Grid Down Mistakes To Avoid

Things to avoid? Many people make the classic mistakes and I will give some in no particular order and the first is VANITY as people buy what they perceive as the best and in many instances you don’t need the best as you need something that does the job and nothing more and in a grid down situation your brand name and image means nothing.
Get decent quality where possible and often you can pare back and for a backpack you just need something to carry your kit which won’t fall apart, have straps break and have pockets for the things you need to carry; what you don’t need is the latest tactical vest with pockets for everything, most of which you don’t need, and will pay way over the odds for.

Buying too much? Many beginners to prepping buy too much of one type of food to the detriment of another type and to the cost of not getting something they actually need and one example would buying 50 cans of beans for one adult and not buying sugar or salt or even flour so you can make some basic flatbread to go with your beans. Many also make the mistake of buying things for a family which they don’t like and will never be eaten so only buy what you like and not something you and your family will never use and it will be thrown away.
Formulate your own stock rotation system similar to shops and put your stocked food into your household food and replace your stocks so they are always rotated and the food is eaten and not thrown away as thrown away is wasted food, wasted time, and wasted money, money which could be better spent elsewhere. Look at multi functional foods such as those with gravy or sauce where you can add tinned potatoes and vegetables and cook them all together in one pan and those which go with a multitude of other foods such as tinned steak in gravy which will go with potatoes and most vegetables and if you make bread, you can mop the grave up with bread.

Do not over buy and by this don’t get too many of one thing to the detriment of something else and one prepper I know has a penchant for torches and has over 300 torches and this is too many as he has no lanterns and the torch is directional and the lanterns are omnidirectional so what does this mean? Basically a torch shines only in the direction it is pointing and would rarely light a room while a lantern is omnidirectional and shines all round and in a room the omnidirectional light is the clear winner, and the next problem is the torch type as many are incandescent bulbs and are not energy efficient whereas LED torches are far more efficient and does he have the right type and quantity of batteries to power them up. Next are the types of batteries they use as only 4 are rechargeable and he has no way of charging them up so once they are flat they are nice looking junk.

Avoid the prepping kits as they are not often cost effective and certainly avoid joining the prepping clubs which sends you a pack of kit each month where you pay a fixed monthly amount as one club has a £30 monthly subscription where they send you a box of kit as most of the kit is useless for you and if one piece of kit is useful and costs £10 you have wasted £20 on kit you don’t want or need and this £20 could be better spent on things you do need.

Avoid ignoring the obvious such as doing a local recon to establish your sources of things and while water is the most obvious you need to know how many potential sources you have and which are the best ones to use as running water is less contaminated and can you actually get to it without disturbing the sediment. If you have a lake or a pond then where is this fed from as often the feed source is much cleaner than the pond water itself so can you get to the feeder and extra water straight from it and not the static water of the pond?

Research is key and if you have several local water sources; do you understand them? You may have an excellent home made water filter which will filter out most contaminants and the ability to boil the water to kill all the microbes, but what if the water comes from a pond on a golf course for example as this would contain pesticides and you need to know how to deal with them.

Never assume you will remember everything and always try everything so you know how they work or how to do something and always make a file and as you get a new piece of kit you run it several times so you know how it works and how to use it; always copy and print off instructions or type them up and put all this information into pouches or laminate them and put them into your folder for future reference. Imagine the scenario, you have lanterns and you haven’t tried them and you haven’t left batteries in to prevent terminal corrosion and the grid goes down and you use your mobile phone torch to find your lighting box only to find you don’t know how to fit the batteries and when you figure it out your phone goes flat and you lose light. You are lucky and find a torch by feel with batteries and it works, so you put batteries into all your lanterns only to find one doesn’t work and is faulty, you bought them over 2 years ago and they came with a 1 year warranty and are well out of warranty and you cannot replace a faulty item now so you lose out.
One classic was a mate who heeded advice and bought up old camping gear cheaply and it included two single burner petrol stoves which are both hot and economical to run and one night he did a shake down test to test the robustness of his plan and kit, and the problem was he couldn’t light either of his cookers so I got a knock on the door. When he got these cookers we reconditioned them as they came with their original cleaning kits and when he tried lighting them the problem was obvious, he wasn’t following the correct procedure to light them and the procedure was to prime the burners first, light the primed ring and turn the cooker on and it was lit. he didn’t realise you turned the knob to the right for 3-5 seconds to prime it and the visual check was to see the ring around the burner was wet, switch off and light the ring as you turned the knob to the left to light it and those couple of seconds of heat was enough to better vaporise the petrol.
He also bought kit with a double mantle petrol light and he now has all the spares and the full typed instructions of how to light his petrol cookers and how to change the mantles in his petrol light and on a test run he found out it gives plenty of heat.

Don’t ignore the obvious and less obvious as you will learn along the way and things you shouldn’t forget are the often ignored cling film, aluminium foil and things such as super glue and other necessities such as tapes and glues as well as screws as you will need to repair things, and I assume you have basic hand tools and skills. Cling film is useful for many things and we have highlighted the double glazing, but you will use much more aluminium foil for cooking in open fires and while super glue has many well known uses a less obvious one is to stich you back together so I will explain; if you have a nasty cut or gash you clean it up and stick it back together as quickly as possible as it promotes healing quicker.
Never cater solely for one emergency as all kinds of emergencies will collapse the grid and if you prepare solely for one type of emergency you are ignoring everything else so prepare generally and not specifically as many things will collapse the electricity grid and this collapses most things, your water systems will go down, your sewage systems will do down, the petrol stations will go down and most payment systems will fail as there is no electricity to run the EPOS systems in most shops and businesses, particularly cash machines. In most instances the basics are the same, water, food, heat, and security and everything else is secondary.

Never forget items to barter or trade are the last thing you collect as everything else is more essential and while you are spending on bartering items you are ignoring more essential items and spending your money where it is not best spent and collecting things to the detriment of other things and while baby milk and nappies may be useful, they are not essential and one other issue is that while people may be desperate, can they pay for these things and how can they pay? Or are you merely making yourself a target.

Never forget a mistake is best made before you need something and every mistake is not a mistake as it is another learning experience you can learn from and as you make mistakes you revise, adapt, and re-evaluate to suit your situation and circumstances and every mistake should have a basic post mortem to fully understand the mistake and how it came about, and how to avoid in the future.

Never forget to run shake down tests periodically as these are so useful on so many levels and a basic situation would be how long your lights last and how long your battery takes to recharge as this means you may or may not need another battery so you have one in use and one charging and will it recharge before the other one runs flat.
How long does your gas last and do you have a double burner gas cooker and if you have a standard 2.7Kg gas bottle how long will it last and should you switch to foods you can cook together on one pan, on one burner; or should you get another gas bottle and spare regulator and pipe. Does your rocket stove work and can you supplement your cooking with this to save gas and use wood instead and do you have plenty of wood on stock and dried ready for use, and what if it is raining? Do you erect a cover above the location of your rocket stove so you can use it in the rain and snow and how much wood does it consume and for how long can you cook on that wood, and can you heat water on it when you have finished cooking to kill microbes in the water.
Where is your most important asset which is water, and how much can you carry? While most people may carry a 20 litre can for reasonable distance, can you carry two containers and how far? Otherwise a container of 20 litres will last a family of four a day, meaning collecting water will be a daily task just to survive, or do you have a bike with a carrier so you can carry two 20 litre containers and make the trip every two days instead.