Government Prepping

Has anyone seen the Government website about prepping as it suggests everyone keep in bottled water and 3 days of tinned foods along with a first aid kit and torches, really, this is less than pathetic and totally worthless as in any emergency people will panic buy and we will run out of it anyway and it won’t be replenished in 3 days as the looting will have begun. It’s a farce.
I would suggest as a starting point you prepare for 2 weeks as a minimum, and possibly longer such as a month with the capability to extend this and always ensure you do the basics such as having some form of power and if you have a generator ensure you have both the fuel and the generator spares and you service it and run the generator regularly, particularly if it is an electric start, and you rotate or regularly replace the petrol. If it is diesel then simply blocking up all the vents prevents air entering and the moisture in it and in both cases you use a fuel treatment making petrol last for a year to two years and diesel indefinitely.

Beginning prepping is very subjective as you need to prepare based solely upon your needs and not anyone else’s as their needs and requirements may be totally different to yours, maybe you are a retired couple or maybe parents with young children or you may be disabled; but the one thing you can be sure of is that at the first hint of any meltdown you will see the panic buying and things will disappear very rapidly. From the outset you need to remember things which are normally worthless will become very valuable in any meltdown and if you have it and somebody wants it you have the basics of a bartering system; if you are older and your kids have flown the nest, fine, but many parents will have young children and dried baby milk will be extremely valuable to them, as will terylene nappies which can be washed.

Remember your neighbours may be your friends now but if the balloon goes up they won’t be your friends when you have food and they have starving children and these realities are lesson one; in desperate times they will rob you, injure you and possibly kill you without fear or compunction.

To begin I would make a list and remember you will get it wrong so don’t worry about it as you can amend your list and once you have refined it based upon your requirements and learning; we can begin and I would begin with what you actually have and remember many things are multi purpose if you are creative. Always remember it is the little things which are overlooked, ignored and forgotten and generally create the most problems so always have two or more ways of doing something if possible.

Clothing! What have you already got and if you have old clothing, winter clothing and wet weather clothing and a selection of boots such as work or hiking boots and trainers you are nearly there and remember with clothing you need to clean it and potentially mend it so add washing powder and a sewing kit for the clothes and remember polish for leather boots and a bike puncture repair kit for wellingtons as the polish feeds the leather and wellingtons puncture a lot. Good shoes are a must and they have to be able to work on the streets, over rough terrain and everything in between without issues or worrying; how many silly women think vanity comes above practicality and get high heeled boots and think they are fine because they are “boots”, right up until they break an ankle.
I would also add blankets or similar and currently fleeces are popular as they are large, warm, and remember in a meltdown situation your gas and electricity may go off and this means your gas central heating and your electric heat pumps so your homes will be much colder so wrap one around you and you will be warmer. If you knit then stock up on knitting wool as clothing which can be knitted can be worn or used for barter, and remember sleeping bags also. One thing worthy of consideration is insulating your home or at least one room and fitting sealing strips around the doors and potentially covering the windows with plastic sheet or cling film to make double glazed windows.

Lighting! Most people have a torch or a few lying around and if you get a few battery lanterns they are better and they can be sourced cheaply so get a few, even if you can only afford one a month and remember the batteries, I would suggest a variety of torches and include tactical zoom torches and head torches as these leave both hands free if you need to work in the dark or light up a longer range for security. If you have a 12 volt car or leisure battery you can make your own lights and a wiring loom you can run around your home and run it over things hanging from the wall or sellotape the wires to the wall and make a suitably bright light for every room you would use and this would normally include the kitchen and designated living room which should be the one with the log burner/fire if you have one and a smaller light in any passage or stairway. I never suggest lighting upstairs as usually there is only generally the toilet and bedrooms and you don’t need light in these as you have torches.
Camping gear surfaces and this gives us petrol and gas powered lights and while you have to be careful with them they provide a lot of light and also useful heat and remember second hand camping gear is cheap and often handy. Candles are fine but a potential fire risk but glow sticks aren’t a fire risk and last up to 12 hours. If your petrol or gas lights have mantles then get some spares and learn how to change them.

