Tag Archives: DIY

Filtering

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So one of the the issues at the Beta Site is that to pull water from the creek you have to, obviously, drop one end of a suction hose into the creek to allow the pump to pull water in. Creeks are, by their very nature, rather open to the environment and get all sorts crap in them…dust, dirt, small bugs, pine needles, etc, etc. And thats in addition the stuff thats on the bottom of the creek…dirt, silt, degraded organic matter of all sorts, etc. Sucking anything up into your pump that is not water is usually a bad idea. Some stuff you can get away with if its small enough, but you really want to keep the pine needles and dead bugs outta the impellors. Pretty much any plumbing supply store will sell you one of these to help keep crap out of your intake:

But thats still a bit coarse. And I need to keep as much crap out of that water as possible so I don’t gum up the internals on the water heater. So, whats an effective solution I can DIY while standing in the plumbing section of the store? The answer, as it turned out, was this:

Its an inline filter used for irrigation systems. Unscrew the bulbuous part and theres a 75 micron screen in there. As it turns out, Rain Bird also sells screens of other size. Obviously this is not something that makes water potable…its for filtering solids, not Giardia and other biologics. So I hooked this up to one end of my intake hose and tried it out. Worked awesome. When I checked the filter there was plenty of small tiny bits of sediment and gunk that the filter had kept out of my pump and, by extension, out of my water tank. For fun, I also put one on the output hose from my storage tank so that if there is anythign that works its way into the tank, it doesnt get transferred into anything I don’t want it in.

Cost? Shoot, man…the filter and a couple 3/4 adaptors was less than twenty bucks. I decided to buy the next larger size, meant for 1″ pipe, and use a couple 1″-to-3/4″ adaptors to give myself a larger setup so flow wouldnt be restricted if things got muddy.

TPIWWP, so:

Its important to note that the 3/4″ thread on the filter is not the same as the 3/4 thread on your garden hose. You’ll need a 3/4fpt to 3/4fht adaptor (the brass thing in the picture) to get them to work together and you can find that easily in the plumbing section.

Its worked out quite well for me and I keep a couple spares in the box with the transfer pump. The more crap I can keep out of the water storage tank, the less frequently I need to powerwash it’s interior with bleach.

Again, this is not something that turns untreated water into drinkable water. That should be pretty obvious. But it definitely helps when its time to purify and treat water.

Shower

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One of the things that drove me absolutely nuts about The Walking Dead was how these people are running around in the summer, in Georgia, wearing the same clothes day after day, getting covered in sweat, dirt, and entrails…..and no one seems to develop an infection or skin ailment. And the notion that somehow, after the zombie apocalypse, soap would be unavailable seems terribly unlikely. After any disaster, of any size, I would bet folding money that if you went into ten abandoned houses at random, you’d find the remains of a bar of soap in at least half…in the bathtub , by the sink, under the sink, in the basement by the laundry sink, etc., etc.

Ignoring the health benefits of keeping a certain level of hygiene active, there’s a morale component as well. And let’s not even think about what your sleeping bag must be like after several days of sweating and getting dirty without a shower. But more than anything else, taking a freaking bath or shower once in a while, with a bar of soap, goes a long way towards keeping you from having all sorts of Middle Ages-era issues.

I mention this because when I had the hole-digging weekend a few weeks ago, it was dang hot out there and the sweat and grime were freely flowing. Now, I could have, I suppose, stood down there by the creek, lathered up, and scooped up water from the creek to rinse off. But…I’m a First Worlder with a job, a CostCo card, and an aversion to cold water bathing. So...I did this.

Having learned my lesson about not testing gear before the actual need, I set it up yesterday in my yard to see how it all came together. The propane hookup is pretty straightforward – screw it onto your barbecue bomb, open the valve, an you’re off to the races. The water output was even more straightforward – connect the hose with the showerhead on the end using the quick connector. The water input, on the other hand, was a different story.

The heater comes with a variety of fittings to accommodate a variety of inputs. The primary two inputs are either a garden hose, which is assuming a pressurized delivery of water, or the included 12v pump which has a draw hose suitable for jerry cans, buckets, etc. This does, however, mean you’ll need to have access to a 12v battery.

