I hope you’re spending the holidays with friends and family! Have a fantastic Thanksgiving!
How To Choose The Right Generator
November 19th, 2009 by Rudy No comments »
A reader recently emailed me and asked about choosing a generator. She in particular wanted to understand the differences in fuel types. So I thought instead of just sending her a reply directly I’d post my response here so everyone benefits!
The broad answer is that there are two main things to consider when choosing a generator. What type of fuel does it use and how much power does it generate.
How much power does my generator need to provide?
I touched on this a bit in my emergency power post but I’ll go over it here briefly. The basic thing you need to do is figure out what you want to provide power for in an emergency, do the math on the overall wattage needed, add a buffer, and there’s your number.
Realistically, if you go get a a7-8kW generator you’re going to be just fine for almost all of your needs. But by all means do the math!
Rudy’s Tip: Generators have two power ratings … peak and sustained. You need to buy based on sustained load. Peak load is basically power that the generator can deliver for a short period of time as needed. Generally speaking this happens if you turn on a major appliance, etc. Be a careful shopper!
You can ballpark the burst load for most appliances by simply doubling the wattage of the appliance.
What about fuel?
There are three major types of fuel for generators: Gasoline, Diesel, and Propane.
Gasoline
Gasoline has some advantages. It’s easier to come by than diesel or propane. It’s cheaper than both in many places, though that’s not always the case. Gas powered generators are usually cheaper as well.
On the flip side, gas powered generators operate at a higher RPM speed, which decreases the usable life of the generator. Gasoline is rather volitile and is pretty darn flammable. And it has a pretty limited shelf life. Think six months to a year untreated, though you can get two years if you use an additive.
Diesel
Diesel has some advantages as well! It’s relatively common. For generator use you can get farm diesel which is usually much cheaper. Diesel engines run at a lower RPM speed and last a long time. Diesel is also far less flammable than gasoline and it stores for years, even longer when treated with an additive.
On the down side, diesel generators are more expensive, sometimes significantly so. They can be harder to find as well.
Propane
Propane is often easy to come by since lots of people use it for their grills. The major downside to propane is that it is highly flammable. On the flip side, it stores forever. Price wise, propane generators are about on par with diesel generators, but can be a bit harder to find.
Rudy, what would you do?
It’s a very personal choice and depends on your circumstances. Here are my personal thought processes on it:
I see no reason to NOT have a gasoline generator or two around. They’re inexpensive (you can get a high output generator for a few hundred dollars) and very versatile. Throw one in the back of the truck and you’ve got a great mobile power source.
I like both propane and diesel. For me, we have diesel available already and use it for heavy equipment as well as other vehicles. We don’t intend to use propane for heating our home when we build it. So as a result, diesel is the obvious choice for us.
If we had propane heat, I’d seriously consider buying a propane generator. It’s very viable, and I don’t have anything really bad to say about it!
If you want advice on your specific situation, please feel free to email me at rudy@preparingyourfamily.com and I’ll be happy to give you some one on one advice!
Rudy, Why On Earth Did You Buy So Much Land?
November 16th, 2009 by Rudy No comments »
The previous owners left us a gift...
So if you’re following the story, you know that my family … well, extended family … has ended up with a slew of land. Honestly speaking it’s more land than we need. So what is the point of all of this, and why did we buy as much as we did?
The obvious reasons
Well, for one, it was available at the right price. It was hard to pass it up. As they say, land is the one thing they’re not making any more of. So considering that it was there, picking it up was pretty much a no brainer.
Another thing to keep in mind is that we didn’t buy it all at once. We bought it in more than one step and each purchase had a specific reason. It was fantastic how we got the opportunity to pick up contiguous land in more than one chunk like that.
The real reason
But the real reason why we bought as much as we did was to provide a future blessing to our families. This bears a bit more explanation I think.
While we all aren’t necessarily of the same mind preparedness wise, we all certainly have some commonly held beliefs and goals. One of those is to provide our children with a specific kind of life style that can’t come from a city or a suburban area.
We certainly can’t guarantee how our kids will grow up and what they’ll believe or want for their families but one of the key things we want to allow for is to be able to split off parcels of the land for our kids to have if they so desire. I can speak for all of my family when I say that we would love to have our kids and grand kids decide to follow in our footsteps.
Some people say this sounds like a compound or something, which I guess it technically could be. But more than anything, it is a family coming together and choosing to live near each other. Independent yet together.
Summing it all up
I personally can’t see a better situation for my kids than to be living close enough to walk to their grandparents and their cousins, aunts, and uncles. What could be better than that?
