Showing posts with label generators. Show all posts
Showing posts with label generators. Show all posts

Thursday, 30 January 2025

The Porcupine Saga, Part 12, The Tour: Part 1

Will Harper, late afternoon, Saturday July 21, 2040

"Well, I guess we should start this tour at the clinic," said Allan, gesturing toward the building Will thought of as the "farm house".

"Clinic...?" said Will, doubt creeping into his voice.

"Yeah. What used to be the farmhouse. It would have taken another hour or two to tell the whole story," said Allan. "So I decided it might be quicker and easier to just show you."

"Okay," replied Will. "Lead on."

They got up from the bench where they'd been sitting on the east side of the hall and headed across the yard, picking their way among the vehicles parked there. The sun was a good deal lower in the sky than when they had first come outside and its heat was a noticeably less oppressive.

"Seems like it isn't all that much hotter here than in Inverpen," said Will.

"It usually is a little hotter here in the summer, but with less humidity than you get along the lake," said Allan. "Leaving the wet bulb temperature about the same. We're lucky in the Great Lakes basin—in the heat of the summer we get some 'siesta weather', when you're wise to take it easy around midday. But we can live without air conditioning, easier actually because after a while people do get used to the heat. Not like lots of places closer to the equator where it really does get hot enough to kill. And has killed many."

"Scary to think about that," said Will.

"Hell yeah," Allan said. "Though for those of us engaged in subsistence farming, droughts are even worse than heat waves. Floods aren't great either. And we've had one or two of both."

"Same thing in and around Inverpen, of course," said Will. "Though we do have the lake to draw on for irrigation."

As they neared the farm house Will noticed a small shed on its west side. He assumed it contained the generator Allan had been talking about earlier. "That your generator shack?" Willa asked, nodding toward it.

"It is," replied Allan. "Not gasoline powered anymore, though. Late in 2030 our 'prime mover' crew put in wood gas producers to fuel all of our generators. Then a few years later, after they'd got steam power down to a science, they put in two generators to power the clinic, each driven by a small steam engine. Along with automatic feed of wood chips to the boilers. Would you like to take a quick peek inside?"

"Yes, definitely," said Will.

They walk over to the shack and Allan opened the door.

Will stepped up to the threshold and took a look at the machinery inside. "Those are slick little engines. Run pretty quiet, too. And it looks like you built the generators here?"

"We bought a bunch of generators in 2030 and we are still using them for the most part. But we've built a few like these ones," said Allan. "Mainly to prove to ourselves that we'll be able to do it when the need arises. They put out up to 12 kW, single phase 120/240 volt."

"Looks pretty impressive to me," said Will. Noting that only one of the gnerators was running, he took a little closer look at the wiring. "They're just backup for each other? You never actually run them in parallel?"

"Yeah, just backup," said Allan. "So we can work on one while the other one supplies the load."

"Right," said Will. "There was a time when you'd have needed someone with a stationary engineer's ticket to run this setup legally. I guess that isn't such a big deal anymore."

"No," replied Allan. "We've never actually had a visit from a TSSA inspector. Though I am sure for the last few years there has been no such thing. We actually do have a couple of guys who are qualified as stationary engineers, and they been big help in making sure our steam power setups are safe."

"Yeah," said Will. "You can get away from regulations, but you still want to run things as safely as possible. So, that hopper to the left of the shack is full of wood chips?"

"Yeah," said Allan. "We don't usually like to make our electrical supplies so easy to use. A little inconvenience reminds folks that electrical power is a luxury that comes with many costs. In the case of the clinic, though, a round-the-clock, on-demand supply is pretty much a necessity."

"I see," said Will, still a little puzzled. "So, I though the plan was to divide the whole of the farmhouse into bedrooms and bathrooms?"

Leading them around to the front porch, Allan said, "Yep, just the living room and the addition at first, but by fall of 2030, the dining room and kitchen too. With the addition of Jack's land, we figured we could support 60 people sustainably, and we were aiming to build accommodation for them all, here and in the second pole barn. 'Course things have changed a little in the meantime..."

They went up the front steps and through the front door. Will took in, with some surprise, what looked like a doctor's waiting room with a receptionist's desk and a row of chairs against one wall.

"I can tell from the look on your face," said Allan, "that this isn't what you expected. To make a long story short, in 2031 we were joined by a couple of nurses, and in 2032 a doctor and a dentist arrived. Shortly after that, the second bird flu hit with a vengeance, and we turned this place into a medical clinic, lab space, hospital and quarantine space for new people, and living quarters for our growing medical staff."

"That makes sense," said Will, "and given that you're talking about a quarantine, I'll bet you made it through that flu better than a lot of communities."

"We did," replied Allan. "We were close to self sufficiency by then and we just locked the place down, quit going anywhere beyond our own borders. The few refugees who made it here on their own went into quarantine upstairs here for a couple of weeks before joining the rest of us. You'll remember the first wave of that flu went on for about 7 months, and then there was a second and third wave. I understand it was pretty deadly and a lot of people didn't make it through elsewhere, but we did pretty well—no fatalities and only a few people who got sick—mostly refugees who were exposed before they arrived. We didn't even lose any of our poultry, though we did move them to a barn on one of the other farms, just to keep them completely isolated."

"Sounds like a much more intelligent response than most places," said Will.

"I think it proved to be just that," said Allan. "Of course we didn't have to worry about the detrimental effects of lockdown on businesses."

"No, I guess not," said Will. "That concern led to all kinds of bad policy, and a lot more grief than was really necessary."

"Which we, fortunately, were spared," said Allan. "Anyway, by the time we'd set up this little medical clinic, provincial support for the health care had disappeared and most of the system along with it, so we've ended up welcoming in unemployed medical staff and providing basic health care to most of this township. Not that that amounts to a whole lot of people."

"There's nothing left in Inverpen but a few alternative practitioners," said Will. "'Wackadoodle' folks, as Sue calls them."

"Yeah, the trouble is that 99% of those alternatives just don't work, " said Allan. "There are a few other communes in Ontario working on pharmaceuticals, low tech medical equipment, and training medical staff to cope with today's conditions. They are just getting started, but I think they have a lot of potential. We may never get back to level of medical services we used to have, but we can still do a hell of a lot better than nothing. And with proper science based medicine at that."

"Right," said Will. "I remember Tom being pretty keen on that, but he also worried that we expect way too much of our medical people. Have you been able to do anything about that?"

Allan sat down on the edge of the desk. "Yeah, Dad felt that there were a lot of unrealistic expectations of health care professionals, both by the professionals themselves and by their patients. He was keen on setting up a health care system that didn't require doctors and nurses to be super human. And that wouldn't constantly be failing because of their failure to live up to those expectations."

Will took a seat on one of the chairs. "And have you managed to do that?"

"To some extent, yes," said Allan. "As has so often been the case, by eliminating capitalism, we've been able to easily overcome problems that were largely a consequence of it.

"Okay, but how does that apply to health care?" asked Will.

"Under capitalism, the profit motive was always getting in the way of health care," said Allan."

"Even when the health care system was socialized like here in Ontario?" Said Will.

"You wouldn't think so, would you?" said Allan. "But right wing governments always wanted to cut budgets and taxes, and so things like health care and education were underfunded, especially under Ford's Conservatives. They wanted to privatize as much health care as possible, so their supporters could turn it into profit centers. Leaving public hospitals understaffed and under resourced. Health care professionals already had a long history of overdoing ableism and the system encouraged a total disrespect for the value of rest."

"At Hydro One there were limits to the hours you could work in a day and a week, for safety reasons," said Will. "But there was no such thing in the healthcare system?"

