Jesse Smith - Member - The Prepared

Reply to: Some things to consider when building fallout shelters Posted October 5, 2022

Adding detailed risk estimates via Samotsvety. This is somewhat narrow imo, but noteworthy that they perceive the relative risk as having recently jumped 5x: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2nDTrDPZJBEerZGrk/samotsvety-nuclear-risk-update-october-2022

Reply to: Some things to consider when building fallout shelters Posted September 23, 2022

A big problem for nuclear defense seems to be high situational and regional variations in appropriate response. There’s a fair bit of ambiguity, but it’s conceivable that US residents would have up to 30 minutes warning from the point of launch to detonation. I think the car shelter might work for someone who 1. has a lot of warning and can dig quickly, possibly with multiple people. or 2. is stranded with their vehicle many miles from the detonation, but facing possible vehicle gridlock. I agree that where viable, fleeing is preferable. For the gridlocked, seeking nearby shelter on foot might be less prudent where one is uncertain of proximity to quality shelter sites, or even where the majority of foundations are slab on grade.

Reply to: Some things to consider when building fallout shelters Posted September 22, 2022

Excellent post! You cover a lot of ground really effectively! My intent is to provide a simple, inexpensive blueprint that most people could complete over the course of 1 or 2 weekends for <$200. Adding a concrete ceiling (vs just massing food/water/sand) & masonry walls to the open sides would add another few days & $300, but seriously increase the level of protection. To me this is worth evaluating for people who are somewhere between 2-100 miles from a likely nuclear target. My personal sense is that we’re currently running ~1%/yr likelihood of nuclear exchange, so for most middle class people this makes such a project considerably more worthwhile than eg. standard medical screenings such as colonoscopies. You may have already found this in your search, but there are a couple of Cresson Kearny vids on youtube. Here’s one on hasty basement fallout protection: https://youtu.be/XLyZAVtObLU I believe Kearny also developed the idea of fallout protection via a vehicle over a hastily dug trench using the following steps: Dig a slit trench in front of your vehicle at minimum of 2′ less than the wheelbase and ideally long enough to lie down in. While digging, ensure that the earth is thrown just beyond the width of the vehicle. Drive the vehicle over the trench. Open the doors to the vehicle and pile the fill so that it’s mounded over the openings to the ground, leaving a small crawl access). Pile several inches of dirt on the floor of the vehicle (yes you will need detailing after). Climb in the trench (ideally w food and water). If possible, backfill the opening to the trench. You can also partly block this with water. Don’t emerge for a minimum of 3 days. The target time on this sort of project is probably 1-2 hours. Given sufficient warning this would make it accessible to people several miles from a detonation.

Some things to consider when building fallout shelters

Scenarios 8

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Posted September 11, 2022

Reply to: Electrical surge protection for older homes Posted February 3, 2022

Not positive, but the home inspection report pic seems to show a handful of bare copper ground wires on the bus bar. If this is the case, you would likely have some mix of grounded circuits, although it does appear that most are not. If you could potentially identify any grounded receptacles you would obviously be able to use these with conventional surge protectors. Gideon’s solutions seem very reasonable. However, my motivation to run grounded wire would be moderately high in this situation. This sort of project lends itself to DIY collaboration. Many electricians really dislike fishing wire, so you could offer to run wire and have an electrician make the connections.

Reply to: Electrical surge protection for older homes Posted February 2, 2022

I’m a control freak, but conditions in houses are frequently misreported. When was the house constructed (zillow is often reasonably accurate)? What does the wiring look like? Is it metal clad? Do you have access to the electric service panel? What is the amperage (usually stamped on main breaker)? Does all the wiring entering the panel look the same or are some of the wires more modern (e.g. white or yellow romex)?

