Cooking without electricity.

[bigpaul]

I cooked without electricity all the years I was off grid (I was off grid everything not just electric) so it dosent concern me that much.

 

[Arcticdude]

We don't cook with electric now, and we're not on the electric grid either. If the country all lost power it wouldn't affect us much where we live. My only concern is if propane was no longer available, after a year or two, we wouldn't be able to pump water.

 

[bigpaul]

how about a ram pump?

 

[DrHenley]

Arctic, how deep is your well? Bored or drilled?

 

[Arcticdude]

Arctic, how deep is your well? Bored or drilled?

Our well is drilled and is 650 feet deep with 26 gpm. The pump is a varible speed 5 hp and is setting at 625 feet. The well is 1/4 mile from the house, plus I've got almost a half mile of buried water lines. I looked in to installing solar to run the well pump but the cost was prohibitive. Plus I'd still need a backup generator to make up for all the cloudy weather we have in the winter. I also looked in to increasing our current solar system to run the well pump. Just running a quarter mile of heavy guage wire to the pump was also cost prohibitive.
Water is a major concern of mine when/if there's a major SHTF event.
I'm considering putting in a well closer to the house, hoping that it's not as deep as our current well. This summer I'm going hire someone with a GP radar to get an idea where the water level could be.

 

[EastenerWesterner]

@Arcticdude Have you considered a storage tank for a buffer? I know how long the tank will last me.
My system is 800ft well 1 1/2 h deep well pump to a 5k tank. I get 20+ GPM. Then a booster pump for house water pressure.
Even with no electricity I can get water from the hose bibs via gravity from the tank.
My deep well pump is not powered off my transfer switch, but my pressure pump is . I have an extra cord and Genset if I need it to directly hook up to the pump controls.

 

[Arcticdude]

@Arcticdude Have you considered a storage tank for a buffer? I know how long the tank will last me.
My system is 800ft well 1 1/2 h deep well pump to a 5k tank. I get 20+ GPM. Then a booster pump for house water pressure.
Even with no electricity I can get water from the hose bibs via gravity from the tank.
My deep well pump is not powered off my transfer switch, but my pressure pump is . I have an extra cord and Genset if I need it to directly hook up to the pump controls.

I have given some thought to burying a 1500 gallon tank on the hill above the house. I pretty much ruled it out because it would only be a short term solution. The only way to fill the tank would be from the well, and if propane were no longer available, due to SHTF, I'd have no way to fill it.

 

[DrHenley]

Our well is drilled and is 650 feet deep with 26 gpm.

Yep, that would be a problem. You need a lot of juice to pump that high. If it were only a couple hundred feet there are a lot more solutions.
I think EW is on the right track, only I'd probably go for an elevated tank instead of a pressurized tank and a solar pump. When the sun shines it pumps you don't even need batteries. People used windmills to do that for centuries. Keeping it from freezing is the only problem I see.

 

[EastenerWesterner]

Just as an example-
After a neighbor almost burned the neighborhood down with a lawnmower fire (choppers dropping retardant), he installed a 10-20k galvanized tank (so a liner).
My 5 k black/green plastic tank can go 2 weeks even with my 25 gallon a day ponies.
My suggestion of a tank was to build a buffer, to get a propane delivery or figure out an alternative.
My worst case scenario as I understand your situation is to put as much as you can carry on the tractor FEL into an IBC tank and bring it up from the pond
Nothing is ideal in SHTF, but if you can stall it off……..

 

[Arcticdude]

In the summer time water is not a problem. The cattle and horses drink out of the pond or seasonal streams. Winter is where the real issue is. The pond probably has about 2 feet of ice on it right now and it wont be ice free until almost May.
I break the ice in our 325 gallon stock water tanks twice a day. The ice is usually 6 - 12 inches thick. The cows have learned to drink while I'm breaking the ice.
When I was building the house I considered putting a tank in the crawl space, which is 5 feet high, to keep it from freezing. We get almost zero rain during the summer, so capturing rain water isn't an option. The only way to fill it would be from the well. Not a problem until the propane supply is cut off.

