arm and through my heart.

I must further investigate this.  I did ask my battery installer (Princes LHS, of Ellesmere) to make it capable of acting as backup in a power cut, but they were a bunch of muppets and didn't listen.  They were such arseholes I'm not letting them in the house again, so I'll have to get someone else to do it.

I thoroughly agree that bulletproof arrangements have to be made for disconnecting from the grid to avoid electrifying the poor folk fixing it.  Mine can also be manually disconnected, as we have a generator input point, and a manual "grid-off-generator" switch.

It should not be beyond any compotent electrician to provide you with a maintained supply providing your inverter supports it.
Description of options for GivEnergy inverters but generally applicable. https://kb.givenergy.cloud/assets/EPS%20Configuration%20v2.pdf

This will give you an informed idea of what you want, from the simple 'double socket that you plug summat into, to a full automagical house change-over. Bear in mind that even a 3 KW inverter won't support more than a few essential circuits, if you wire the whole house to it it will either shutdown or fail when someone inadvertantly plugs in a heater and kettle...

Having a generator support socket and if the genny is handy plus living where you do a long term power cut support plan where you charge batteries for a few hours a day and may seem a good idea..

Be aware there is a significant 'gotcha' that has caught out more than one main rescue control centre. Generator voltage and frequency can be  variable and the inverter/battery may just say 'NO SUPPLY HERE'

Also it is probable that your battery system is 'managed from the cloud' and as t'interwebs willl be the first failure you will be stuck with monitoring charging a dumb battery, unless you have applied  KimzSkilz^TM for local control.

[Kim]

If having a generator support socket you have genny handy and living where you do a long term power cut support plan where you charge batteries for a few hours a day and may seem a good idea..

That V2L capability is becoming increasingly common in electric vehicles makes this even more of a good idea.  A car can silently power your household essentials for days and still have enough charge to make driving to a working charger a possibility if the outage is localised.

Be aware there is a significant 'gotcha' that has caught out more than one main rescue control centre. Generator voltage and frequency can be  variable and the inverter/battery may just say 'NO SUPPLY HERE'

UPSes can also be frustratingly fussy in this regard, and it's a strong argument for dual-conversion (which will actively convert moderately-out-of-spec power to DC and back in order to maintain a sensible voltage/frequency) over the cheaper line-interactive type (which will just nope out beyond some threshold and deplete its battery^[1]).


_{[1] Which is how I ended up building my own redundant power supply for the BHPC's Box Of Winky Lights™}

[aidan.f]

UPSes can also be frustratingly fussy in this regard, and it's a strong argument for dual-conversion (which will actively convert moderately-out-of-spec power to DC and back in order to maintain a sensible voltage/frequency) over the cheaper line-interactive type (which will just nope out beyond some threshold and deplete its battery[1]).

Inverter generators are a 'thing' these days, but of course cost £££'s rather than ££'s and if you already have one why would you buy another?

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

The irony of the breakdown of civilization is that in practice it doesn't happen, under adversity on the most part, people start to cooperate and work together, look after one another. We've been inculcated by a bazillion movies that we'll go Mad Max overnight, but that really makes no sense, if we were like that we'd never have got together and built a civilization in the first place.


Though I'd get some canned goods, just in case.

It depends what you call the breakdown of civilization. On a large scale, yes it is like a disaster movie. Within an apparently civilised society there can be a thousand cases where civilisation fails people on an individual scale.  The USA is prime example. 




One of the reasons many Russians survived communism under Stalin is that they became very good countering state persecution by covert cooperation. Ironically.   

Mainland Europe has experienced a lot of civilization breakdowns that we in the UK only endured in isolated areas if we were unlucky enough to be born in deprived times in the wrong place. 

[mrcharly-YHT]

This unit commends Leave the World Behind as an accurate reflection of how the average wealthy person would deal with breakdown.

[quixoticgeek]

Don't look up.

J

[Wombat]

Oh, and a pox on the electricity regulatory folk for making it so difficult to have one's home solar PV and battery system act as a backup.

It's not that hard islanding your supply, with separate earth bonding, probably already TT where you are.

If I was changing your transformer tails I'd want to be damm sure there was not some dodgy changeover arrangements back feeding up my arm and through my heart.

I must further investigate this.  I did ask my battery installer (Princes LHS, of Ellesmere) to make it capable of acting as backup in a power cut, but they were a bunch of muppets and didn't listen.  They were such arseholes I'm not letting them in the house again, so I'll have to get someone else to do it.

I thoroughly agree that bulletproof arrangements have to be made for disconnecting from the grid to avoid electrifying the poor folk fixing it.  Mine can also be manually disconnected, as we have a generator input point, and a manual "grid-off-generator" switch.

It should not be beyond any compotent electrician to provide you with a maintained supply providing your inverter supports it.
Description of options for GivEnergy inverters but generally applicable. https://kb.givenergy.cloud/assets/EPS%20Configuration%20v2.pdf

This will give you an informed idea of what you want, from the simple 'double socket that you plug summat into, to a full automagical house change-over. Bear in mind that even a 3 KW inverter won't support more than a few essential circuits, if you wire the whole house to it it will either shutdown or fail when someone inadvertantly plugs in a heater and kettle...

Having a generator support socket and if the genny is handy plus living where you do a long term power cut support plan where you charge batteries for a few hours a day and may seem a good idea..

Be aware there is a significant 'gotcha' that has caught out more than one main rescue control centre. Generator voltage and frequency can be  variable and the inverter/battery may just say 'NO SUPPLY HERE'

Also it is probable that your battery system is 'managed from the cloud' and as t'interwebs willl be the first failure you will be stuck with monitoring charging a dumb battery, unless you have applied  KimzSkilz^TM for local control.

Our (Givenergy) battery/inverter is indeed managed from the cloud, but will also speak directly to the phone, but obviously still needs the router to be alive (I think). I'll read your link and consider how to proceed, many thanks!

[aidan.f]

A GivEnergy battery is wot we also 'av and you are indeed correct the phone app 'finds' the inverter on your LAN. If you arrange a battery maintained supply for your home router you should not have a problem.
 AFAIU you do need a GE approved contractor as the island power is not enabled by default.
BTW my contractor was also very poor.

[Cudzoziemiec]

you can keep a pack of them in your go bag

You can keep a lot of things in your go bag – and you evidently do – but you're missing a point.

Where you gonna go?