Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

I suppose I should figure out precisely what my needs are in terms of a generator.

I’m on city water, so a well pump isn’t an issue. Although, it would be nice to help out frieds who did have pumps.

All my major appliances (stove, furnace, hot water heater) run on natural gas. For heating, I have a pair of kerosene heaters and about 60 gallons of kero in storage. For cooking I can cook on top of the kerosene heaters or use any of several camp stoves that run on multifuels. If for somer eason there’s no gas or no water, then hot water comes from heating it up on top of the kerosene heater or camp stoves. Not great for taking a shower, but a basin and a washcloth will probably do in a pinch. Lighting is accomplished through kerosene and propane lamps, supplemented with some minor 12v lighting.

So, really, where is the need for electricity? Well, there’s the fridge and the freezer. Those are pretty much the only things that are mission-critical. It’s sounding like something like the EU2000 or EU3000 would be enough to take care of those and perhaps charge up a small 12v bank for lighting. If thats the case, the more expensive EU generator, with it’s smaller output and greatly reduced fuel requirements might be the way to go. In a crisis, I don’t need to have every room in the house lit up, and since the internet will most likely be down the computers arent a high priority. so I guess really an EU would be the most practical choice.

Someone mentioned in comments that another option would be to play both sides of it. Get the fuel-sipping EU for running the freezer and a few small lights, and have the big generator for heavy-duty uses that might arise. Certainly, that makes a lot of sense to me, the problem is it isn’t a very economical way to go. Of course, sometimes economy is trounced by the need to cover all the bases.

This is one of those things I’m still going to have to weigh and think about. I’m tempted to go the less expensive (up front)  route and get the larger genny first…then start socking away greenbacks until a good used EU turns up on craigslist.

Also, what I really, really need to do is talk to one of the ‘alternative energy’ vendors in town and explain to them I want a simple battery system for running 12v lighting, charging AA and D batts, and running radios. Since that would all be 12v there’d be no need for an inverter and no resultant power loss in the conversion from DC to AC. Man, thats something I really, really need to get busy on.

And, of course, there’s always ballistic things that need purchasing…..

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Well, now…….

That looks six kinds of yummy.

That little baby would be enough to run my house rather handily. Hell, probably the neighbor’s too.Nothing kills like overkill…..Whats the punchline? Not too bad:

See, this is about what I’d figure a Honda EU2000 would set me back. But this is more than three times the power. But, the question of the moment is: would my needs be met with the smaller, more fuel-efficient EU2000 even though the EU2000 is more expensive for (much) less power. Or, put another way, dollar-to-watt ratio says the larger genny is the better bargain…until you factor in the fuel efficiency. If The EU2000 is 2000 watts and this thing is 6800 wattsm and my average load in a crisis is gonna be, say, 1500 watts….then why burn the extra fuel in the larger genny when I can get the same results with less fuel in the smaller one. BUT….while I can run small loads, expensively, on the larger genny I cannot run the larger loads at all on the small one. While the small one may be just fine for keeping the freezer cold, if something comes up and I need more power for something dramatic like helping out a buddies well pump or similar big-draw item…well, then the bigger one will save the day.

Gonna have to think about this one for a while.

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

This post is mostly for my friends in NY who got stuck without any lighting other than their MagLites and a handful of batteries.While some light is better than no light, you can do a lot better, for little money, than brushing your teeth with one hand while holding your flashlight in the bathroom mirror with the other.

The simplest and, done properly, most rugged and safe system would be some LED lights that run off of a 12v battery. I actually have just such a set up in storage. It’s bare-bones simple but it beats the crap outta wearing a  headlamp to make a sandwich.

Here’s a simple rig that I keep around – it’s nothing more than a 12v marine battery (115 aH) and a couple of the Goal0 lights. A battery clip-to-cigarette adapter lets me run the light straight from the charged battery. The light is 3 watts at 12v, so that means it draws .25 amp/hour. Some math shows that 115 divided by .25 is 460….so, in theory, this fully charged battery would run this light for 460 hours. But…I’m a cautious guy…I don’t discharge batteries more than 50% so, really, its 230 hours…or almost ten solid days of light. (or almost a month of 8-hour usage.)

The Goal0 lights are better described in this post. Two very nice features, other than the low draw of power, is that they can be daisy-chained together. Each light has a socket on top that lets another let be plugged into it. Here’s two of them daisy-chained together and plugged in.

Each light has about nine feet of cord so you can stretch string of lights along the length of a house or whatever. Each light also has a hook to allow you to hang it from whatever nearby object is suitable.

The box in the background, by the way, is an old (pre-Y2K) ConSci PPP ‘battery in a box’ that I bought many years ago. It’s basically a couple 6v batteries and a charge controller mounted in a .50 ammo can. It gives me a small amount of electrical power in a waterproof container that can run lights, radios, etc. They apparently don’t make them anymore but you can easily engineer one on your own with a trip to Radio Shack and Home Depot.

Enough space for a small inverter, spare fuses and 12v accessories. But…you can build a better one.

If you’re an instant gratification guy like me, you can just buy one of those battery-jump-booster things you see at CostCo and Home Depot. Theyre pretty much the same thing but with more capacity. Keep it charged up and you’d have at least a couple days worth of lights. Buy a 12v-to-USB car charger and you could also charge your toys off of it.

Goal0, by the way, makes an all-in-one package for this sort of thing. It’s a battery, light, and panel to charge the battery.(Goal Zero Escape Combo Pack) Combo isn’t cheap, but if you have daylight to run the panel youre pretty much assured of no dark nights.

Realistically, though…you can do this on the cheap for emergency use. Get the battery clips, get the lights, and go scavenge some car batteries out of all those flooded cars out there. Or just spend the $50 and buy the marine battery/battery-booster and a charger.

Out the door you’d be looking at about $100 for the light and a battery that when charged would run that one light for, oh, about a month….which probably seems like a smoking bargain at the moment.