"Not that was seriously enforced, anyway," said Allan. "We encourage a healthy respect for rest among everyone here. We also take a science based approach to just about everything and with that comes more realistic expectations of our medical people. Plus, they all escaped a system that wasn't working for them or their patients, and they have a strong commitment to stop that from happening again here. So things are working much better."

"Right," said Will. "Meanwhile Dougie Ford is alive and well, presiding over the Golden Horseshoe like a clown at a three ring circus. At least the rest of the province is free to try different and hopefully better ways."

"It doesn't take much to improve on the Conservative's approach, that's for sure," said Allan. "I'm not really the guy to show you around the clinic, so maybe we should move on."

"Sure. I'm curious what the bedrooms you created look like," said Will. Is it possible to have a look here, or have they all been turned into something else?"

"Nope, most of our medical personnel live right here, in the addition," said Allan. "As do Erika and I, since she has spent a lot of time using her biotech and lab skills working on medical issues. Let's have a look."

Allan led the way, opening the door to the addition and closing it behind him after they went through. "Separate ventilation system in here, with positive pressure that keeps us from getting exposed to sick people coming to the clinic."

Allan went to the first door on the right and opened it. "Home sweet home, such as it is" he said and gestured for Will to go in.

Will did so, and took in a room about nine feet wide and twelve feet deep, with a window in the outside wall and a closet in the wall on the left. It's furnishings included a bed, a chest of drawers, a bookshelf, a small desk, a couple of chairs, and in the corner to the right of the door, a composting toilet and a small table with a large pitcher and a basin, both in what appeared to be locally made pottery. Folded towels and face cloths on that table looked to be made locally made as well, not terrycloth but nicely thick and absorbent.

"I see you went ahead with the composting toilets," said Will.

"Oh yeah. It didn't take long for Erika to talk people around," said Allan. "Looking back, I wonder what the big deal was."

"Just a change from what people were used to, I'd guess," said Will. "Most people in Inverpen have a composting toilet now, what with the municipality giving up on infrastructure maintenance a few years ago. And with needing good rich compost for our gardens, without which most of us wouldn't eat nearly as well."

"Do you find it's enough private space for the two of you?" said Will.

"It's not much, but it's enough," said Allan. "Our lives are centered on the common spaces. All we do here is sleep and have occasional private discussions."

"Right," said Will. "and, ahem, bed sports."

Allan raised an eyebrow at this and blushed a little. "I don't think I've ever heard it called that. But yes."

Sensing the need for a change of subject, Will pointed to a violin case sitting on top of one of the dressers. "I see you still have your fiddle."

Looking relieved, Allan said, "Sure do. I am part of a pretty good bluegrass group and second violin in several different chamber music groups. Unfortunately, the best chamber music is pretty hard and we're just sort of hacking our way through it as yet."

"I take it recorded music isn't readily available?" said Will.

"No it isn't. We do have a few computers still operating, but we reserve them for only the most critical tasks," said Allan. "Some of us have collections of vinyl and CD's, but equipment to play them is getting pretty thin on the ground. So we've come to prefer live entertainment. It helps to fill in the slow times, especially in the winter."

"I hope we'll get to hear some of that blue grass tonight," said Will.

"You know, I think you just might," said Allan.

Looking again at the wash stand in the corner, another question occurred to Will. "Uh... I see you don't have running water in your room?"

Allan sat down on the edge of the bed and gestured for Will to take one of the chairs. "One thing that really surprised me about this place is that the whole 'needs and wants' thing has turned out to be a false distinction."

"You'll have to explain what you mean by that," said Will. "And how it relates to running water."

Allan chuckled. "Okay. What we have here is a co-production system—the consumers and the producers are the same people and they also get to decide what is or isn't produced. This means that if there is a consensus about producing something then we can just do that. Whether something is a want or a need really doesn't come into it. Instead it is a matter of having the desire to make it happen, and seeing if we have the tools, materials, skills and labour time left over from all the other things we are already doing, or if we'd like to stop making something else in order to make this.

"We have a well defined process for getting on top of all this information, so people don't have to guess as to what the facts of the matter are. People do guard their spare time jealously, though, so that's often the critical factor. That and getting enough people behind an idea. Which is the shape that politics takes here at Porcupine."

"So you decided that making the pipe and plumbing fittings and fixtures just wasn't worth the effort?" said Will.

"Not in the quantities that would be needed to put them in every room. Especially since there is a sink and hot and cold running water only a few steps down the hall," said Allan. "And making that work took a lot less effort. There are a lot of mass produced materials that we used to take for granted—plywood, pipe, wire and various sorts of hardware—that would require a level of industrialization that we simply aren't up for. Our industrial setup is the next item but one on this tour, so..."

"So we should get moving," said Will. "Your dad always used to say that accepting a minor loss of convenience and comfort could drastically reduce the burden we place on the planet."

"Yep," said Allan. "He had that right for sure. What few of us understood was how easy it was to give up such things, especially in return for the pluses of living here, which are pretty major."

They both stood and walked out of the room and down the hallway.

"This addition is more than twice the size it was ten years ago. We added the new section in 2034, making more room for our medical staff and their families. By then the local building inspector had joined us, and left the municipality to shut down its building department, so we were free to build as we liked. Though we take building safety pretty seriously ourselves, especially with the former inspector here giving us advice. But that's a story for another time. You'll probably meet Pete at supper though, and he'll want to talk your ear off."

They went out back door of the addition and paused on the porch at the top of the steps. "That field ahead and on the right is our visiting horse paddock," said Allan, "and that shed is where the visiting horses can get out of the weather."

"Everybody out here has switched over to horses then?" asked Will.

"Hmmp, what most people have switched to is shank's mare," said Allan.

"My mother—your grandmother—used to use that term," said Will. "Fancy way of saying 'walking'."

"Yep," said Allan, "and walking is what we do for the most part. Breeding up a population of horses is a slow process, and we've concentrated mainly on draft horses. They are in one of the fields behind the barn—we'll have a look on our way by. The riding horses you see here are from elsewhere. There are a few people in the area who have made breeding them up a higher priority. I guess they want to get around more than we do. Or maybe they just like riding."

"You Porcupiners are more self contained?" asked Will.

"That's part of it," said Allan, "but mainly we've chosen to focus on other areas. The riding horse nuts for the most part don't have electricity, for instance."

"A matter of different priorities then?" said Will,

"Exactly," replied Allan, leading the way along the fence toward the shed. "And many of those folks already had horses before things fell apart, so they had a head start."

"Sure," said Will, stopping to lean against the fence."By the way, these are nice board fences."

"Not by choice—nobody is making page wire anymore," said Allan. "This is the best we can do with local materials. As I was saying, it turns out that large quantities of galvanized steel wire would be pretty challenging to produce—same kind of thing as copper pipe. White paint is a challenge too, and it is traditional on board fences like this. We just give them a coat linseed oil every so often to protect them from the weather. That's something we have lots of—the oil, I mean."

"I prefer the look of natural wood, anyway," said Will.

All this made Will think of his father. Charlie had truly loved horses, farming with them for a couple of decades before he got his first tractor in the early 1950s. He still kept draft horses for ten years after that, claiming they were better for many jobs around the farm. Will had missed all that, not being born until 1965. But Charlie had found he just missed horses too much and got a couple of riding horses when Will was about 5. Will had learned to ride and take care of horses and though he had little to do with them after leaving the farm, he still had a keen appreciation for the animals. Here he noticed mainly bay quarter horses and a couple of pintos with some Appaloosa blood in them. All fine looking animals that were obviously well cared for.

"Nice bunch of horses, not suffering a bit," he said.

