Members

Reply to: Longer power outages – how will you adjust? Posted 5 days ago

We have diversified our cooking and heating to the point where we can cook and heat with either electricity, 45 kilo bottles of LPG, wood or other solid fuel such as coal. There would be plenty of inconveniences without power but it wouldn’t kill us.

Reply to: Buying extra supplies as a hedge against inflation and be better prepared Posted 5 days ago

Inflation and the cost of living are set to continue to rise until goods simply become unaffordable at which point we may see rapid deflation which could be even worse as it brings currency devaluation and unemployment, basically a depression. Most of the financial pressures are global so it’s quite credible that the effects of a depression could also be global. Going into this uncertain near future with unnecessary excess debt is probably a bad idea. Obviously there are those of us who will be unable to clear their long term debts like car repayments or mortgages but unnecessary expenditure on luxury goods could cause regrets later down the line… …it’s going to be a good time for the repo men.

Reply to: Buying extra supplies as a hedge against inflation and be better prepared Posted 5 days ago

A lot of the stuff like foul tasting MRE’s and tactical doodahs that articles recommend aren’t going to serve much purpose in real life. If we start by buying a bit extra of everything we use and putting it by, making sure we rotate out any perishables that is a good start. Disaster proofing your home with things like first aid kits, fire escapes and good passive security is another positive step. Learning, or re learning a lot of old skills that our grand parents and great grandparents used to survive is also going to require investment. Perhaps buying canning equipment or learning about keeping bees or livestock…these require time to learn and a certain amount of equipment that is readily available now, perhaps more difficult or expensive after the crash when everyone else is looking for the same things.

Reply to: How to make the greenhouse cool in summer? Posted 5 days ago

An older method used in glass greenhouses is to cover the glass during periods of damaging heat and intense sun. This can be done with a plastic mesh or thin lime wash on the outside of the glass that will wash off when it next rains. The lime wash has the added benefit of helping preserve any timber sections of the greenhouse roof and killing mold in any crevices. Our greenhouses have pneumatic/automatic openers in the apex of the roof which combined with opening the doors creates a convection current which will work as well as any electric fan. Poly tunnels are great if you can have opening doors each end so you can also drive a tiller through them.

Reply to: What’s the likelihood that I will be able to live into my 80’s with the increasing number of disasters? Posted 2 weeks ago

Best advice I can give is to look after yourself, eat well but maintain a healthy weight, keep both your mind and body as active as possible. If you live your life being the best man that you possibly can be then you will have nothing to regret, whether you live a long life or a short one it will have been a good life well lived. Obsessing about how long you’ll live is pointless, better to get on with living life. Many preppers get themselves tied up in knots over this, they’re so anxious about the future that they forget to live fully in the now, they fail to engage with the people around them and spiral inwards into more extreme behaviour. It’s one of the reasons that the press like to portray us as crazy and on the fringe of society.

Reply to: What are your softcore preps? Posted 3 weeks ago

Interesting facts about the constituents of some tampons. Largely cotton and wood pulp…but the manufacturing process is another matter and they’re a lot less open about it. https://tampax.com/en-us/about/ingredients/what-tampons-are-made-of/

Reply to: What is a working (i.e., preppable) definition of “civil unrest” or disorder? Posted 3 weeks ago

Another reason to expect unrest and war, in the past fractured nations have been united by a common enemy. For example the UK is still fractured over Brexit but we all despise what Putin is doing in Ukraine. I can see NATO getting dragged further into tactical conflict. Outwardly to satisfy the narrative that Putin’s war is evil, but also to consolidate political stability. I’m sorry if this sounds too political but it is meant to illustrate a more historical view. History tends to repeat itself.

Reply to: What is a working (i.e., preppable) definition of “civil unrest” or disorder? Posted 3 weeks ago

Renata, your comment regarding Ireland was not completely factual. Missing out the entire cause and effect around the time of the Easter uprising gives a very squewed perspective. Bad blood on both sides has caused decades of pain, loss of life, stolen childhoods but at least now they’re mainly fighting with words and not bombs or bullets. Ireland is still healing.I have a very mixed background with family over Wales, Northern Ireland and France (all with opposing and quite extreme religious beliefs) and I know that you can’t throw comments like “the British beat up the Catholics” without stirring extreme emotions on both sides. In actual fact the Black and Tans where mainly Irishmen not English soldiers, more like constables or militia…not that it makes what happened any better but facts matter.