I hooked everything up and while it all worked, the water flow from the included 12v pump was, in my opinion, rather anemic. It would work, but it was akin to a kitchen sink sprayer on ‘medium’ setting. So the solution, in my opinion, was to either develop a pressurized water system or get a better pump.

As usual, when presented with a problem, I gave it some thought for a while and then moved on to other tasks. But I’ve learned that when I do that, theres a part of my brain that, unconsciously, keeps working on the problem even while I’m unaware of it. And, hours, or days later, even though I dont think I was thinking about the problem at all, a ‘eureka’ moment will pop out of nowhere and give me an answer.

I need a more powerful water delivery system, right? What if there was a powered water pumping system that was more powerful than the supplied pump, didn’t require hauling around a heavy battery, and was already within my logistics network? And then it popped into my head…use my Milwaukee transfer pump. It operates off the M18 batteries that I’m already using to power my StarLink, chainsaw, Sawzall, drills, lights, and other goodies. And, best of all, I already had a couple six-foot lengths of hose with garden hose fittings on either end so I pretty much had everything I needed on hand.

Slapped a battery in the transfer pump, hooked one side to the heater, hooked a draw hose to the other side, dropped the hose into a jerry can, and srted the pump. Sure enough, the heater fired up and a much more powerful flow of steaming hot water came out of the shower head. Success!.

I’m rather pleased with myself with this discovery. The streamlined logistics of using the M18 transfer pump is not an inconsequential thing. I already take it up there to fill containers from the creek, and everything I have runs off the M18 batteries, so I’m not bringing anything up there in this regard that I was not already bringing.

And, of course, I get to clean myself up at the end of the day and be daisy fresh for when I crawl into my sleeping bag.

How would you………

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Hypothetical situation: you have a piece of property that is uneven ground and you have a 40′ conex (empty) sitting on it. Your goal is to move it to a different location a couple hundred yards away through the brush, not necessarily a straight line journey. Assume that trees, stumps and the like are not an obstacle but depressions, slopes, uneven terrain, etc. are. You can only use hand -tools including Hi-lifts, pulleys, ropes, jackstands, etc…anything except a Bobcat, forklift, frontloader, or other vehicle.

How would you do it?

I know there are trucks you can mount under either end of a conex to put them on wheels but that is mitigated somewhat by the uneven overgrown terrain. Assume no more than three or four people to work this task.

Suggestions?

ETA: a portable 12v winch is an option in this scenario. Something that can be carried in, along with a couple 12v batts.

Beretta G conversion

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Broadly speaking, when it comes to 9mm handguns, I’m a Glock guy. This doesn’t mean the Glock is my favorite 9mm handgun…it isn’t. My favorite 9mm handgun is the HiPower. But the Glock has he qualities that I look for in terms of a tool for looking out for Number One.
I do have a stable of other guns, though. One of them is the Beretta 92 (or M9, if you prefer.) Because of it’s military ubiquity it seemed a good idea to have a couple. The 92 goes back to the wondernine school of handgun design where you had a heavy double action pull and subsequent rounds were single action. Additionally, you had a manual safety. The manual safety is the part that makes no sense to me…it has a heavy double action pull like a revolver, so why does it need a manual safety?
Beretta addressed this by making the ‘G’ series where the safety is mechanically rendered into a decock-only. Thumbing the safety decocks the gun and the safety then springs back to the ‘fire’ position. In this way you never have to worry about your safety accidentally getting engaged when you don’t want it to.
Fortunately the necessary parts to convert your Beretta to the G version are available for about fifty bucks. The instructions, as provided by Beretta, are awful. YouTube to the rescue.

Sadly, no matter how you slice it, the whole experience is still a springs-flying-across-the-room and need-three-hands experience. But…it’s done.

I can’t recall the last time I encountered anyone carrying a DA/SA pitol that had a manual safety. The heavy DA is the safety. I find them to be useless and will modify a pistol to decock-only if I can.

Anyway…took a half hour but now both my M9s are decocker-only.

Plastic container prep

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A few posts back I mentioned that I had bought a new bunch of Scepter water cans.

Any new plastic container is going to have ‘that plastic smell’. Also, you don’t know where that container has been or what its been exposed to in its time at the warehouse. So, the smart survivalist will clean these things out if for no other reason than to at least get rid of that unappealing strong plastic smell.

