Surviving without the Grid

If the grid goes down and suddenly there is no electricity, no natural gas and no water coming into your home, what will you do? How much thought and planning have you given to surviving without the Grid?

Surviving without the Grid

You wake up. Your alarm clock is dark. Why didn’t that thing wake you up? You grab the remote and click at the TV, no dice.

“Ahhh”, you think “The power is out.”

That explains it. The power goes out a couple times a year, but this time is different. It’s not coming back.

Are you ready for that? What do you need to survive in this situation?

A good Guidebook to Surviving
A survival manual comes in handy in so many unpredictable situations. Make sure you have a good survival manual. The newer versions of the FM21-76 military survival manual are great. Make sure to get a recent one, but an old one is better than none.

Another solid survival guide is the SAS Survival Handbook, which also comes in a very handy, space conserving pocket version. I give the SAS Survival Handbook pocket version as gifts all the time!

Money
I believe in a situation like this that paper currently will be worthless, so will many coins. Junk silver, and precious metals will be money. Barter, trading, will be the name of the game. Do you know how to barter? Go to flea markets and garage sales now and learn to negotiate prices down, then you’ll be on your way to the skill of bartering.

Travel
Travel will be a thing of the past. Unless you have a bike or a horse you won’t be ranging too far. You’ll need to think on a local level when considering your available resources. If you do opt for a bike, then don’t forget the bicycle trailer. I’m surprised noone ever mentions the bicycle trailer, I built and used these as a young lawn mowing business man.

You’ll likely be doing a lot more walking and hiking so invest in some hiking boots or hiking shoes. Get some you can re-sole. Shoe cobblers will start to pop up in your area, trust me.

• Boots – I really like the Hi-Tec Men’s Altitude IV Hiking Boot, but choose the ones that match your style or need.
• Shoes – Again it’s the Hi-Tec for me, Hi-Tec Men’s Falcon Waterproof Hiking Shoe.

I think I like the Hi-Tec stuff, because it doesn’t cost me a fortune and I’ve found them to be very rugged, when I’m tromping around the roads and forests to bring you these blog posts.

Water
Water procurement can be as simple as rain barrels or finding a pond, lake, stream or river coupled with boiling or water filtration, but is essential to surviving without the grid. Here are some posts where we’ve discussed water.

• DIY Home Water Filter
• Purifying water with bleach
• Disinfect Water with Calcium Hypochlorite

Food
You can forage, fish, hunt or trap your food. If you are really smart, you’d probably raise your own livestock. In cities or suburbs you could raise some chickens or rabbits. A goat would be handy for fresh goats milk.

Cooking Food
Surviving without the grid will cause us to rethink how we cook. If it were me, I’d make sure to have plenty of propane so I could use my outoor gas grill or camp cook stove. Make sure to have plenty of propane. I only use those tiny 16.4 oz propane canisters for camping, so if you want to run your camp cook stove (and other propane camping gear) off of your larger propane tanks you’ll need a Propane adapter hose.

If you want to cook and boil water (for cooking or drinking) I love my Kelly Kettle and it’ll burn anything (sticks, leaves, dry grass, dry nut husks, etc) to create heat. If you want to go this route, then the Kelly Kettle Pot Support and Cookset should be on your list. This seems pretty wise to me as I assume sticks will outlast my propane supply.

If you are cooking for your family then just buy a campfire cooking grate and be done with it. This will allow you to use your pots and pans that you already own. I would invest in a Dutch Oven so you can still “bake” foods.

Hopefully you put away a stock of heirloom seeds so you can raise food year after year, using the seeds from the year prior. Once the grid is gone, every family that survives will be raising food. I will turn my entire front and back yards into fields.

Heat
Now how will we stay warm in the winter? One option is to move someplace that is warm in the winter, but that’s not always practical. For heat, I think a wood burning stove is the simplest answer. With a wood stove you get heat, you can heat water and probably could even cook on some types.

I’m not saying you need to replace your electric or gas furnace or heaters, but you might consider buying a wood stove and having it installed to offset your winter heating bills. It might even be prudent to buy a wood stove, all the stove pipe, and insulated chimney piping and store it in your garage, shed or basement so that you are ready for a long term grid down event.

Handy folks could find an old 55 gallon drum and convert it into a wood stove with a barrel stove kit, but they’d still need the stove pipe and insulated chimney parts.

Imagine trying to find or buy a wood burning stove after the grid goes down. They will be worth their weight in gold. Do yourself a favor and considering buying a wood stove (with required accessories) and a good axe!

Electricity
Most people can live without electricity, but I do recommend solar (photovoltaic) systems with batteries for those that can’t. Some people need electric medical equipment to survive. I know a bunch of people who have sleep apnea and need a CPAP machine while they sleep. Apnea can be deadly, some diabetics need insulin, which needs to be refrigerated. Keep these needs in mind when considering a grid down situation.

Surviving without the Grid with Sleep Apnea will be tough. If CPAP is something you need, you can find the Transcend II Travel CPAP Machine and you can order the Transcend Multi-Night Battery + Transcend Portable Solar Charger. If you buy it from CPAP.com you can select all 3 togehter with the “customize and Buy” button on the Transcend II Travel CPAP Machine page. Solar power for CPAP, amazing.

I’d like to store up a slew of rechargeable batteries (mostly AA and AAA, but C’s and D’s will be needed too) and a DC powered battery charger that can work with a solar panel, or a Solar powered Battery Charger. DC is more efficient to use with solar, because converting DC to AC is an inefficient method at best. See my previous post on Portable Solar for another quick fix.

If I have batteries I can use LED flashlights and lanterns as well as a host of other portable electronics, like a radio (you can get alternate powered radios, see my post on the dynamo powered radio).

What about all those prepper and survival E-books? Luckily we covered this in a previous post: Reading eBooks when the Grid is Down.

Hand Tools

If the Grid goes down so do our cordless and electric drills. All our power tools will be worthless. Some of us will be able to recharge them via solar or generator, but eventually all devices fail. I’d recommend heading over to Amazon.com and picking up some manual tools.

• Manual drills / Hand drills
• Hand Saws

Surviving without the grid won’t be easy, but it’s not impossible. Humans have only been reliant on electricity for just a bit over 100 years.  Some of us will have to build bike generators to recharge and power devices, but the smart folks will have already put up wind generators and solar panels. Others will learn to live without power. I’ll really miss the Internet and air conditioners.

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