Stocking up for the fall/winter

[Tradd]

The garden was decent enough this year to freeze a few containers of sauce for pastas and and whole tomatoes for soups. I am in the Rancho Gordo Bean club and get a delivery of heirloom dried beans every few months. I have a few pounds that have accumulated and will be good to cook in the cold months.

I buy firewood for my wood stove fireplace insert every year. I can get something they call "city mix", which is hardwood from city trees trimmed or removed by a tree trimming company. It seems like a decent use of a resource, but I've taken some guesses on energy savings and the wood cost is pretty much a wash for utility savings. It's nice esthetics, though. I only use it on the coldest of days. Radiant heat feels more warming that hot air heat, or so it seems.

A have an Ego electric lawnmower and then last year picked up one of their snowblowers when a surgery prohibited shoveling. So I have three of their large batteries that just happened to be compatible with one of the Ego power stations. They give a few hours of AC power as an emergency power source. I usually loss power a couple or few times in the winter for a few hours or even a day or two and could run a router/modem for a couple of days or the fan on the wood stove for a few hours or some other light short term uses. Not a huge expense and a tempting consideration.

Sounds like you’re doing well!

[sweetana3]

We made sure we had a light, a radio and a charger that run off my husband's Dewalt tool batteries. Thanks for the idea to have a few good books on standby for electrical outages.

[Tradd]

We made sure we had a light, a radio and a charger that run off my husband's Dewalt tool batteries. Thanks for the idea to have a few good books on standby for electrical outages.

I know a lot of people who are doing that with the tool batteries. Makes total sense b

[happystuff]

I never thought of that with the tool batteries - and I have Dewalt! Thanks for the idea. Otherwise, I haven't really started yet. Priced out some ground turkey and it was WAY more than the last time I bought some. But, will probably bite the bullet to get some extra in the pantry.

[jp1]

That’s an interesting idea about the tool batteries. We went with black and decker for ours. I’ll have to see if there is something similar for them.

[Rogar]

That’s an interesting idea about the tool batteries. We went with black and decker for ours. I’ll have to see if there is something similar for them.

I have Black and Decker yard tools and four or five batteries. I looked it up on Amazon and there are some interesting adaptions. They may have their place in an emergency, but I don't think they can run anything that normally runs on AC and may draw a battery down fairly quickly. It would be worth a little more research and I'd be interested in opinions. The Ego power station is $500 but is a powerhouse of options with big battery storages and has an inverter to run AC appliances for light use that could run a refrigerator for a few hours or a coffee maker or router/modem. It might be a bit of overkill for the price. Then again, our weather has been pretty strange lately. Our power outages are due to tree breakage onto power lines after snows and high winds.

My brother had his house adapted for a backup generator. My rough guess is something like four thousand dollars for system modifications plus a basic petrol run generator. I could see that having a place in certain unlikely events like an EMP attack or terrorist damage to the grid. My paranoia has not reached that level...yet.

[Tradd]

This is what I have:

https://www.amazon.com/Jackery-Porta...s%2C113&sr=8-3

I simply wanted something to be able to charge my iPhone and iPad. I also have several backup battery packs (like you would take when traveling) to use, as well.

I remember reading in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy that people would have been better off using their charged laptops to charge their phones rather than to watch movies until the battery died.

I live in an apartment so something like the Jackery makes the most sense for me since it’s not gasoline powered.

[sweetana3]

My husband volunteers all year for Habitat for Humanity. He buys all Dewalt so his batteries are interchangeable with all his tools. (Heck he even has Dewalt branded socks.) So our light, radio and charger are all Dewalt. He even thinks one of his devices could run the fridge if all else failed but I am not willing to test this idea.

At my age, if the power goes out for 2+ days, I am going to somewhere with power and paying for the stay. Apocalypse situations will not be helped too much by batteries. We live in a very urban area so our power is usually not out for very long.

[jp1]

I have Black and Decker yard tools and four or five batteries. I looked it up on Amazon and there are some interesting adaptions. They may have their place in an emergency, but I don't think they can run anything that normally runs on AC and may draw a battery down fairly quickly. It would be worth a little more research and I'd be interested in opinions. The Ego power station is $500 but is a powerhouse of options with big battery storages and has an inverter to run AC appliances for light use that could run a refrigerator for a few hours or a coffee maker or router/modem. It might be a bit of overkill for the price. Then again, our weather has been pretty strange lately. Our power outages are due to tree breakage onto power lines after snows and high winds.

My brother had his house adapted for a backup generator. My rough guess is something like four thousand dollars for system modifications plus a basic petrol run generator. I could see that having a place in certain unlikely events like an EMP attack or terrorist damage to the grid. My paranoia has not reached that level...yet.

I actually built a homemade version of one of the jackery’s. It’s got a 200 amp hour battery (roughly 2.4kwh of 110 a/c power) and a 1500 watt inverter. It’s enough to run the fridge and my office for a day or so. I made it out of concern for rolling blackouts during fire season but have only needed it when our contractor was doing electric work and had to turn the power off for a few hours three or four times. I had originally intended to get a gas generator to keep it charged during an extended outage but am now leaning towards getting a 100w solar panel. I spent about $1200 on all the pieces and a lot of time watching DIY videos about RV electricity and battery solar systems.

The power tool batteries would be for if we need to evacuate somewhere to give us extra battery for phones and iPads and such.

[Alan]

I have a 3500 watt gasoline powered generator for use in our camper should we ever decide to spend time off grid, it runs everything in the camper, including A/C. If I move it into my garage, I can power fridge, freezer, some lighting, modem, router, tv's, etc., for as long as I have access to gasoline.