Reply to: Summary Report: Our power went out Posted January 30, 2022

Great thoughts! Some ideas on the technical building side – I’ve never found a bathroom fan that came with a damper I like, but Tamarack makes a decent one that can be installed inline with the a 4″ duct: https://www.amazon.com/Tamarack-Backdraft-Damper-Diameter-TTI-CBD4/dp/B0089XVWT8 For cold climate heat loss, attic air sealing is probably the largest improvement one can make (assuming you don’t have ducts somewhere dumb like an attic or vented crawlspace). See https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/guides-and-manuals/gm-attic-air-sealing-guide/view Attic insulation should be added after the attic is air tight. Depending on where you are, insulating crawlspace and basement walls might be the 3rd item. In general windows don’t contributed much to building infiltration and their replacement tends to be unsuccessful at reducing infiltration (generally bldgs get a little bit more leaky after window replacement). People’s perception of leaky windows is partly a misinterpretation of cold surfaces as infiltration (I argue about this with clients for approximately 1000 hr/week in spite of having retrofit ~2k homes, all of which were tested 2x w a blower door). Don’t replace windows for energy efficiency. However, when you do replace windows for aesthetic or operational reasons, go with an energy efficient window. Sounds self-evident, but the dominant US window manufacturers have been producing garbage for decades. Consider upping to a triple glazed – Kohltech is good as a mid-budget window. For premium consider Intus from Germany.

Reply to: An experiment in growing mushrooms Posted January 30, 2022

This is super cool! Are you familiar with David Dinkenberger and Allfed? They’re working on plans for scaling up food production in a moderate to severe food shortage, especially for a protracted nuclear winter. One of their early plans was to push mushrooms, which don’t require much sunlight and feed on stuff that’s humans can’t eat. Fun to see how it would work in the real world. We could feed all eight billion people through a nuclear winter. David Denkenberger is working to make it practical.

Reply to: Protecting homes from water infiltration Posted September 7, 2021

Ha! Please don’t take that part personally! Creative workarounds are the best!

Reply to: Protecting homes from water infiltration Posted September 7, 2021

I’m sort of ambivalent on leaf guards. Seems like sometimes OK, consistently awful in valleys or other areas that deposit large quantities of water into gutters. Large gutters can be part of the problem too, but make certain to check for some of the specific problems I mention, especially drip edge connection and gutter to downspout transition!

Reply to: Protecting homes from water infiltration Posted September 2, 2021

In general, I’m way less conservative with my own house, so sometimes answers to that question can be misleading. However, in this case my place is pretty normal. PVC to daylight on the front of the house where there’s aggressive sloping away from the house. Rear yard has a problematic downspout that goes to a pop-up in a natural depression on the side yard. I generally avoid using a dry well due to the capacity problem. Street can be OK, depending on proximity of the house to the street (long runs of pipe are susceptible to clogging) and whether or not local authorities will allow you to do so. Environmentally, it’s better to buffer your groundwater across the site as much as you can, although there are many instances where this isn’t viable.

Reply to: Protecting homes from water infiltration Posted September 2, 2021

Robert, Looking for houses can definitely be frustrating! I prefer to connect the downspout to an adapter for 4″ PVC, then use a 90 degree elbow below ground. I generally don’t glue the adapter just in case I need to pop it in the future to snake a clog (rare but not inconceivable) I don’t like any horizontal drainage components above ground if I can avoid it, because stuff tends to get knocked loose or damaged. Pop-ups are fine as long as they’re not excessively restrictive. I’m more apprehensive about dry wells because of the sheer volume of water that an individual downspout might see (>1000 gallons being fairly common over the course of a few hours). The presence of efflorescence can be a useful indicator of moisture, but it gets a bit tricky for new home purchases. In cases where efflorescence is present, someone may have resolved a longstanding moisture issue and just not cleaned the wall. Alternatively, infrequent but severe flooding won’t generally result in efflorescence. However, where present you definitely know that at some point there was a longstanding moisture issue. Also, the correlation between interior location and improperly managed downspouts is probably like .8 or something.

Reply to: Protecting homes from water infiltration Posted September 2, 2021

I figured I’d annoy enough people with the original post without getting into that, but yeah. And just generally inhabiting areas where humans shouldn’t live is an interesting topic.