Power! Basically the more power sources you have, the better, and while a solar charger may be out of the reach of many people with their £500 upwards price tag a basic petrol generator may not and if it is only for periodic power outages then only use petrol with a fuel conditioner in it and fill it to ¼ tank which should be enough to start and run most generators for a couple of hours, and keep a petrol can full so you can top your generator up and remember most garages cannot pump fuel in a power outage. Make sure you have a safe way of connecting your generator to your consumer unit and you can switch your consumer unit off so you aren’t back feeding the grid and all your neighbours. Run your generators regularly as this keeps the oil in better condition as the heat disperses various compounds and evaporates any water from the oil, keep spares such as oil, spare pull string, air filter, spark plug and potentially a spare exhaust. Diesel generators cost much more than petrol generators and their trade off is they are much cheaper to run and you have to balance this against the time any power may be off, and how often it is off and if you can afford it go diesel.
If you cannot afford this you can go the basic solar charging route which involves a shed, garage, or other outbuilding and you get a basic solar kit as the kit has the panel and the charge controller and an amount of wiring and instead of wiring it to a battery you make bus bars and put them in a plastic enclosure and solder a long and short wire to each bus bar and have crocodile clips on them. You always ensure your charge controller has a battery connected to it and you can connect a flat battery before disconnecting your charged battery so it always has a battery connected, you can begin with one solar panel and one battery and add a second solar panel and second battery as funds permit. Use at least a 100 watt panel as on a sunny day they provide over 4 amps of charging power and with a second solar panel connected you can expect over 9 amps of charging power.

All solar generators are is a set of solar panels and a charge controller to charge an internal battery and that is it and if you install a couple of solar panels and the charge controller and a battery you have a solar generator, just not in a pretty box with lots of usually useless gimmicks.
Never forget alternatives such as wind or water as a wind turbine may work when solar does not and it certainly works in the dark so maybe worth a look and water power is never to be ignored as most water sources run all year round so could potentially be useful.

If you have batteries I would suggest standardising them and the obvious and most popular are AA cells as rechargeable cells are 1.2 volts and AA dry batteries are 1.5 volts, but in most things you can mix and match meaning you can often replace dry batteries with rechargeable cells. I would suggest a mains charger which has the transformer which you plug in and plug the charger into the cable, usually these come with a 12 volt charging cable which requires a cigarette lighter or USB port and both are available with crocodile clips to attach to your battery, and always go for at least the 4 battery charger, you can also get the solar chargers so one might be handy and two would be better.
If you have power and a little to spare you could put up an outside light and point it so your neighbours get some light, and the security this gives. Turn off and unplug anything you don’t need and this includes everything, even those things plugged in for years you have forgotten about as they all consume power and you are conserving it. Identify those things which are essential and your freezer may be one and another may be lighting and to avoid an accidental overload take any bulbs out of lights you aren’t using so they cannot be accidentally switched on. If you have gas but not electricity you can now power your boiler and have heat as it may be gas but it needs electricity for the control circuits and the pump.

Avoid the common mistakes of everyone charging their mobile devices up and turning the television on as in a major power outage the internet will be off and most likely the TV transmitters will be along with the mobile phone masts, so there is no point charging them, keep one phone charged and then charge a second phone and keep it switched off apart from your main phone, keep Sky or whatever TV company you use, boxes switched off along with sound bars and music centres as they will also likely be off. Get wind up equipment such as a couple of wind up torches and a wind up radio as in the event of a major incident they will broadcast regularly and you need nothing but to wind your radio up unless it has a solar panel as well and it can be stood in the sun also.

First Aid! Once again most people have some form of first aid kit, especially families with children and I would suggest most First Aid kits are aimed at a specific market such as a small business and contains the kit they need to comply with legislation, so I would suggest getting a small First Aid and building your own kit from there, or go straight to building your own kit. Many cheap shops now stock large boxes of plasters and include the shaped plasters and even corn plasters which would be a starting point, they also have rolls of bandages and rolls of sticking plaster and with a small pair of scissors you have begun your kit, if you add various dressings such as the various absorbent pads you can move onto the crèmes, I would suggest a burn crème as you will be playing with fire and a general purpose antiseptic such as Savlon or similar and something such as Sudocrem which has a multitude of uses and an eye wash such as Optrex and don’t forget the eye bath. Get a stock of your prescription medicines followed by over the counter items such as basic pain killers such as aspirin and paracetamol and you should be nearly there, you can add the single sachets of alcohol dressing wipes and a box of latex gloves. You may become very physical and muscle rubs or throat sweets may be worth adding for some individuals and maybe some cough mixture, and for some a face mask may be advisable; in all cases I would suggest at least one member of your group does a first aid course. Remember to check your scratch built first aid kit regularly as lots of items have expiry dates and these may need disposing of if out of date, and replacing with new items. Many people make stickers and list items and their expiry dates and put the stickers on their first aid kits to remind them. Never forget the small, useful items such as tweezers as they remove metal or wood splinters and if you begin working with wood a lot, splinters are inevitable.