How We Found Our Perfect Place
November 12th, 2009 by Rudy 2 comments »
If you recall, I was writing the other day about how we started looking for land to park our extended family on. We were looking high and low, and as you probably know if you’ve done this before, it’s tough to find just the right spot for just the right price.
We looked in four or five different states, and looked at countless pieces of land. This one was too small, this one was too close to town, this one had no timber, this one was on a hillside. Until my little sister managed to find something that sounded interesting.
Enter the Mafia Loan
There was a gentleman who had moved into the area and bought a huge chunk of land that he intended to split with his brother. This guy bought about 400 acres of land in a timber/pasture mix. The land he purchased was an old homestead that had been lying vacant for years.
Well, unfortunately for him his brother backed out and decided not to move out there. Leaving our poor land holder with a mafia style loan that he needed to get out from under. That’s where we came in!
A hidden diamond
Turkey and Deer are all over ... apparantly so are bears!
We went out and took a look at it. It looked pretty good, though there were a few question marks about it. My dad and I walked the place with a local realtor who happened to also be on the county fish and wildlife board. Turns out that this land is what he called ‘a hidden diamond’ and if we didn’t buy it, he might!
Long story short, we ended up buying a big chunk of the land, and some long time family friends bought another bit of it adjacent to ours. The guy we bought it from offered a final 20 acre plot for sale a few months later. We decided to buy that as well as it secured our access rights.
Now there was no part of land that still had easement rights through our land so we could completely control access as we saw fit. All in all we’ve ended up with just short of 200 acres between all of us.
But what about the criteria?
Water: The place has a seasonal stream, a pond, and well water is available, though deep. We’ve had to dig a couple wells to 200ft in order to get a high flow rate. In the years since we’ve purchased the place, we’ve since found an artesian well that supplies far more water than we all need, and are in the process of developing that and putting a water distribution system into place.
Mixed Timber and Meadow: Most of the land is timber and sparse timber/meadow mix. There is about 40 acres of pasture land that needs significant rehabilitation work. There’s another 30 or so acres of dense timber which is marketable if we want. Most of the rest was thinned out 15-20 years ago but remains good timber land.
Utilities: We’ve brought power and telephone in at surprisingly low cost. And we’re even on the edge of the range for DSL access so we can get high speed internet access. Extra bonus points!
Seclusion: We’re half an hour from the two closest towns and about an hour from the closest major city. We’re off the beaten path and a few miles down a dirt road. Generally speaking we’re pretty much completely out of the way. Our land is surrounded by other large holdings, farms, and ranches, and there’s also state land and timber company land nearby. Overall, we don’t expect development to come our way any time soon.
Sounds great! How are you going to get out there?
Always the hard part, right? At the moment we have a trailer out there that we spend vacation type time in during the summer months. My folks have just finished their place and will be moving out there next year.
Next year my wife and Ihope to begin building a home with the intent of moving out there full time within the next couple of years. I’ll certainly chronicle our adventures here. One of the biggest things that we’re worried about is income. As my career is technical in nature it tends to keep me in the urban areas I despise. I’m working on that too, and if alternate income generation is of interest to folks, let me know and I can post about that a bit too!
Life. It Can Sure Be Challenging
November 23rd, 2009 by Rudy 2 comments »Nobody Ever Expects The Zombie Invasion!
I should apologize in advance for my posting history last week. It was a crazy week with me taking a major training course at work and it just ended up thrashing my days. I honestly didn’t really feel like I had it in me to write.
I shouldn’t blame work exclusively though. Recent events in the world such as the continued dollar weakness, economic faux recovery, debt financed government health care, etc have all led me to feel an intense urge to step up our preparation efforts a notch or two. Am I the only one who feels that way?
It’s been a while since I’ve felt this pessimistic about things and the long term prognosis for society as we know it today. I’m not predicting a societal collapse followed by the inevitable zombie horde invasion, mind you, but I do feel like many of the things I hold near and dear about this country are falling by the wayside.
I try not to go into politics too much here because I recognize that while many of us feel strongly about our political beliefs, those beliefs aren’t necessarily the same and going into them too much will lead to topic drift. This is a preparedness and survival site, and one that is family oriented, so I try to keep it focused!
But the doom and gloom doesn’t just come from the world events, but also things closer to home. While my job seems to be stable, people are dropping like flies around me. I don’t have any sense of job security any more, and that’s saying something since I never really bought into the whole ‘job security as salaried employee’ myth. It’s amazing how much stress that can add.
So I ramp up my preps. And I work on financial independence. And I prepare. I take classes. I learn. My wife and I set goals and we work towards them. Small improvements, every day.
What have you done recently? If you’re not already doing concrete things to do what you can to prepare, why not? What’s holding you back?
Don’t wait too long. You might not have as much time as you think.
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