 

[EastenerWesterner]

Different way of thinking and doing things. I can respect that
All my ways might not work for you
trying to figure out ways for the new place thats half way in between. So yes picking your brain.

 

[GaRp58]

Wow, I thought having a well is great, till I hear all your problems out there. My well is only 65 feet, making it possible to hand pump all year long. I wrapped the external PVC piping with insulation and plug the mouth with a rubber plug to keep it from dropping down about two meters / 6 feet. But it stays open all year and the hand pump never has any problems. The electric pump only needs about 2000 watts, my solar does that with the batteries and the inverter easily. Both generators do that easily. A ram-pump will do that too. Also, I have a gravity pump possibility which needs no energy, electric or fuel and a small wind mill would also work here. A 1000 liter/250 gallon tank above ground kept full lasts about a week on the garden and chickens too.

 

[bigpaul]

water isnt really a concern here as we live in a mild climate with high rainfall, my water barrels are full up most of the year.

 

[mogie 366]

That's a good point BP. We have a capacity of around 1,200 gallons of propane here. Currently we have all the tanks filled twice a year. After SHTF we could stretch the propane out for at least 2 years, if propane was no longer available. After that we'd be in trouble. Not so much for cooking, but for pumping water and keeping the pump house warm. I've been considering swapping out the 500 gallon tank at the pump house for a 1,000 gallon tank.

If you can afford to buy / fill , then keep both tanks , that almost doubles your capacity

 

[GeorgiaPeachie]

Although you don’t get rain in the summer. Can you setup something to catch the snow melt every year and store it for a year’s usage?

 

[GeorgiaPeachie]

My son has a couple of concrete cisterns on his farm that work flawlessly to catch the snow melt. You could look at one of those Arctic.

 

[Arcticdude]

My son has a couple of concrete cisterns on his farm that work flawlessly to catch the snow melt. You could look at one of those Arctic.

That's not a bad idea. It's just that I built the house near the top of a small valley with low ridges on 3 sides. There's very little run off in this area.
Below the house there a lot of run off and a lot of wet weather springs. The challenge would be to pump the water from these seasonal creeks and springs up to a tank above the house. That could be where a ram pump might work. I'll have to look in to it.
I'm looking at buying a backhoe or excavator and start putting in small dams to hold back some of this run off. There's about 4 or 5 creeks in our area that get their start on our property.

 

[krissttovvv]

Could any of the more experienced and seasoned preppers here recommend a safe way to cook indoors for me, please? I do not have a chimney or a way to cut a vent hole to the outside. I can open windows but I do worry about fumes and dangerous gasses building up potentially. I do not have an open fire or a way to purchase one. Sorry to limit your replies here, folks.

I can cook outside and have all the materials to make a rocket stove and I have wood and other fuels to use. My biggest fear today is that the supermarkets run out of food or there is no resupply to the supermarkets or that the food gets too expensive for many people to buy - that last thing I need is to be trying to cook a meal outside and hungry neighbours get a smell of it and try overrun me to steal it.

I have a very limited budget. I do have a few tins of food (fruit, meat and fish and beans) that can be eaten cold if need be. I have some self-heating foods that can be made hot by adding hot water but they are quite expensive and I cannot afford to buy very many of them. I also have a few long-term storage 'biscuits' types of food that could be eaten cold and have made ship biscuit that I can soak in hot water with soup powder to keep the 'food smell' to a minimum (I do worry about breaking my teeth a little lol ).
I live in the UK and am not sure that solar stoves could work in the winter months but will be grateful for any advice on this. Also I cannot afford a generator or solar powered set up to provide me with a powered source.

I know ... this is dreadful, right? I cannot afford to go buy a home elsewhere and I am kinda stuck. Have any of you wonderful people got any suggestions for me, please? I would be very grateful for any of your ideas here. Thank you very much.

WELL--- you basically NaySayed every option except one--ELECTRICITY- You mentioned windows so I assume you are in a house-- and unless you are a squatter-- I assume you have electricity? - Buy A SMALL induction cooker- countertop unit. I use one all the time. NO TOXIC EXHAUST or smoke. Very cheap to run as well.