Cash! Strange, not really as in a meltdown people will realise that tapping a bit of plastic won’t work and cash will become king when the electricity grid is down and the mobile internet won’t work so the only methods of trade are barter and cash and if any cash machines are working there will be a run on cash, so keep some handy and not in a bank where you cannot withdraw it. In many cases it would be advisable to keep some goods in solely for barter and these are what people need and often forget and what others forget now becomes your advantage and you need whatever advantage you can get. Imagine the scenario, the grid goes down and everyone is at the ATM’s trying to withdraw cash as shops cannot accept card payments and with the power down the internet will be down and the mobile internet these devices rely upon to work.

Knowledge and learning! The time for knowledge, and to learn is now so you have the knowledge and the skills if the grid goes down as once it goes down it is not the time for learning, how many people would split a few pallets and store the boards and blocks? These are seasoned timber and would be instantly available in a grid down situation to fire your log burner or rocket stove or other cooking device. Instead many people would go around any woods locally and all be competing for timber and in winter it would be wet anyway and potentially not light or give you any heat or cooking capabilities and while you may be one of those competing for this wood you have some time on your side to dry out any fallen timber which is seasoned or part seasoned. In you split pallets into their component boards they become stackable and easily flat stored and maximise the space you have and with a basic wood saw and hatchet you can cut the boards into small lengths and split some for kindling if you need to. How many people keep and store newspaper for fire lighting? And how many people realise collecting it and rolling it up and bagging it up can be the difference between a fire or no fire and how many people have a few packets of fire lighters in sealed packs.

How many people realise that collecting the willow whips from willow trees and cutting them into 3-4” (75-100mm) lengths and seasoning them for a couple of weeks before putting them into the sealed bird fat balls tubs they throw away will give them a lot of very useful and useable heat if they throw some on the bottom of a fire as they smoulder for a long time. How many people realise that twigs can also be cut into small pieces and stored in exactly the same way and become wood pellets.
How many people realise they have fire lighting equipment if they take one of their boards and plane it as the large shavings light easily and last long enough to light larger pieces of timber so simply taking offcuts of wood and instead of throwing it away they can lay it down for the wood shavings and save on their fire lighters and things like petroleum jelly and cotton wool to make cotton wool fire ball starters.
How many people make their own logs from old paper and sawdust or wood shavings and you can use cardboard but it takes a little longer to break down and having a stock of these fire logs in means you have to collect less wood immediately or you can collect it and you have longer to season it.
You can find all this information of how to do these things online, but what when the internet crashes because no power keeps coming and you tend to forget a lot of it, watch and learn and write it down then type it up, in large print if your eyes are bad; print it off and laminate it and put it into a folder with different sections which you can read anytime.
Practise and practise again so you learn how to make a fire from scratch or you have made a water filter and know exactly how to use it and boil your water so you filter it and boil all the microbes and other nasties to death, do it before you need to do it for real and when that time comes you do it almost instinctively.

Back to Basics! Now is back to basics time and everything electric is virtually redundant so that your electric tin opener is a nice paperweight and your electric toothbrushes are worthless unless they are dry battery operated, so ensure you get manual everything and with tin opener’s I suggest two of them and a third of a different type so if your normal one fails you have a spare and if they both fail you have another type. Manual toothbrushes are also a must as you don’t want to be wasting batteries on toothbrushes, and go through everything electrical and back it up with manual versions and get two if it is something you rely upon.
Go through all your labour saving devices and weed out the electricals and back them up with manual versions and you will get through.