Ten bucks up at CostCo gets you about 14# of baking soda. You don’t need 14# of baking soda to wash out a water jug, but more is better, right? I err on the side of overkill, so I fill a gallon pitcher with hot water, dump in about a cup of baking soda, stir well and dump it into the water jug. Seal it up loosely so water can escape a bit and get the threads of the cap. Shake vigorously, shake some more, and then finally shake it vigorously.  I give it about 30 seconds of violent shaking so I can feel the water hitting all the sides of the jug. Don’t be gentle.

Now, if you’re just doing one jug, you can dump out the mix and then rinse the thing out thoroughly with cold water from a hose. But, since I’m doing more than one, I’ll dump the mix into the next jug and repeat the process. I’ll do this for two or three jugs and then use some fresh baking soda/water mix.

Keep in mind, when you dump the water/soda mix out of the jug it will leave traces of baking soda on the inside that will eventually dry to a powdery film. This is why the rinse with clear cold water afterwards.

By this method I either totally eliminate the plastic smell, or reduce it to virtually nothing. And, of course, I’ve now cleaned out the inside of the jug. If you’re a suspenders-and-a-belt guy you may want to disinfect or sterilize the jug afterwards. Thats pretty much the same process but using water/bleach instead of water/baking soda.

And, finally, when it’s time to fill these things you can add all sortsa ‘water preservers’ or bleach to promote storage life. Its my understanding that municipal water (“city water”) is fine to store right out of the tap since it has already been treated by the municipal water provider.

I should also point out that I do this for any large plastic container that I am storing something edible in. My buckets for rice, wheat, etc., also get this treatment. In that case it is imperative that you make sure the bucket is completely bone dry before you fill it with your food product. After cleaning I usually let the bucket/container sit in a dry place indoors for a few days to completely dry out.

Can I get away with not doing any of that and just fill the things up without going through that effort? Absolutely. But this is stuff you’re putting away for a rather dire circumstance. When that dire circumstance occurs (or is occurring) aren’t you going to want every confidence and advantage possible? Of course you will…so spend the ten minutes and do the work. Future you will thank you.

 

MacGyver is my spirit animal

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Well, its been hovering around -15 the last couple days and, despite my best efforts: frozen pipe.

The hot water pipe to my kitchen sink appears to have frozen. Now, this is an old house (ca.1915~) so getting into the walls isnt really a thing unless you wanna have big repair job afterwards. So, what to do?

Well, first thing I did was head to the basement and put the kerosene heater in the area that I believed was right below the frozen area. No joy. Let it run all day and still no water.

Alright, next step was to take a small electric space heater, put it in the space under the sink and close the cabinet doors. Let that run all night. No joy.

At this point I’m rather irritated and somewhat worried. How do you heat a section of wall without setting fire to the house or having to rearrange everything?

As it turns out, there is a small hole in the wall in the cabinet below the sink. The drainpipe for the sink has a small opening  next to it from a plumbing nightmare a few years ago. Could I somehow pipe hot air into that opening and heat the wall from the inside?

I channeled my inner MacGyver……”Talk to me, Goose Mac..”

One hair dryer + one roll of packing tape + one empty cardboard tube from Christmas wrapping paper = intrawall heat injector:

Took one minute to put it together, and five minutes for it to work and get the water flowing again. (And 24 hours to come up with the idea after exhausting other ideas.) Remember, kids: if its stupid and it works, it ain’t stupid.

He was a simp for his gun aversion, but other than that MacGyver had some tolerable  survivalist cred.

 

Sunday outage(s)

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This paid off.

Yesterdays power outage was not an anomaly, it seems. Power was out for about an hour today but over a much broader area of town. I went ahead and ran the generator for that hour, mostly because it was just time to unlimber it and let it get some exercise. However, buying the new UPS’ yesterday for the security cams worked perfectly. Cams, monitor, and DVR stayed up quite a while as I fumbled around getting the generator out of it’s Hardigg case and out into the yard. Very pleased.

Just a few blocks away, a friend of mine is without power and has been for an unusually long time….several hours now. I brought over the desklamp/batterybox combo referenced at the beginning of this post and said to go ahead and not even worry about using up the battery...running it six hours a night it’ll last a freakin’ month.

And, should the power continue to be spotty, I also have this little gem I fabbed up on a whim.