Reply to: What is a working (i.e., preppable) definition of “civil unrest” or disorder? Posted 3 weeks ago

I’m not sure there is a clear cut definition of “civil unrest” that would translate across all international borders. The last major civil unrest in the UK would probably be the London riots of 2011 which started after the shooting of Mark Duggan. Much of the rioting was manufactured and inflamed by virtue signalling on social media. Because of encouragement on social media and the perception that looting would go unpunished the rioting spread to several other cities as people who didn’t give a tinker’s damn about the original reason for the protest took advantage of the situation to steal, vandalise, loot and burn. I live in quite an isolated part of Wales but watched with horror, shame and incredulity at the way otherwise civilised people acted when they thought they were beyond the rule of law. Make no mistake, on TV I saw shop keepers banding together to defend their shops (often with their homes above them) Bigger stores and franchises where looted and burned if left undefended.This proves to me that when the chips are down it is up to you to defend you and yours, if you can organise and defend your community then all the better but don’t count on any outside help from police or national guard until the pressure is off. They will be busy elsewhere defending the interests of big money.

Reply to: Would you like to make your own chicken coop? Posted 3 weeks ago

In the UK we have regular outbreaks of the H5N1 bird flu virus which means we sometimes have to confine our chickens. For this purpose we have built a large permanent chicken run with a full steel profile roof and mesh walls with less then one inch gaps.(to keep wild birds out and prevent the chickens coming into contact with wild bird’s poo) The bottom eighteen inches of the wall are faced with corrugated steel that is set into a hardcore base in order to proof it against foxes and badgers. It is about the size of a triple car port, high enough to walk around without stooping. There is also a separate small area where we can isolate older or more vulnerable birds to prevent them being bullied. As soon as restrictions are lifted we let them out to free range.

Reply to: What three firearms would you have for prepping? Posted 3 weeks ago

CZ 452 ZKM-2E, nice…I have one just like it with night vision and a Parker-Hale suppressor

Reply to: Budget emergency radio – is this a reasonable option? Posted 3 weeks ago

In the UK one of the long standing conventions is that emergency transmissions will be on the long wave band.

Reply to: What three firearms would you have for prepping? Posted 3 weeks ago

You could load your own using a slower burning powder.

Reply to: What three firearms would you have for prepping? Posted 4 weeks ago

I notice there seem to be no fans of combination guns such as the Savage Arms model 24 out there. This is surprising to me considering that it is cheap and readily available in the US. They’re difficult to get in the UK because of the way our licensing laws work but I would have one if I could.

Reply to: What three firearms would you have for prepping? Posted 4 weeks ago

I find subsonic is more accurate because it doesn’t have the turbulence which is caused by a long shot dropping back through the sound barrier. Usually the .22lr subsonic is around 40 grains but you can get even heavier. The standard and hypersonic like CCI stingers tend to be much lighter. Because of the higher initial velocity increasing the effect of the bullets coefficient of drag and its lower mass a hyper velocity round loses the initial muzzle velocity more rapidly than the much slower, heavier subsonic round. Another point is that supersonic rounds are more difficult to keep quiet with a sound moderator. My .22 lr sounds more like an air rifle using sub sonics and a silencer. The sound of the bullet hitting the target is usually louder than the gunshot.

Reply to: Preppers and climate change Posted 4 weeks ago

I’m sorry to say that I don’t believe climate change can be halted or reversed in our current global socio-political situation. I’m not saying this to knock any particular country or political party. The human race just seems to be incapable of the necessary selflessness to change our greedy ways. In the near term we are going to have to learn to adapt to much more volatile weather, extremes of heat and cold, flooding and drought.

Reply to: What three firearms would you have for prepping? Posted 4 weeks ago

If you wish to go one step further you can go for a silenced single barrel variant like a .410 or 20 gauge Mossberg with a hushpower barrel. While I understand where you are coming from I hunt vermin with a sound moderated .22LR every single day. I use subsonic CCI segmented rounds that do require a small degree of skill judging range but are very effective on small game giving me clean kills up to 125 meters off a bipod. A .410 or 20 gauge would struggle to give a clean kill above 30-40 meters

Reply to: What three firearms would you have for prepping? Posted 4 weeks ago

Any and all 5.56 will shoot .223 while not all .223 will shoot 5.56 due to slight differences in case design

Reply to: What three firearms would you have for prepping? Posted 4 weeks ago

.223 bolt action (not Wylde, which I consider to lack accuracy and anyway, military ammunition is unsuited to hunting since expanding tip are much more effective), .308 bolt action and .22LR bolt action or semi which are all that are available here. These are my three favourite calibres. All for hunting. Good telescopic sights and some night vision can help things along.

Reply to: AC Apocalypse. Whatcha gonna do? Posted 1 month ago

Our house is old but was never really designed as a home, where we live is up in the hills where it gets hot in the summer but very cold in the winter. to get around its overheating during the summer we fitted porches along the South facing elevation to shade the windows which reduced passive gain when the sun is high and some velux windows in the attic roofs to increase ventilation. We have also insulated the place as much as we can. Wales doesn’t have the extremes of temperature that you guys describe but with global warming it is likely that we will see more extremes.