"I guess so, though I'm no expert" said Allan. "The water trough's full. They've got shade from the maples along the fence by the road and lots of nice green grass. And they seem to be getting along, even though I'm sure some of them are strangers to each other. I wasn't in favour of setting up this pasture. But there are quite a few more horses here today than usual, and this field gets to collect some horseshit it wouldn't otherwise. Maybe not such a bad idea after all."

"This is part of that politics you were talking about?" asked Will.

"You're asking because the commune went ahead and did something I disagreed with?" said Allan.

"Well, yeah," said Will. "I thought everything was supposed to be done by consensus...."

"Oh, I could have blocked the idea," said Allan. Takes three of us to block, and I wasn't alone in having doubts. Or 10 percent of those present abstaining has the same result, and in this case that was a closer thing. But people get tired of having their ideas stomped on, and if you're the one always doing the stomping, then when you're trying to get something approved, it doesn't go as smoothly as it might otherwise. So... you have to ask yourself how important it really is, and if it's not very, you don't make a big deal of it. I've had lots of support over the years, so I don't make much of a fuss unless I think something is a really bad idea.

"All in all I find this system works pretty well. Better than the alternatives, for sure. Many brains together work better than one. When an idea doesn't get approved, it's rarely because it's been blocked or a lot of people have abstained. More likely it gets sent back to be reworked by the crew or individual who brought it up. Sent back with a bunch of good, helpful ideas for how it could be improved. People also ask around and get others' opinions before bringing up an idea to the group as a whole. So the really lame brained stuff gets filtered out."

"But surely you get the odd person who just doesn't want to get along," said Will. "Seems to me, if they didn't care about consequences, they could make things pretty miserable for everyone here."

"Yep, could happen," said Allan. "Has happened occasionally. But we follow the principle of voluntary association—no one has to join our group, or stay a part of it, if they don't want to. And if, as you say, they don't want to get along, pretty soon they won't want to hang around either. Living this close together, conflict is pretty miserable, even if you start out thinking that a little conflict might be fun. Once a week we take a vehicle into Inverpen, and there's always a seat for anyone who wants to leave.

"Plus, we have a long tradition, started by Dad during our first Tuesday night meeting, of people taking a long walk to decompress. Many have found that it helps. And once or twice a long walk has turned into never coming back."

"But after ten years, you are still a going concern," said Will, "so you can't have too many problems."

"Seems not," said Allan. "We make every effort to mediate and resolve interpersonal conflicts, of course. We've all had training on participatory democracy, mediation and things like developing emotional intelligence. It all helps. And it does work, except when it doesn't, people being what they are."

"No doubt," said Will. "What's next on this tour?"

Allan stepped back from the fence they'd been leaning on and turn around, pointing north. "Well, that row of buildings is our industrial heartland, so to speak."

"Really?" said Will in a doubtful tone.

"I'm not entirely serious," said Allan with a grin. "We don't have anything on the scale of chemical valley in Sarnia, or the steel mills in Hamilton. But what little we have of that sort is concentrated here. Given your background, I think you'll find this quite interesting."

"Great," said Will. "Let's have a look."

Coming soon, Porcupine Saga Part 13, The Tour: Part 2


Links to the rest of this series of posts:
The Porcupine Saga

Maintaining the lists of links that I've been putting at the end of these posts in getting cumbersome, so I have decided to just include a link to the Porcupine section of the Site Map, which features links to all the episodes I've published thus far.

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Tuesday, 23 April 2024

The Porcupine Saga, Part 8, When We Met Jack, Part 2

Allan Harper, midday, Wednesday, April 10, 2030

The three of them walked side by side down the laneway that led to the back of Jack's farm. Allan stayed quiet and concentrated on following what the old guys were saying. They were deep in conversation but stopped abruptly when they came to the fence at the south end of Jack's farm, looking out over Porcupine's hundred acres.

"I gotta say," said Jack, "I was wondering why you'd pick that particular farm. The creek runs right through the middle of it, and maybe half of it is in bush."

"The buildings are part of it, but all that bush is actually the main reason," replied Tom. "We're expecting the energy situation to get even worse and planning to run things mainly off firewood and muscle power."

"I see what you mean," said Jack, "surely not this year, though. I've got a 200 gallon tank just sitting there full of diesel fuel...."

"That could come in handy," said Tom. "It may take us a few years to get set up with work horses, and convert existing equipment for use with them. In the meantime we'll need to make the best possible use of every drop of diesel and gasoline we can get hold of."

"I'd suggest getting a couple of 200 gallon fuel tanks, one for diesel and one for gas. McCullogh Fuels in Inverpen would be glad to sell them to you and fill them up when fuel is available" said Jack. "I could also introduce you to some people who keep work horses as a hobby. Might be interested in selling you a team or two and harness to go with them. In the meantime, if diesel isn't available, canola grows well hereabouts and it isn't that hard to set up an oil press. Diesel tractors will burn it OK if you warm it up first to thin it out. Or, with a little more trouble, you can make it into biodiesel. Gasoline engines run fairly well on wood gas, and a gasifier isn't hard to set up."

"Yeah, we probably will do most of that at one point or another," said Tom.

Allan noted that there was a large pasture field on the other side of the fence, up the hill from the creek in the northwest corner of Porcupine's hundred acres—the bush only occupied the middle of the farm, on either side of the creek. Figuring that they would soon be crossing the fence, Allan started to climb over it in the middle of the span between two posts.

"Hey Allan," called his Dad, "not in the middle. Always cross a page wire fence next to a post, where it is well supported."

"Sorry Dad. I'm not much of a farm boy. ," said Allan, moving to the nearest post.

As the crow flies the distance to Porcupine was about a mile and a quarter, but when they left Jack's farm, the route grew complicated. After climbing the fence they headed southeast across the pasture field toward the bush. Jack led them straight to a footpath that took them into the bush and to a point where the north slope of the ravine wasn't too steep. The path went down that slope to the bottom of the ravine where a crude timber bridge crossed the creek.

There was a fallen tree just to the east of the bridge, it's trunk level enough to make a decent bench. Tom sat down and patted the tree. "Let's take a break."

Jack and Allan joined him.

By this point Tom had finished giving Jack an abbreviated version of what he'd covered the night before, outlining what The Porcupine Refuge Co-operative was all about and how Tom expected it would operate. "That's the idea of the thing, anyway," said Tom. "It's pretty clear, but the practical details, not so much. Besides being an electrician, I've got a bit of experience with gardening, woodworking, basket making, baking bread and cheese making. I learn well enough from books, but I've found it's a lot easier to have someone on hand who has some actual experience with whatever I'm trying to do."

"I can see that, for sure," said Jack. "And there are a few areas where I may be able to help you on that score. You were talking about firewood? Just take look around here."

He pulled a folding knife out of his pocket, opened it and jabbed the tip of the blade into the tree trunk they were sitting on. "This wood hasn't gone punky yet and I'd guess there is a lot of fallen deadwood here much like it, that would make decent firewood. Enough to last you through next winter, maybe longer. Clean it up and it will be a lot easier to access the rest of the wood in this bush. Looks to me like there's quite a bit of standing deadwood as well. Do you for another year before you have to cut any live trees, maybe."

"That's what I was hoping," said Tom. "We passed some ash trees that look like they haven't quite succumbed to the emerald borer yet. I've seen ash in that state put out a lot of new shoots from the stump after they were cut down. And the shoots get pretty big before the borer starts to bother them."

"Yep, I've seen that happen too," said Jack. "Coppicing, they call it—a great way to get a perpetual supply of firewood."

"Yes indeed. So it looks like with some care we can be well set for firewood," said Tom. "As for lumber... near the creek here I can see cedar, hemlock and willow. Further up the hill, where it's not so wet, we just walked by maple, beech, ash, birch and some cottonwood. All we need is a sawmill. I've seen some portable small scale ones that would do the job. We'll just have to add one to the list of things we need to acquire. So, given that, food would be the next thing to think about, and then textiles."