Cooking! This is very subjective and it relies upon your capabilities and what you already have which you can use or put to good use, remember the original cooking method was the barbecue as they caught their meat and butchered it fresh and cooked it over an open fire and along the way they found they could use green sticks to hold their meat and rotate it, hence the rotisserie, it is nothing new, it is just cooking in a different way. I am not saying you go out and trap all the local cats and dogs and butcher them. Open fire cooking can be the simple barbecue of a wood fire allowed to burn down to embers and a mesh grill thrown over the embers, or you can do an Aussie and make a four legged square out of steel tube and put a mesh grill on top of it as it stands off the ground and you shovel or push the embers under it and cook. If you already have a barbecue you light some small twigs on the barbecue and allow them to burn down to a smoulder and you have your barbecue, but if you take the grill off you can put pans straight into the embers and they cook quicker
You can go the gas or other fuel route as gas is the traditional camping route as bottled gas for camping and caravanning is well established and most caravans and motorhomes have gas bottles, and more recently, gas tanks built in and going back decades it was found that petrol was fine for cooking and a lot hotter than gas, so petrol had its place, as did paraffin and there are plenty of petrol cookers still around as I have one and its maintenance kit and in over 80 years it has had nothing more than a set of seals for the pressure pump, so built to last. Modern advancements of the stove are the lightweight single burner stove which is expensive, but will run on almost any liquid fuel or anything inflammable and if finances permit getting two of these would be a prudent move along with spare fuel bottles and a stock of liquid fuels.
Cooking centres have come into being as standalone camp kitchens which ae usually two or three burners and a grill and more expensive versions also have an oven so if you have a gas bottle or two one of these may be a prudent move if you have room to store it.
Many variations on a theme are the mesh grill over embers as Australians often do, the rocket stove if you can fabricate and have the equipment, or you can get a Dutch oven/Skillet which is a cast iron pot which you put your ingredients in and put the tightly fitting lid on and you can cover it in embers as well as stand it in them.
How many people know about ground ovens? These are simply a hole in the ground in which you line the bottom with rocks and make a fire on those rocks and cover the fire with more rocks and leave to heat and as the fire burns down you put your food on aluminium foil and take the top layer of rocks off the fire and put your food on it, cover the food with the removed rocks and cover with soil and leave for a couple of hours.

Fuels are something we all need and seldom have enough of and they range from gas bottles or containers of propane or butane gas to fuel our stoves if we have them and our butane refills for our cigarette lighters and petrol and flints for petrol lighters such as Zippo or similar and paraffin or scented lamp oil for any lamps we have and even logs for the log burner and split wood for the rocket stove you may have to small wood chips for the barbeque. Fuels take many paths and while you may have oil lamps and gas cookers you need to remember the means to light them.
Alcohol stoves may have gel pellets or similar and a useful fire starting fluid is alcohol for general fire starting and Vodka can also be used and it has an additional benefit of being useful for cleaning wounds and sanitising hands.

Tools! What sort of tools, well gardening tools to begin and don’t forget the secateurs and garden saw as these will cut thin to thickish branches, and if you add a bow saw you can cut the thickest of branches and tree trunks and if you add a machete you can scythe through grass and cut wood, but don’t forget the large and small hatchet. If you split pallets you can add pry bars and a large crow bar and of course a plane and a sharpening kit and practise sharpening your plane blade, you will have a source of nails when you dismantle them and useful timber.
Spades and dustpans are useful so you can dig a ground oven or simply dig a hole and pack the soil around the top so you can make a fire in it and save your rubbish and bag it and then throw your rubbish on the fire to avoid attracting rats. Normal DIY hand tools such as spanners, screwdrivers, pliers and add some mole grips and clamps so you can make or repair things, of course a selection of different hammers and a couple of wood saws and I would suggest “universal” saws as opposed to ripping or first cut saws and the other essential kit such as a selection of nails and screws. I would add to this Stanley knives or similar and invest in a gas powered soldering iron and don’t forget the solder and I would add an electrical test meter or multimeter along with tie wraps and glue as well as various tapes.

Projects??? To begin I would find a little space and strip a few pallets and I would build a small storage locker out of pallet wood and if you have an outhouse or shed then make it this width, go for around 4’ (1.2M) deep (inside measurements) and around the same high and ensure the lid is covered in roofing felt to prevent water ingress and ensure it doesn’t hold water and fit a false floor and fit a lock and it doesn’t need to be an expensive lock. As you split some pallets you can stack this wood in your locker along with any blocks if it has them and you have started your wood collection, if you add a few seasoned logs and fire lighters as you buy them you have the makings of your fuel store and if you cook with fire and have a log burner you will have heat right from the outset and not be mixing it with the majority scrambling for wood. If you get damaged or split boards you can plane them and collect the dry shavings and put them into something like a fat balls bucket for the birds and once full you can stack them; and if you collect willow whips you can cut these into smaller pieces. Split or damaged boards can be cut into kindling for your rocket stove if you have one and if not just used for starting fires. If you run out of wood you merely dismantle your new wooden pallet board store.

