Tag Archives: maintenance

Four-day weekend

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At work, we get the usual paid holidays, and we accrue about five hours of paid time off (PTO) every month. I famously don’t take any PTO until I have let it max out at 120 hours. I do this because the company, when I leave, have to pay out that 120 hours. So I try to keep it maxed as a ‘parachute’ in case I get fired or something. But, we also get a free ‘personal day’….eight hours of time to use whenever you want. Use it or lose it. So, tomorrow being the last workday of the year, I am taking off.

Tomorrow is the start of a four-day weekend of trying to get caught up on prep stuff. Filling gas cans, rotating gas, run the generator, reconcile the preponomicon, make lists of things to buy in 2024, do some research, etc, etc.

What I am desperately hoping doesn’t happen is….I just sleep through all four days.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Battery check day

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Battery check day. I’ve got my list of items around the bunker that I keep batteries in at all times (things like flashlights, etc.) and today is one of the scheduled days to go inspect them all to make sure nothing is in the process of crapping the bed. Since I’ve instituted this program I have not found any batteries that have self-destructed or were in the process of self-destructing. But….it’s a half hour every few months, so why not check? It’s a heck of a lot cheaper to throw out a couple suspect D-batts than it is to buy a new LED MagLite.

Thus far, the biggest culprit in crapped-the-bed batteries has been Duracell batteries. I have yet to have any issued with lithium batteries, by the way. For absolutely critical gear, and gear that gets exposed to great temperature swings (like being left in a vehicle) the lithiums are the way to go.

Do it today, guys. Spend just a few minutes checking your flashlights and radios to make sure your batteries aren’t destroying your electronic geegaws.
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In admin matters, someone very generously sent me an Amazon gift card the other day and I’d like to take this moment to thank them. If you feel I provide high entertainment value (or even middlin’ entertainment value) please consider tossing a little something my way.

 

Housecleaning

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I often joke than when I die, the garage sale will truly be epic. Might also be historical too since some stuff has been in storage for over 2o years. Since I have some time on my hands these days, I’m cleaning up a few things and laying eyes on things I have not seen in a very, very long time.

Freeze drieds from pre-Y2k, old flashlights, rain ponchos, MRE entrees, etc. There’s quite a bit of stuff. And, surprisingly, some did not hold up as well as I would have expected. Case in point – sometime in the wee hours of the new millennia CostCo had a close out on Baygen windup flashlights. They were, as I recall, $20. I think I bought about six or eight. I pulled one out of the box and kept it handy in the bunker for when the power goes out and I need something to find my other gear with. Out of curiosity, I pulled the others out of their boxes and tried them out. None of them worked. Not a one. Perhaps almost 20 years of inactivity deteriorated the internal capacitors or something. But…not a single one worked. Instead, they’ve been taking up space for the last two decades. Obviously, this was before I had adopted the protocol of ‘function test everything before you put it away for the Deep Sleep’. Lesson learned. Interestingly, the one that I took out of the box and use from time to time still works. So, wither that was the one winner in the bunch or the inactivity of the others proved to be detrimental. Regardless, the lesson is the same: test before rest.

Everything else seems to have held up fine. Ammo still works, flashlights work when you put new batteries in them, etc, etc. But its interesting to see how the technology has changed….krypton bulbs replaced by LED, electronics being smaller and more full-featured, that sort of thing.

Its some of that older, more dated stuff that should probably be upgraded. My older MagLites, for example, should be swapped out for LED. Older MRE entrees swapped out for newer. ALICE gear upgraded to MOLLE, etc.

Also, according to the last inspection dates I noted on the boxes, it’s past time to inspect the #10 cans in storage for damage. I’m 99.9% confident everything is fine, but why take chances? Plus, during the course of things I may find other issues that I hadn’t thought about.

So…off to the basement to deep-deg through layers of time like some sort of prepper archaeologist. It’s like a cross between Indiana Jones and Burt Gummer.

Reminder

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If you’re anything like me (and Crom help you if you are), you could probably benefit from a well-intentioned and well-timed reminder:

  • 1) Go run the generator for an hour
  • 2) Go check the batteries in all the devices to make sure they haven’t crapped out and are slowly destroying your device.

It s a cold, clear day with the late fall sun slanting down giving everything that odd look that says “seasons are changing”. It’s the sort of day where you can feel that something approaches. A lizard-brain response to the upcoming winter, I’m guessing. Or maybe a subconscious response to the current zeitgeist. Regardless, whether its simply winter or Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo, it’s always a good idea to make sure some of the critical gear is ready to go. Standing on your porch, holding a flashlight in your teeth, when its five below zero and you’re sweaty from repeatedly and unsuccessfully whipping that recoil starter cord back and forth is no time to discover that maybe you should have run the generator three weeks ago to make sure it was up to snuff.

The generator, flashlights, radios, GPS, and the like were not cheap. Spend an hour today making sure you didn’t waste money and time.

 

Run day

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Its Generator Run Day. It’s also Snowblower Run Day. Because those are two items that get used infrequently, I try to run them once a month so nothing gums up, goes bad, dried out, goes dead, or otherwise malfunctions.

Interestingly, it’s also Battery Inspection day in a another week. Same reason.