"Yep. I gather you don't need me to tell you how to grow a garden?" said Jack.

"Well, I'll listen to whatever you have to say, but I have done quite a bit of gardening in my day," said Tom. "I've got a book back at the house where the author, Carol Deppe, talks about what to grow if you want to feed yourself. Five things, she says—potatoes, corn, squash, beans, and a laying flock. All those (except the chickens, of course) can be planted and harvested with hand tools, and a fairly small plot of them will produce a lot of food."

"A good plan for people with limited access to land," said Jack, "but aside from the bush, you've got fifty acres or so and access to powered machinery, so I think you might want to go with a longer list—more variety, and more diversity and resilience in case one thing or another doesn't work out during any one year."

"Yep, I agree," said Tom. "We will have a big garden, with herbs, greens, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and kale, onions, leeks and root crops other than potatoes. I've good a bunch of them started under lights already. And I think we'll treat Carol's list as field crops and add more types of grains, as well. Wheat, oats and barley at a minimum. I take it that would be your area of expertise?"

"Well, I've got some experience," said Jack. "Don't know if I'm really an expert. For instance, I've never grown potatoes on a large scale and I don't have the machinery."

"Well, my dad used to use a single furrow walking plow hitched behind a tractor to make a furrow to plant them in and to cover them once we planted them. In the fall he'd use the plow to turn the ground over to get at the potatoes," said Tom, "So maybe you can be more help than you think. But we'll cope one way or the other. I'd like to plant quite a lot of potatoes, a even if we have to plant and dig them by hand. Just for diversity in our starch crops."

"I haven't done much work with a walking plow," said Jack. "Your dad was from an earlier generation, sounds like."

"He sure was," said Tom. "Now about field crops...."

"You do like to stay on track, don't you?" said Jack with a chuckle.

Allan laughed, "He's got you there Dad!"

"Yeah, well..." said Tom, with a rueful look on his face "I've been told I can be a pain that way. Not a problem, I hope."

"Oh, hell no," said Jack. "A solution, if anything. It's pretty easy to sit around talking all day and not get anywhere. Good to have somebody to keep us out of those rabbit holes, eh? I think I was about to start one about our fathers, but that can wait for another day. So... yeah, corn, wheat, oats and barley are no problem. I've grown all those. I have machinery to plant and harvest them and I know where to get seed. I don't have a huller for the oats and barley, or a grinding mill to make flour."

"But you'd lend us the machinery you do have?" asked Tom.

"Sure—it's just sitting idle now," said Jack.

"That would be a big help," said Tom. "Several of us at Porcupine brought hand cranked flourmills with us. I even have one that's been adapted to be turned by an electric motor. A bigger, heavier duty one might be a good idea, though. I guess we'll have to add that, and a bunch of other stuff to the list."

"I'll bet that's gettin' to be a long list," said Jack with a grin.

"It sure is," said Tom. "Now, I'm guessing the corn you're thinking about would be a hybrid like everybody around here grows?"

"Yes it would," answered Jack, "Not so good if you're wanting to save seed for future years, I will admit."

"Not to worry," said Tom. "We can plant the hybrid corn this year for immediate use. I have a gallon jar of non-hybrid white flour corn seed which we can plant well away from the hybrid corn this year and get enough seed to plant a few acres next year. May do the same thing with some non-hybrid sweet corn and popcorn too."

"Might be a bit of a trick to keep those different types of corn separated enough," said Jack. "It's pollen carries a long way on the wind."

"Yep, we'll have to be careful about that," agreed Tom. "There are a few other crops I am interested in...."

"Yeah?" said Jack.

"Well, there are eight crops that people don't usually think of, that I'm convinced are pretty important" said Tom. "Bamboo, willow, hazel, flax, hemp, sorghum, sugar beets and Russian dandelions"

"Well, I've grown flax and sorghum," said Jack. "and before the depression hit, a few people around here were growing hemp. The new, simpler licensing requirements that came in after pot was legalized made it easier to get started. I could call a few people, probably get you started on hemp too. I presume you want the flax for the fibre as well as the seeds, and the sorghum for the sweet juice as well as the grain. If I were you, I'd probably try canola, too. But I have to admit I know very little about the rest."

"Canola and maybe sunflowers would be a good idea," said Tom. "As for the others, well, bamboo is a useful building material, and in the spring the shoots are a nice treat. Willow coppices really well. If you cut it every year you get thin shoots that are good for basket making. If you cut every three to five years the shoots get big enough to use as firewood. Hazel you grow mainly for the nuts, but it too has shoots that can be used like willow. We'd grow sugar beets for the sugar in them. And you can make rubber from latex in the roots of the dandelions. It's amazing the number of things that rubber is used in, and there's a fungus that destroying the rubber tree plantations in the far east. Plus shipping from that distance is going to get chancy."

"If this goes well, I might learn a thing or two here," said Jack. "So, anyway, I take it you folks ain't vegetarians?"

"No, we certainly are not," said Tom.

"OK. When it comes to stock, I have had some experience with cattle, pigs and sheep on a fairly large scale, and chickens on a small scale—just a few for eggs, you know," said Jack.

"That would do for a start," said Tom. "Some beef cattle—cows and a few steers. And three or four dairy cows so I can get back into cheese making. Preferably Holsteins, young ones who've just had their first calf and are still milking. I'm assuming the artificial insemination people are still in business?"

"So far, yes," answered Jack, "though I think you'd might want to look at having a bull in the long run. I don't think we can rely on any business to survive for long if the depression continues. Sure, some will, but enough won't that you wouldn't want to count on them."

"Yep," said Tom. "We'll want sheep too. My main interest there is milking sheep, since it's the best milk there is for cheese making. I'm not sure if milking sheep are much good for wool or meat—I guess we'd have to research that."

"I know some of the Amish people hereabouts that keep milking sheep," said Jack. "I think they'd be interesting in selling you some."

"Good. I'd like you to have a look at our barn and see if there's room for all this stock," said Tom, "If there is room I'd sure like to have some pigs and chickens too. Definitely laying chickens, but some for meat as well. There are only twenty of us for far, but I'm thinking we'll add another 100 acres later this year, and see about finding another twenty people with some of the skills we are missing. So we'll want to be set up to feed that many people."

"You're looking at 5 acres per person, from the sound of it?" said Jack.

"Yeah—that may sound like a lot, but remember we are planning to be self sufficient in firewood, lumber and fibre at least, as well as food, and feed for the stock," said Tom. "We'll want to have some surplus too, to get us through bad years. With climate change, I think we can expect some of those."

"Seems reasonable," said Jack. "You don't happen to have a butcher among you?"

"Not yet," said Tom. "For now, we'll be trucking anything we want butchered to Bluewater Meats, on the highway just north of Inverpen."

"They do a nice job," said Jack. "Now, excuse me for jumping back, but I guess we'll have to have a closer look at what acreages you want of the various field crops."

"I'll have to draw on your experience there—I have some ideas of how much we need, but not what we can expect for yields," said Tom.

"Good. Seems like we've covered food, fibre and building materials," asked Jack. "Is there anything we've missed?"

"There are other grains we might want to try," said Tom. "but let's leave that for another year. I'll want to talk to the people at Busy Bee Honey in Inverpen about getting a few hives of bees out here for pollination and honey. The other big thing I want to try is setting up an orchard. There's a nursery down near Alma that specializes in fruits, berries and nuts suitable for this climate. They take a few years to get going, so I'd like to get that started ASAP."

"I don't know much about growing fruit," said Jack. "Clearly possible, though—every farm around here used to have a orchard."