Reply to: Protecting homes from water infiltration Posted September 2, 2021

That’s fair, and not installing a basement is a good way to prevent basement water infiltration. However, basements tend increase in popularity the further north you go, probably due to code provisions around increased depth below frost line for foundations. Once you’re required to put your footings 4′-6′ below grade (and de facto extend the foundation nearly a foot above grade), the marginal cost of making a full basement is pretty low, so a lot of people are going to choose to have one. I’m somewhat surprised frost-protected shallow foundations haven’t become more popular in cold climates, as they give pretty good access to slab foundations in cold climates at low cost. See https://www.homeinnovation.com/~/media/Files/Reports/Revised-Builders-Guide-to-Frost-Protected-Shallow-Foundations.pdf

Protecting homes from water infiltration

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Posted September 2, 2021

Reply to: Let’s talk Texas – how to prep your home for extreme cold Posted February 19, 2021

Glad to hear that you’ve emerged (largely) unscathed! It definitely makes sense that Texas building practices would be focused on cooling and not heating. Radiant barriers can work really well in hot climates, as can reflective roofs, or even opting for a light shingle color. On the other hand, while roof ventilation can be effective at mitigating moisture problems and cold climate ice damming, it’s not very effective at reducing attic temperatures. In spite of its ubiquity, placing ducts in unconditioned attics is a poor practice, and antithetical to the ideals of preparedness and resilience. The performance penalty for placing ducts in unconditioned attics ranges from 10%-45%. And it’s not just an energy efficiency penalty, these systems require ducts that are larger, and higher capacity heating and cooling equipment. They also have more problems with indoor air quality and relative humidity. A few years ago when I was doing a lot of testing I would often find duct systems that lost >25% of their airflow to leakage. Good times. Within building science there is fair bit of literature evaluating the extent of the penalty, and mitigating its effect. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bed8/1440aab2d4a656df0f4212dfe22c4ca44c6b.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/55876.pdf

Reply to: Let’s talk Texas – how to prep your home for extreme cold Posted February 19, 2021

Thanks so much! Hopefully comes in handy at some point!

Reply to: Let’s talk Texas – how to prep your home for extreme cold Posted February 18, 2021

Frost-free hose bibs ftw!! Since a lot of Texans are evidently going to be reworking their plumbing in the near term, here are some other tips. Consider updating trunk and branch plumbing a pex manifold with home runs. This will allow you to shut off individual runs in an emergency with minimal effort. Individual branches will contain very little water. In homes with circuitous piping or on-demand hot water, consider running an insulated recirculating loop to the manifold. Many on-demand water heaters have controls built in for this (I’m not specifically an advocate of on-demand hot water outside a narrow range of circumstances): https://www.amazon.com/Viega-50243-2-Inch-PureFlow-Manabloc/dp/B008J3TSH6/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=pex+manifold&qid=1613681750&sr=8-3= Gary Klein has written extensively about hot water piping. Mainly with an eye for minimizing wait and reducing energy, but well worth reading. See: https://www.garykleinassociates.com/PDFs/15%20-%20Efficient%20Hot-Water%20Piping-JLC.pdf If you absolutely have to place plumbing in exterior wall, ceiling, or floor cavities place them as close to the warm side of the assembly as possible. Then insulate the cold side behind the pipes using polyisocanurate (foil-faced, yellow, rigid foam). Seal all connections with can foam, then seal the drywall to the foam as you install it. Don’t insulate on the warm side of the pipes!!! Think of it as building a foam bathtub around the cold side of the piping. Consider adding return grilles to the inside of the framed cavity to allow warm air to circulate.

Reply to: Let’s talk Texas – how to prep your home for extreme cold Posted February 18, 2021

Pipe insulation is the friction fire of building performance. If you find yourself stranded in the wilderness underdressed and without a source of ignition, knowing how to make a friction fire is probably useful. But you might want to think about how got you there.

Reply to: Let’s talk Texas – how to prep your home for extreme cold Posted February 18, 2021

According to the code snippet I posted, 6″ below frost line. I’m Canadian by birth, and did most of my carpentry apprenticeship in Victoria. In the US, the IRC is very similar to the provincial codes I remember from BC and ON, although city codes get pretty weird.

Some things to consider when building fallout shelters

Protecting homes from water infiltration

Some things to consider when building fallout shelters

Protecting homes from water infiltration

Let’s talk Texas – how to prep your home for extreme cold

School Ventilation