Yeah, it’s kind of a pain the butt to spend an hour checking batteries in a dozen devices and running a couple engines for no practical reason. BUT… what’s the alternative? The alternative is a power outage and me wandering around with dead flashlights, a generator that won’t start, radios that don’t work, and that sort of thing. And while I am the laziest person you will ever meet, I am in no hurry to self-demote myself to Sheeple by failing to inspect my gear periodically.

Not to tell you what to do, but…… those expensive bits of preparedness gear that you bought but never use? Take ’em out, wind ’em up, make sure they run. And do that every other month or so.

I spent about a grand on the EU2000 and its money well spent IF it works when I need it. Otherwise its just taking up space and wasting money. And I am too cheap to let a $1000 generator turn into a $200 you-fix-it garage sale special.

Its not just generators though….radios, flashlights, camp stoves, electric anything, etc, etc. At some point you realize that there are things that just cannot be put away and forgotten about…you have to exercise them, or at least inspect them, once in a while or you amy as well not have them at all because when you need them they ain’t gonna work.

So…take advantage of the nice June weather this weekend and go fire up the generator for a half hour.

Battery inspection day

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‘Tis battery inspection day. Back around the beginning of the year I made a list of all the devices I leave batteries in during the year and decided that every month I would inspect each device to make sure the batteries hadn’t crapped the bed.

So far, so good. :::fingers crossed::: Haven’t come across any that are startingt o go bad.

Yeah, it’s kind of a pain to run around thehouse hunting down a half dozen flashlights and radios to open their battery compartments and check them out, but when a good LED MagLite is twenty bucks all it takes is catching one set of batteries early in the act to pay for itself.

So…if you’re like me and are tired of throwing out Maglites that had batteries go bad and weld themselves to the inside of the tubes…. go check your battery devices today.

Generator day

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Rather nice day out there today. Good day to crack open the Hardigg case where I store the EU2000 and make today into Generator Day.

I’ve had the Eu2000 for about five or so years now and I have been quite pleased with it. There have been a fw short-term outages where I’ve had to run it for a few hours and I’ve been very pleased with it. I have no real need to run the entire house, rather my needs are extremely simple..keep the freezers freezing, and the router routing. Thats pretty much it. Heating is taken care of with the kerosene heaters, lighting is taken care of with the Goal0 lights and some AGM batteries, and everything else is mostly a non-critical system.

Although the EU2000 has been a reliable piece of gear, I will probably at some point get a second one. There’s a lot of piece of mind to not having all my eggs in one basket and the two generators can be daisychained to provide higher output should the need arise.

When I got mine, I think they were on sale for about a grand. They’re a bit more nowdays but still, in my opinion, a very good purchase. If you decide to get one, don’t forget all the ancillary gear that goes with them..air filters, oil, gas can, fuel funnel, heavy-duty extension cords, cable lock, etc, etc.

Plan B heating

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Montana is awesome in the summer and lethal in the winter. So, for my needs, it seems a good idea to have an alternative source (or two) of heating in case something happens that causes the normal heating system to be unavailable.

First and foremost, if youre going to burn anything…propane, wood, kerosene, fiat currency, whatever….for indoor heat you absolutely must have a carbon monoxide detector (or three) in place. And if it goes off, don’t ask questions….walk outside immediately.

I have a fairly decent supply of kerosene sitting here. In the last fifteen years I lucked out into two sales on kerosene that were just too good to pass up.

Kerosene heaters are a mixed bag. For one reason or another (mostly .gov nonsense) the really good kerosene heaters (like the Toyosun) are hard to come across new. Fortunately Craigslist provides a ton of used kerosene heaters at very decent prices. I mean really good prices…like $20-50 for a heater that was $150+ when it was new. So, since one is none, I have a couple heaters. But…I almost never use them. (Thats the problem with living in an area that is basically disaster-free.) As a result wicks dry out, things get dusty, batteries go dead, that sort of thing.

I decided to get around to taking care of some preparedness tasks I’ve been letting go and one of them was making sure the kero heaters were up to snuff. Nope. Both are sitting on “E”. And they’re dirty. So…time to institute a preventative maintenance and readiness program for the stupid things.

I sat down and disassembled things as best I could. I wiped down everything to, tightened all screws, cleaned the glass, applied some kerosene to the exposed wick, filled the tank, and lit the wick. And…it ran fine.

Some people don’t like kerosene because “it stinks”. Yeah it does…when you start it and when you shut it down. When it runs, it usually runs without any smell. I set my heater on my porch, light it, wait five minutes, then bring it inside. When I want to extinguish it, I take it outside, turn it off, and leave it for a half hour so not only is there no smell but it’s also cooled down nicely so i can handle it and put it away.

And speaking of putting away, I really need to make up some sort of ‘dust cover’ for these things. I don’t like leaving them sitting in the basement where they get dusty.

And, I really need to put together an accessory package for these things. A tall .50 can with spare wicks, batteries (for the ignition), barbecue lighter, matches, fuel handling materials, etc. By the by, even though kerosene is extremely safe to handle, I always fuel them a) outdoors b) when theyre cool/cold, and c) there is always a fire extinguisher handy.

I need to go into Evernote and create a category for the kerosene heating supplies. I should probably also set up a scheduled set of reminders to inspect and test the heaters as well. So, yeah, a little bit of work but they payoff when the heat is out should be quite worth it.