"Yep," said Tom. "I guess we'll want to make sure we can get the hides back from the butcher, too. Leather is useful for so many things, it's worth putting the effort into learning how to tan and work it."

"That's ambitious," said Jack. "But it's not like you're talking about doing anything that people haven't been doing for millennia."

Up until this point Allan had only the vaguest idea of how Porcupine was going to feed itself, but it seemed that Jack, with his experience and equipment, was just what they needed. Still, it sounded like a lot of work. "How many of us is it going to take to grow all this stuff and raise all this stock?"

"Sounds overwhelming, does it?" said Jack.

"As I said before, I'm no farmer," said Allan, "but yeah, it sound like a hell of a lot to take on."

"It may seem that way," said Jack, "but it isn't really. The kind of operation your dad's thinking of has often been done by one family, using horses instead of powered machinery, working hard while they are at it, but with lots of downtime too."

"Your grandfather would be an example of that, Allan," said Tom. "He switched from horses to a tractor when I was a little kid. But the farm he had was about the size I am thinking of, and run by one family of five, three of us kids, with occasional help from my uncles. I think the hard part isn't the growing, but the next stage where it all has to be processed into food, clothing and so forth. That will keep us busy."

"Looks that way to me too," said Jack.

"You guys would know, I guess," said Allan, somewhat skeptically.

"Well, I hope we do," said Tom. "I probably am missing a few things, but they'll become obvious as we go along. For now, maybe we should get moving."

They got up, crossed the bridge, and soon came out into the field behind Porcupine's bank barn. From there they continued past the barn and into the parking lot.

Jack looked around the parking lot. "You folks sure have a bunch of vehicles here."

"Yeah, most everybody so far has come with one or two," said Tom. "I guess we need to sort them out and sell the poorer ones or store them somewhere for parts. Since they all belong to the commune now, nobody wants to take the first step, I'd guess."

Just then, Andrea and Terry pulled into the parking lot and jumped out of the pickup truck they'd taken into Inverpen. "Hey Dad," called Andrea, "what's up?"

"This is Jack Collins," answered Allan, "our neighbour to the north. Grandpa and I went to his place to say hello and he's come back with us for supper. Jack, this is my daughter Andrea and the guy with her is Terry Mackenzie."

Andrea and Terry shook hands with Jack. "We're planning to put a sign up over the gate, and we got most of what we need," said Terry. "But anything big enough for tall gate posts was either out of stock, or God awful expensive. I'm wondering if there might be some big straight cedars back in the bush?"

"You know, just now we walked by some trees that might do nicely," said Allan. "I don't think we have a chainsaw yet though."

"No need to worry about that," said Jack. "I've got a chainsaw and a tractor to haul the logs back here. Maybe a bit late to start at it today though. What if I show up tomorrow morning with the tractor and saw?"

Andrea, Terry and Allan all looked to Tom for an answer.

"I know the sign was my idea, but it's your project now. What do you think?" said Tom.

They looked at each other for a moment and then nodded. "Sounds good to us," said Terry "Could you guys give us a hand unloading the truck?"

Soon the materials were all stashed in the second pole barn and Tom said, "Am I right in guessing that we've all missed lunch?

There was general agreement on this and they headed for the house. They were standing in front of the fridge with the door open when the housing crew (Karen, Erika and Cindy) came in.

"Looking for a snack?" asked Karen after the introductions were done.

"We'd like to dignify it by calling it a late lunch," answered Tom. "Not sure what to have though."

"Why not keep it simple," said Karen. "There's bread and peanut butter in the cupboard and jam there in the fridge."

"OK," said Tom. "I've invited Jack here to supper. Hope that's OK."

"Sure," said Karen, "with this many, one more doesn't make much difference.

They set about making themselves sandwiches and a few minutes later joined the housing crew in the dining room. Allan sat down next to Erika.

"You mind if Jack joins us?" Tom asked.

"The more the merrier," said Erika.

"How'd the measuring go?" asked Tom.

"Pretty good," said Erika, "we've got pages of numbers and more questions than we started with."

"That's just a sign that you're doing it right," said Tom.

"Maybe so," said Erika. "We've realized we aren't clear on what level of accommodation we should be providing for people."

"That's a good question, and one we'll need to address as a group," said Tom. "It would be good if you had a few suggestions though."

"Yeah, I think we do," said Erika. "We're also wondering what resources we have to draw on. Just the buildings right here, or if we are eventually going to take over the whole concession and occupy all the buildings?"

At this, Jack cleared his throat and spoke up, "One of those sets of buildings is mine, and I don't plan on leaving until they take me out in a pine box."

"Sorry Jack," said Erika, "we're just brain storming here—didn't mean to step on any toes."

"It's OK," said Jack, "don't mean to be grouchy, just wanted you to know how things are."

"Yeah, we understand," said Tom, "In any case, I think we want to keep everyone living right here, within easy walking distance of each other, with a common kitchen and dining room and so forth."

"OK, that gives us a basis to work from," said Erika. "I guess we'll need to get together after supper and talk this over."

"You should find Angie and let her know about that," said Tom. "Well, guys, maybe we should leave these folks to it and go have a look around the place."

As Allan stood up he caught Erika's eye. She just shrugged and shook her head.

They picked up their sandwiches and drinks, and headed out the back door onto the porch which ran along the north side of the house.

"I think we're going to see if we can get started on that sign. Right Andrea?" said Terry.

"You bet," answered Andrea, and they headed off toward the pole barns

After an awkward moment of silence, Jack spoke up, "Figure you guys got sent to my place to see if I wanted to sell out."

"You're not wrong," said Tom, "but it was clear to me once we got talking that that wasn't the thing to bring up."

"You're right there," said Jack. "Maybe we can come to some sort of mutually beneficial understanding, though. Just give it some time—I don't like to be rushed." After a moment of silence, he went on, "What about you, Allan? You're pretty quiet. Where do you fit in around here?"

"I find I do better with my mouth shut," said Allan, "at least until I get to know you better. Don't take it personally."

"Nope, no problem there," said Jack. "Anyway, you were saying?"

"Well, I'm an industrial electrician by trade," said Allan. "I guess my job is to keep the lights on. We haven't had a lot of outages since we got here, from natural causes or sabotage. But that could start up again anytime. And in the long run we don't want to buy power from the grid even if it is available. So far, we've got three generators and a bunch of jerry cans of gasoline. And the generators are hooked into whatever building they supply with a transfer switch, so it's even legal and safe. Long term, the problem is prime movers to spin those generators."

"And that would involve firewood from what Tom was saying earlier?" asked Jack.

"Yes. The challenge is how to use burning firewood to spin a generator," said Allan. "Like you were saying, the simplest approach would be to build a wood gas generator and use the wood gas to fuel the existing gasoline engines on our generators. Our metal working guys are pretty sharp and they seem to think that would be easy. Beyond that, I guess we could replace those gas engines with steam or Stirling engines. Again, the metal guys are keen to try, but it's all on paper at the moment.

"Where've you got these generators stashed?" asked Jack.

"There's one just around the corner of the house," said Allan. "Let's have a look."

He led them down the steps and to the left around the corner of the house. There was a wood pile there and a small metal storage shed. Allan opened the door of the shed and pointed inside. "Here's the generator that feeds the house. The shed protects the generator from the elements. There's this sound deadening stuff on the inside," he said, pointing, "—heavy foam rubber, basically —and the exhaust is vented to the outside through a muffler to keep the noise down. The sheet metal is all bonded together and solidly grounded, and the connection to the house is protected by MOVs—little lightning arrestors— so it should be fairly well lightning/EMP/solar flare proof. The connection is via an extension cord, so we can move the generator and hook it up anywhere else it's needed."

