Severe trouble ahead, community suggestions to get through

Rockdoc Franz wrote:

HEARTLESS wrote: AV, you are so right with the transition towns comments. I think many folks up here are gun owners, but never speak of it. Regarding sustainable agriculture up here, I think it is greenhouses not gardens due to short growing seasons. I personally have greenhouse envy as we haven't made one yet, but plan to.

I was up all night designing our passive solar greenhouse. I'm looking at a 13x32 foot footprint with the north side buried into the hillside. We also came across the idea of using plastic gallon milk cartons painted black, filled with water and stacked on shelves along the north wall for stabilizing night time temperatures in winter. Something that seems counter intuitive is that larger greenhouses tend to be more stable temperature wise than smaller greenhouses. I understand there are permit issues with Jefferson County, but when times get really tough the number one thing to bear in mind is surviving first and somewhere down a long ways in numerical order is where permits come in.

I just finished reading a book called The Four Season Harvest.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... asonfar-20

The author does a great job of explaining how some very low tech solutions (like ordinary cold frames and inexpensive, plastic covered greenhouse without heat or even provisions for thermal mass/passive solar can grow crops 12 months out of the year. In Maine.

I am going to try this on a limited scale this summer in our unheated hoophouse greenhouse, and if it seems promising, plan to go full-scale next year. I'd offer to lend you the book, but I am going to be constantly referring to it in the next few months, I think.

And yes, you are right about larger greenhouses being more temperature stable.

Here is a link to the local large scale greenhouse experts. http://www.sunshinedome.com/

Once again backwoodshome has archives of greenhouses, and survival houses/rooms for storage and growing.
and if pc has a restricted size they don't enforce it a nieghbor has built a 50' long one.

Is anyone up here interested in a buying group that goes beyond what Costco, Sams, etc. sell?

HEARTLESS wrote: Is anyone up here interested in a buying group that goes beyond what Costco, Sams, etc. sell?

Yes.

Walton Feed, for example has great prices on bulk items and huge selection but the shipping is prohibitive unless you place a very large order. Emergency Essentials has good deals on group purchases of 12 or more every month on various food and other emergency goods.

I've used Emergency Essentials but haven't tried Walton Feed. Walton looks good for the bulk raw products. Maybe a large order would be a good way to save on shipping. My wife and I will go through the pantry to see what makes sense.

Someone, anyone, please call the FBI (Federal Bureaucratic Imbeciles) a 12 boy scout survived a night alone in Utah due to survival skills. Clearly a future terrorist.

How about commitees that have beer?

Rockdoc Franz wrote: It is a new build and solar was on the plans, but the contractor went out of business and stiffed us for 8 grand. The radiant floor heating is water not electric. Never would I consider electric heating. Had that in an old house and can be summed up as in one word... expensive. Frankly, I simply want to make use of solar energy. It is free beyond the initial investment and good for a long time. Of course, the issue with photoelectric cells is battery storage and maintenance.

We use a small propane heater. Ok. Got to go, my flight is boarding. Yes!

My solution would be a small steam generator to generate the electricity you might need for the circulation pumps. You won't need the heat circulated during the summer, the winter sun is less in intensity and duration, and you've already covered the storage part of the equation. A wood fired boiler and a small steam generator, on the other hand, works as long as the fire is kept burning and you have water to heat.

You might also consider building a gasification system of some sort to get the fuel necessary to run a generator or an old automobile engine with a couple/three alternators. Being able to run the well pump for even a short period of time can be used to fill or top off water storage, even if the storage is your bathtub. Don't overlook an inverter to convert 12V to 120V, especially if you build a gasifier to run an old automobile engine. You can build a bracket to run more than one alternator off the engine while it is running and use each alternator to power a different circuit, or combine 2 of them for the voltage to run the well pump. You don't need a V-8 - an older 4 cylinder with a carburetor will fit the bill nicely. The motors are inexpensive to acquire, not too expensive to rebuild and are more efficient than one with more cylinders. Just because there might not be gasoline around doesn't mean that you won't be able to generate fuel to power vehicles or engines. The older the vehicle is, the wider your margin of error becomes given that they don't have computers that have to be satisfied or bypassed and the tolerances for fuel/air mixtures were a lot greater before the advent of CAFE. Mid 60's to mid 70's is a good target for time period. International put a great 4 cylinder engine into their 1st generation Scouts that was all but bullet proof.