Bicycles! Bikes, really; actually yes and if you can get a carrier or bike trailer then get one as during any crisis you won’t get petrol or diesel and the toy battery cars will have no power so cannot be charged and will be shown to be expensive throw away items which will only be any good if they spontaneously combust and give you fire. Your car will be a paperweight unless you use it and several things become useful, you can remove the battery and add this to your stock and it will be nearly charged and ready for use, plus cars hold many useful things if you look. Having a bike means mobility and the ability to cover more area in a given time; you can often carry more things that you would ordinarily and for much further and if you have a water carrier you can cover more sources of water and for timber you can also cover more area and carry more back. Never forget a couple ofspare tyres per bike and a couple of puncture repair kits or more per bike and a couple of bike spanners to remove or repair and adjust things as well as a type pump. Imagine the scenario, the proverbial hits the fan and everyone rushes out to get petrol or diesel for their cars and generators as well as other tools such as chainsaws and one or two garages have prepared and have generators and with so many people wanting fuel for their cars or equipment, the few petrol stations will soon run out and they will all demand cash as their EPOS systems won’t work so they cannot accept card payments. Your bike may look funny or be a woman’s bike, or only carry small amounts when compared to a car but it doesn’t need fuel to run and if they cannot get fuel for their cars they won’t get home so your silly looking, or woman’s bike becomes less funny as you will get home.

Communication is an essential and in many respects the media will be all but closed down and only the Government will dictate what is going on and they will tell you what they want you to know, and if you have your wind up radio you will pick up the Government broadcasts and hear what the Government want you to know, but what about the realities? The realities are you won’t be told anything bad and the Government will let it happen and only radio hams and those with two way radios will communicate freely and honestly and radio hams can transmit around the world and only they will be able to report the honest facts. Those with two way radios will be able to communicate but over short distances and with plenty of users news may be transmitted admittedly in stages, but over several miles and people may be more aware of what is going on; so two way radios maybe an option. To become a radio ham you have to take a test and spend quite a lot on equipment and for some people they may find this beneficial, so consider it.

Cleaning is essential to good health and we begin with good old bars of soap as bars are easily stored and are cheaper than liquid and last a lot longer and take up less space, toilet rolls and kitchen wipes are another and covid taught us the value of toilet roll stocking up and of course we have hand sanitiser as well as toothpaste and washing powder and washing up liquid and washing powder comes as liquid and solids and washing up liquid can come in bulk and you decant it into smaller bottles. Never forget clothes pegs as they hold more than washing and for women they need sanitary products and the baby wipes are useful for a quick clean of intimate areas so get a good mixed stock. Bleach diluted makes an excellent disinfectant and is useful for cleaning work surfaces and for preserving water and don’t forget the cleaning bowl and cloths. One other useful cleaner is the old sand from your water filters as you reuse it and don’t throw it away as you put soap on your hands and dip them into sand and the abrasive sand removes most ingrained dirt on your hands. Never forget items such as baking soda as this is so versatile and if you ass white vinegar you have cleaning weapons so buy white vinegar in bulk and if it comes in a plastic container then break it down into smaller glass bottles as glass doesn’t leak while plastic containers do and a small overnight leak means you lose all your white vinegar.

Whatever you get, stick to quality wherever possible as many cheap items are available and while disposable gas lighters are nice, they are by their very nature, disposable; so simply getting refillable is a forwards step in practicality, but once again they ae usually cheap and leak over time so stick to the better quality BIC or Clipper lighters as these are the best brands which are less likely to leak and more likely to work when you require them. Refillable means they can be refilled and to refill them you need gas which means the tins of pressurised lighter gas and the multitude of tops to fit your lighters. If you go the petrol lighter route then Zippo are really the only brand to go for as they advertise the fact they light first time, and you also need the tins of lighter petrol to refill them and both require packs of flints to ignite them so keep spare flints. In many cases a surplus of lighters would be a benefit and if you get the cheapies then get them for trade or barter as they will be worth a fortune if people cannot get them. Be selfish and think me as most others will be doing the same and putting themselves first, followed by their immediate families and you will be plum last.