"Ten kilowatts, eh?" said Jack, after taking a close look at the generator.

"Yeah," replied Allan, "we don't normally need that much—we heat the house and cook with wood—but we're still using an electric water heater, which takes about 4500 watts. When we're off grid, we don't run the water heater continuously, just for a while when we need hot water. Eventually we'll switch over to heating water with wood too. The generator is only about 25% percent efficient, so burning fuel to make electricity and then turning the electricity back into heat is pretty dumb."

"Yeah, I guess so," said Jack. "What about your wood pile? Where did it come from? You said you moved here in February—it's pretty hard to buy firewood at that time of year. And anything you took out of the bush wouldn't be dry."

"That's true," said Allan. "Dad, the Mackenzies and the MacGregors had wood piles and brought them with them. Enough to get us through this winter, looks like. Fortunately, it hasn't been cold."

"Would you eventually try to do without electric power?" asked Jack.

"Eventually is a long time," replied Allan. "And that amounts to never, if I get my way. Yes, eventually our generators will break down, even though we bought top quality ones. And so far we've bought identical ones so we can switch out parts when we need to. Most of the parts we'll be able to repair or build from scratch, except for the solid state stuff which I'd guess will be beyond us. But we'll buy spares of what we can't build, and that will extend the amount of time that we can keep things running. For quite a few decades, I hope. And remember, people were building generators in the late 1800s and early 1900s using technology that is well within our reach."

"The thing is whether we want to make that reach," Tom said. "We've only got so much in the way of materials and energy. Energy both in terms of firewood and of human focus and effort. There may turn out to be other things that are more important."

"Maybe so," said Allan, "but electric power is so damned useful—for a number of pretty basic things. As you yourself were saying just last night, Dad. Some of those things you can do directly with mechanical power from a heat engine, of course. But if you give up on both electricity and heat engines, it's a big step down. And if you've got heat engines, electricity is only a small step further.

"I think the real limitation with be the amount of time it takes to cut and dry firewood and build and maintain the infrastructure to use it. If we set out to use a great deal of energy, we'd end up spending all our time cutting and stacking firewood and none enjoying it benefits. Clearly, there's a sweet spot somewhere in the middle."

"You would certainly hope so," said Jack. "So let's see—steam engines date from the late 1700s so you'd be talking about going back to pre 1800s tech, I'd guess, if you gave up on electricity and heat engines altogether."

"Exactly," said Allan, "where I think we can maintain late 1800s tech at the worst, more likely early 1900s."

"I hope you can," said Jack. "It'll be interesting to watch, anyway."

The conversation paused for a moment, then Tom spoke up."Well, let's have a look around the rest of the place."

It was getting dark by the time they'd done the full circuit and arrived back at the house. "The bank barn is in surprisingly good shape," Jack said, "The steel on the roof is fairly new, so it's just a matter of pointing up the mortar in the foundation wall and replacing a few broken window panes, and it should be good to go. And there's lots of room for all the stock we were talking about.

"All the pole barns need is a good cleaning up if you plan to use them for human occupation. You'll want to get a pressure washer and a few big jugs of soap. Should be easy enough to build in interior walls and ceilings, with lots room for insulation."

"This house is the most amazing part," he went on, "if my memory serves, it was built back in the 1960s, when the McConnell family outgrew the little stone farm house that used to be here. Lots of bedrooms and storage space in the original design. Then in the 80s, they put on that addition and beefed up the insulation on the whole place."

"Like I was saying, the buildings were part of the attraction of the place," said Tom. "I used to take photos for real estate agents and while I've photographed a few farm houses this big, they aren't common. This one is ideal for our purposes—big enough, but simply built rather than some kind of damned mansion."

They went into the house to find supper almost ready and were soon sitting down in the dining room with rest of the Porcupiners. Allan thought that sounded better than "Porkies", but he decided to let someone else broach the subject.

The Porcupiners loved both talk and food—during a meal it was hard to tell which was really their favourite. Even Allan, who preferred eating to talking, enjoyed listening. And he observed that Jack joined right in with lots of intelligent questions and comments.

It didn't seem like long before they had finished desert and cleared the tables, loading the dishes into the one built-in dishwasher that had come with the place, and two portables that a couple of them had brought with them. That done, they adjourned to the addition.

Coming soon, The Porcupine Saga Part 9, When We Met Jack Part 3.


Links to the rest of this series of posts:
The Porcupine Saga

Maintaining the lists of links that I've been putting at the end of these posts in getting cumbersome, so I have decided to just include a link to the Porcupine section of the Site Map, which features links to all the episodes I've published thus far.

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Thursday, 19 September 2019

Responding to Collapse, Part 12: coping with longer power outages

Volunteer butternut squash and gourds
that grew from one of our compost bins this year.


Dealing with power outages, Section 2

This is the second of the four sections I promised in my last post where I talked about the most basic preparations you should make for short power outages.

Today we'll talk about some further preparations that you can make that aren't (for the most part) terribly expensive and which will help see you through longer outages. There are some pieces of camping equipment that can be quite useful when the grid temporarily lets you down, and useful for camping, as well. This still comes under the classification of coping with a failing BAU (Business as Usual), rather than adapting to a failed BAU.

Because camping often takes you out of contact with the power grid there is a range of camping equipment that uses energy sources other than electricity or allows you to generate your own electricity. When camping, or during an outage, you want to use as little electricity as possible, so that the equipment you need to generate it is as small, simple and inexpensive as possible. Electrical appliances that turn electricity into heat are the first thing you want to get rid of in favour of using some sort of fuel directly to produce that heat. Things like furnaces, heaters, stoves, toasters, and so forth.

Two different type of small propane cylinders
and a can of Coleman fuel

The fuels you'll most likely use are either propane gas or white gasoline (also known as naphtha or Coleman fuel). You can easily store enough of these fuels to get you through an outage a few day to a couple of weeks in length. There is quite a bit of discussion on the internet as to which is better, liquid fuel or propane. All the camping equipment I have uses liquid fuel, which costs less, is less bulky, is safer to store, handle and move in a vehicle, and works better in the cold. It is a bit more complex to use. I do have a propane barbeque and a propane torch for soldering and such.

I keep two or three cans of Coleman fuel on hand, and I've read that as long as the can hasn't been opened it stores quite well. I've left fuel in partly empty cans (with the cap closed) for years and then used it with no problems, so I'm not sure how much of an issue stale fuel really is.

The choice between liquid fuel and propane gas is largely a matter of personal preference. If you go with liquid fuel, have a funnel on hand for filling and a spare set of guts for the air pump. And the one thing you must not do is to fill Coleman appliances with liquid fuel indoors. That's asking for a fire. Make sure you go outside to a well ventilated area with no nearby sources of ignition.

There is also a lot of discussion on whether it is safe to use this equipment indoors, much of which is pure bunk. For safety's sake crack a couple of windows to get some ventilation and have a carbon monoxide detector in the area where you'll be using the equipment. I have found when using even a small appliance like a mantle lantern indoor in the winter that it generates enough heat to make up for the loss from windows that are slightly open.

At this point I should address the issue of natural gas. Many of you probably have a natural gas supply connected to your house. You'd think that this supply would be unaffected by electrical outages. Sadly this is unlikely to be true. In the majority of cases, that natural gas supply is pressurized by electrical pumps that won't be working during a power outage. Some large trunk lines are pressurized using pumps powered by natural gas, and I am told they will probably continue to work during a power outage. But their controls are probably electrical, and unless they have battery backup and/or a backup generator, they won't work either. So I wouldn't rely on your natural gas supply to be impervious to power outages. In any case, most of your natural gas appliance have electrical control and ignition, so they won't work during an outage. Unless you have a generator (see more below).