Not sure what’s going on locally in regards to this two days of spotty blackouts…Im guessing its something fairly minor…but it does give me an opportunity to test out gear and theories, and it also points out some holes I need to fill. Most notably, a better base-unit-style police scanner…..with UPS, natch.

Propane, and propane accessories

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Number one propane accessory: road flares.

It’s a staple of movies. Good guys need an explosion so the McGyver a barbecue bomb and a few road flares into…ah, you know what…its just easier to show you:

Here’s the thing. Propane canisters, like you and I, are under tremendous pressure. Poke a hole and they go off like a rocket. Any ignition source has to be already in place and at full heat or the sudden explosive force of the propane releasing will just shove the propane tank away. So you (usually) need an ignition source on the tank itself that will, if the tank rockets away, go with it.Tracer ammo? Maybe in the movies, but practically it doesn’t seem to go that way. But…let’s look at some folks who have tried:

I actually found several videos of people trying to blow stuff up with propane and tracers and the results are almost never what Hollywood would have you believe. It was a little harder finding videos with people using incendiary, though.

If your End Of The World plan for clearing out a Times Square on New Years Eve size crowd of zombies is to chuck a propane tack at ’em and light it up with tracer ammo. Well…it looks like you’re going to be in for a disappointment. But…securing road flares to your propane tank and shooting it? That seems to deliver…kinda:

What’s interesting is that the propane tanks don’t really explode like they do in the movies. There’s a huge fireball, no doubt…things are gonna get crispy..but there’s no real bowl-em-over concusive explosion. Holes aren’t blown in the ground and other than the tank itself there isn’t any explosive shrapnel a-flying.

This isn’t to say that propane, used creatively, can’t be used for purposes other than running your turkey fryer. Rather it means that if you think firing a round of tracer into a propane tank is some sort of poor mans remote claymore…well…you’re in for a disappointment.

This post brought to you by the five-dollar summer fill-up discount at the local RV place…where I saw way too many propane tanks of all sizes to not have these kinda thoughts.

 

ETA: ALthough it was a terrible, terrible movie, the gun fu in Sucker Punch was pretty great. Especially against the WW1 Nazi Zombies.

Fuel can tags

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I looked for it but couldn’t the post I had about the tags I use for fuel cans. So…let’s do that again.

Here’s the thing: I store my fuel cans outside. Usually under some type of cover, but always outside. Since I try to rotate fuel on a fairly regular basis, I need to know when a particular can of fuel was filled. Any written paper tags would disintegrate from moisture, plastic tags would crack and fade from sun and UV, chalk marks are wildly temporary, and that really leaves only one option – metal tags.

Here’s what I do. It works for me, it might work for you. YMMV.

Tools and materials:

  • Pointy thing..nail, screwdriver, etc.
  • Empty pop/beer can
  • Pair of scissors you don’t mind getting dull
  • A few inches of paracord

I cut up a pop can and get myself a piece of aluminum about 1″x2″. Pick a size that works for you.

Put the aluminum flat on a firm but somewhat yielding surface…a piece of wood, a phone book, etc. Using the pointy object, scrive the date into the soft aluminum. Punch a hole in the tag youve just created and loop the paracord through it.

Tie tag onto fuel can.

End of story.

I’m sure someone is going to say “I just write the date on a piece of duct tape with a Sharpie and slap it on the gas can. Works fine because I keep my fuel cans in a garage/shed/bunker/etc.” Well yay for you. Thing is, you don’t know with absolute certainty those cans will always be in that sheltered location until such time as you use them. You may have to hurriedly heave them in the back of your truck at 3am on some rainy night, or leave them sitting in the snow for a few hours as you shuttle them to another location, or you may have to store them outside for some reason. Point is, to my way of thinking it makes sense to plan around the more-worse case scenarios. I keep my gas cans as covered and protected as possible…but the real world has a way of throwing a monkey wrench into plans…so, for me: metal date tags that are impervious to sun,UV, moisture, snow, etc. And, yeah, I could ziptie them to the gas cans but then we’re bag to the UV/sun/freezing damage that occurs to plastics…paracord works for me although a true suspenders-and-a-belt guy will use a twist of wire to affix the tags to the can.

This has been your DIY tip for the week.