Perhaps some of you have propane appliances supplied from a large tank that the propane company installed next to your house, and which they fill regularly. This is a source of energy that may well carry you through a power outage. As with natural gas appliances, most propane appliance have electrical controls and ignition, so you need a generator, or a way of hooking you camping style propane appliances up to that big tank. There are a couple of other concerns. Most propane companies work on just in time delivery and if your tank is almost empty when an outage happens, your propane supply won't last long. Perhaps you can talk you propane supplier into a different delivery arrangement. And during high use periods like cold snaps the local supply of propane may run out and you won't be getting any deliveries, even if the power is on.

At this stage you probably still don't want to make majors changes to your lifestyle—when the power is out, you'd like to be able to have some electricity, for a variety of uses that aren't easy to power with other energy sources, or to provide control power to appliances that burn natural gas, propane or even fuel oil.

If you just want a small amount of power, there are small battery banks which store enough power to recharge your phone, tablet or even your laptop. The simplest ones can only be recharged from 120V AC, but the more sophisticated ones (know as solar generators) can be recharged from a solar panel, 12V car outlet, or 120VAC, and they sell foldable, portable solar panels which will charge these battery banks. They have power outputs at 120V AC, 12 VDC and powered USB ports for phones and such like.

I don't have one of these devices, so I can't speak from personal experience, but while they do appear to offer a certain degree of convenience, they are quite expensive and they really don't store very much power—a few amp hours at the most. Certainly not enough to run typical refrigerators or freezers, for instance. If you want to go with solar power, you might be better to consider the full fledged solar panel, inverter-charger and battery system that I'll be discussing in my next post.

Generators

Our Generator

The obvious thing here is to get a generator. I finally gave in and bought a generator a couple of years ago, and last fall we installed a wood stove. We have electric heat and it just isn't practical to have a large enough generator to run our electric furnace, so the two decisions went together.

Our generator is a gasoline fueled, 5500W model made by Champion Global Power Equipment that we got on sale at Canadian Tire for less than $1000 Canadian. (Canadian tire is a chain of automotive/hardware/houseware/sports/garden stores here in Canada. If you live outside Canada don't know what you are missing.) If I had deeper pockets I would have gotten a Honda generator—in my experience Honda power equipment starts more easily, is more reliable and lasts longer, but also costs a lot more. So far the Champion has started easily and run well, even in the winter. This was the smallest generator I could find with a 240V output, needed to run our furnace fan and some of my woodworking equipment.

Some may wonder why I didn't get an "inverter-generator", which uses a DC generator and solid state invert to produce AC. They offer better fuel economy if you want to run your generator pretty much continuously and under light loads most of the time. And they usually are set up to run quite quietly for use in campgrounds. But they are more expensive and more complicated. I intend to run my generator only when there is really something for it to do, and I needed to get the most bang for my buck.

Draining stale fuel form generator
into spare jerry can.
On the left, two jerry cans full of gasoline.

Generators do require some on-going effort to keep them in good condition. I start ours once a month and run it for a short while, then shut off the fuel valve and let it run dry so as to stop fuel from leaving deposits in the carburetor. Fresh fuel is also very important. I have three 20 l. (5 gallon) jerry cans, two of which I keep full of fuel. Before running the generator each month, I drain its fuel tank into the third jerry can and empty that can into my car's fuel tank. The other two cans are labelled "odd" and "even" and in odd numbered months I empty the "odd" can into the generator and then fill it with fresh fuel at the gas station. Same for the "even" can in even numbered months.

Like most generators, this one will run about 8 hours at 50% load. My jerry cans hold the same amount of fuel as the generator's fuel tank, so I'm good for 24 hours at half load. Of course, most of the time I'll to be running the generator at less than 50% power and I have no need to run the generator round the clock, especially with the wood stove and Coleman equipment. I expect that during an outage I would run the generator for an hour or so morning and evening to cool down our freezers and fridge, and do anything else that I need power for at those times. So I hope to be good for outages up to a couple of weeks long.

I got a gasoline fueled generator because my car uses gasoline and I can rotate stale fuel into the car rather than throwing it away. And during an outage, if I desperately have to go somewhere and gas stations aren't operating, I have some spare transportation fuel on hand. If you have a diesel vehicle or you live on a farm with diesel equipment and have a big tank of diesel fuel in your equipment shed, you should consider a diesel generator. If you have propane appliances already and a large tank of propane that your supplier fills regularly, you might want to consider a propane fueled generator.

I just googled "does diesel fuel get stale" and apparently it does after a few months, so you'll still need to rotate your diesel fuel. This will be much less of an issue with propane.

There are a few other complications with owning and using a generator that we should discuss.

Some maintenance will be required, such as changing the oil regularly (check the owner's manual for how often) and cleaning or changing the spark plug. And eventually you'll want to take that generator to your local small engine place for a complete overhaul.

Because the gas tank is full of fuel, a generator is a fire hazard and you shouldn't keep it in your house. I keep mine in my backyard tool shed.

When it is running, the exhaust is a problem (carbon monoxide and so forth), so it should be run outdoors or the exhaust vented outdoors, and not upwind of any ventilation intakes.

Because this is a piece of electrical equipment it needs to be kept dry, and this includes keeping it dry when it is running outdoors in the rain. A leanto made with a trap and some 2X4's would do in a pinch. Or you might want to build a very well ventilated shed to both store and run the generator.

Hooking your generator up to the electrical system in your house in a way that is safe and meets the requirements of the electrical code is a job for an electrician. Until that job is done, you can hook up individual loads to the generator with extension cords. Using a cord with two male ends to plug your generator into the house system is dangerous and illegal. The main concern is that if you leave your main breaker or switch closed, you'll be livening up the whole grid and the people who are working on it trying to restore power. It is no exaggeration to say that that deaths can result from this.

My generator is quite noisy and I don't plan on running it through the night. You can get generators that run fairly quietly, but they are more expensive and usually come in smaller sizes, so I chose not to get one. During an outage, that noise is going to attract attention. In the little town where I live, I expect my neighbours to drop by and see if I have power. When outages become more common, I expect we'll develop a tradition of generator parties, and I'd be pleased to host one.

I hear American survivalists and preppers talking about noisy generators attracting unwanted and possibly dangerous company. They'll probably shake their heads and laugh at my idea of a generator party, but things really are different here in Canada. As my American daughter-in-law, who grew up in Camden, New Jersey, and lived in Jacksonville, Florida, before coming here, says, "it's like moving to a different planet."

Single Mantle
Coleman Lantern
Spare mantles on the right.

OK, having covered all that information, now let's run through our list of services with all this in mind.

Lighting

You can get battery operated lanterns that are quite effective, but I would advise getting a Coleman mantle lantern. They generate a bright white light that is barely distinguishable from the electric light we are all used to and give off a fair bit of heat as well. The mantles are fairly fragile when in use, so keep a couple of spare mantles on hand. Kits of repair parts for the air pump on Coleman appliances are available and you should have one.

Water

Additional water storage would be a good idea, enough for a week or two, at minimum of a gallon per person per day. For two people for a week that's 14 gallons. The next step after storing more water is to have a water filter that can make surface water safe to drink. If you live near a lake, pond or stream, this will prove usefull.

Google will give you links to many types of water filters, but if you are looking for a tabletop filter that will turn the most unsavory surface water into something drinkable, Berkey or Doulton are the brands you want.

Filter elements
inside the upper bucket
Our homemade water filter

They are a little pricey, though, and it is possible (I have done it myself) to put together a much less expensive DIY filter using a pair of plastic buckets that is functionally equivalent to the factory made filters, and uses the same filter cartridges. Here are a couple of links to instructions: 1, 2.

It is also a good idea to keep some 5 gallon plastic buckets on hand for carrying water. You'll find they actually come in handy for a great many purposes.

There are a variety of water treatment/filtration systems for use when camping or backpacking. I'm not really up to speed on these, so I'll include this link to a review of Best Backpacking Water Filters & Purifiers of 2019 to start you on your own research if you are interested.

Of course there are filters you can make at home using charcoal and sand, but I'm going to leave those for my next post.

If you have a well and a generator, best call your electrician and see what is going to be involved in powering your water pump from the generator. Many water pumps have a 240V motor, so you'll need a generator with a 240V outlet, a suitable extension cord, and some wiring at the pump to make it safe and easy to hook the generator up to it.

"Jenkins" Style Sawdust Toilet
with bale of wood shavings in front

Sewage

What I said in my last post applies here as well. Keep an emergency bucket toilet on hand, or go for a Jenkins style sawdust toilet . I have one of them tucked away in a secluded corner of my basement woodworking shop. If we were going to use it regularly, some ventilation to the outdoors would be needed.

I can recommend a couple of books on the subject of humanure: The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins, and The Scoop on Poop by Dan Chiras.

Food

I'm going to leave the issue of storing large quantities of food for a post in the near future where I'll discuss the ongoing availability of diesel fuel and its effect on supply chains. But it is a good idea to have enough food on hand to last two weeks at a bare minimum, assuming that many stores won't be open and regular deliveries won't be happening during an outage. The idea here is to store what you eat and eat what you store. Don't get taken in by those people who are selling expensive freeze dried emergency food.

Some of that food may end up getting served at a generator party, so plan accordingly.

Two burner liquid fuel Coleman stove, and large kettle

If you are in the habit of always eating out and don't normally keep much food in the house, you need to break that habit and learn how to cook as part of your collapse preparations. It is likely that most restaurants won't be operating during an outage.

The first long outage will catch a lot of people, both consumers and those working in the supply chain, by surprise. A rude awakening, but one that may lead to better preparation for future such problems.

Cooking

You won't want to subsist for very long on food that doesn't need to be cooked. I would recommend a two burner Coleman stove to use when your electric range isn't working. If you have a propane stove that will work without power you're in luck. Propane barbeques can also be useful when the power is out.

Spare parts for Coleman pumps

I recently acquired some spare parts for the pumps of my Colman lantern and stove. The cup on the right is made of leather and will work at much lower temperatures than the usual rubber cup, which stiffens up in the cold.

A big kettle for heating water for washing is also handy.

Refrigeration

At this level of preparation, refrigeration is a tough issue. My own response was to get a generator and plan to run it for short periods a few times a day to keep our fridge and freezer cold. Freezers will stay cold for a day or two without power (especially if they are full), but refrigerators only stay cold for about 4 hours without power and I expect to keep several bags or plastic bottles of ice in my fridge to extend that time (so I can get a full night's sleep if nothing else). I'm also shopping around for a "fridge thermometer" so I can tell how that's working.

There are refrigerators intended for off grid situations that are better insulated and take less power than typical fridges. And there are propane powered refrigerators of the type used in RVs. Both are pretty expensive, so I'm not seriously suggesting you get one at this point.

It is possible to turn a horizontal chest freezer into a refrigerator that takes very little power and stays cool longer. When you open the door, the cold air doesn't fall out, and they have thicker insulation than a regular fridge, so they stay cold longer and use less power. This would be particularly useful if you are setting up an off grid solar power system and need to keep your power usage to an absolute minimum but still want to have refrigeration.

Here are some links to instructions: 1, 2.

The only criticism I would make of these instructions is that it is pretty dumb to run the capillary tube for the sensor bulb under the door seal—hard on the door seal, and leaky. Instead, you can get the temperature sensing bulb in into the fridge through the drain valve and put some duct seal (industrial strength plasticine) around it for a good seal. The "old school" mechanical temperature controller shown in both those articles is definitely the way to go since it uses no power itself. Sometime ago I read another article where the author had gone to a lot of trouble to build an electronic controller that used less power than the fridge. It still used a bit of power, though—better to stick with the simple mechanical controller.

Awnings on the south side of our house

Cooling

As I said in Part 1, if you've chosen your location carefully, you should be able to get by without air conditioning, and just suffer through the few hottest days in summer. Shade and ventilation will help, and believe it or not, if you stay out of air conditioned spaces for a few days , you will get used to the heat. Try to take it easy though, until you've adapted.

Shade can be provided by trees and/or awnings. Trees take a while to grow, so it's best to look for a place that already has shade from tall deciduous tree, definitely on the south side and if possible on the west side. Or plant quick growing trees like mullberries, and wait patiently.

My house has lots of south facing windows from solar gain in the winter, but that's not a good thing in the summer. And it is in a location without trees and where planting trees isn't really practical. So I made up awnings to shade the windows that were picking up the most heat in the summer. They have to be put up in the spring and taken down in the fall, but it's worth the effort.

Guts of attic vent,
based on salvaged furnace blower
Attic Vent Grill

A well designed house can get quite a bit of cooling from natural ventilation, especially from cool breezes in the evening. It helps to have windows that open. This still just wasn't enough for our house, so I put in an attic fan which draws air in through the windows and pushes it out through the attic vents, cooling both the house and the attic in the process. This works best when it cools down after dark, which it usually does in our area.

Our wood stove

Heating

We have an electric forced air furnace, so when the power is out, we have no heat. We do have a catalytic tent heater that uses liquid Coleman fuel. It works pretty nicely in a tent and does OK in the house in a pinch, but it would be best to do the initial lighting outside and you really have to open some windows for ventilation.

There are space heaters that burn propane or kerosene and apparently are safe to use indoors and don't use electricity, or at least work OK on batteries, and aren't terribly expensive. Something to look into if you really don't want to get a woodstove, or simply can't afford one.

But perhaps it would be best to just get a wood stove. Especially if wood heating is common in your area, and there are people making a business of installing wood stoves and supplying firewood.

We did that last fall, and while it was a major expense (especially the chimney—we have a tall house), wood is still cheaper than electricity, so it will pay itself back over a number of years. Of course, there is a bit of work involved in tending a wood stove, but it seems worth it to me. Though I must admit that I am retired and often looking for something to do in the winter.

Our very tall chimney
Ten cords of firewood ready for this winter

Communications

You should make arrangements for communicating with your family (and other house mates) who may be away at the start of an outage. Cell phone will be working for 2 to 4 hours and landlines for quite a bit longer than that.

It appears that CB radio is no longer a big thing, but amateur (ham) radio is. For those who are so inclined I would suggest taking up ham radio and joining a group who use their two way radios for emergency response co-ordination. Not for everybody, clearly, but a fun hobby for techies who like to talk to strangers.

Transportation

I don't have much more to say here than in the first section. Keep you vehicle's tank at least half full, and in a pinch you can use some of your stock of generator fuel in your car.

Bicycles are useful, even when the power is on. I have to admit that living in a hilly town I lust after a bicycle with electric assist, which could be charged by generator or maybe even by a solar panel if you don't plan to use it too much.

And of course, in a small town, walking is quite practical and something we should all get more accustomed to doing.

In Closing

Quite a bit of what I've advised here is not expensive and can be done even by apartment dwellers or if you are renting a house. Much of it would probably be a good idea even if you aren't preparing for collapse. And it will allow you to get through longer and more frequent power outages with relatively little suffering. But best not to kid yourself that this will give you much in the way of long term independence from BAU. We tackle that sort of preparation in my next post.


Links to the rest of this series of posts, Preparing for (Responding to) Collapse:

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