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Category: prepping

Mon. Mar. 15, 2021 – Beware! Beware poets and prognosticators

and the Ides of March….

Cooler and wet.   Probably.  Maybe.  No one really knows.   Yesterday stayed overcast and drizzly all day.  The temp dropped too, down to 58F at one point, although it was 59F when I went to bed.

Slept late, had an hour stolen from my life,* and then worked on my plumbing project in the slowest and more careful way possible.  I’ve set toilets before, but never had the constellation of parts and issues that this one had.  I got it done, no leaks, and last night it did the business without complaint.  It is very quiet, and doesn’t ever evacuate the whole bowl.  Quite different.  Seems to work though.

Then made some dinner and welcomed #2 child home from her sleepover.  Yeah.  I’m hoping we don’t get sick.  Wife decided that child needed to spend some time with a friend for her mental wellness.   Kid was very excited and had a great time.  Hopefully that worked to lighten her mood for a while.

The rain and late start kept me in for the day and definitely limited what I got done.  Still, the toilet project was on the list for a long time and now it looks like that is done-for a while anyway.

Turns out that this week is Spring Break.  Who knew?  Kids are home all week and my wife is back in the office a couple of days.  That limits my range of activities.  On the other hand, I should be able to work projects here at home.  We’ll see 😉

Time to move some other stuff forward, and organize some of the stacks.

This last week gave me a chance to work some skills.   Hands on skills are good.  Infrastructure skills are good.  Repair skills are going to be really good.  Work on some skills this week.

And of course, keep stacking.

 

n

 

*not really, but fun to play with.

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Sun. Mar. 14, 2021 – more plumbing, more stuff to do

Possible rain and mid 70s, but also possibly not.  Houston weather is kinda hard to predict.

Spent yesterday on plumbing and household stuff.  My tale is in the comments last night.   TL:DR I’ve got more to do today to get finished.  Should be about an hour of actual work, or less.  I can do plumbing, if I have the parts.   Same for carpentry, electrical, drywall, paint, roofing, cabinets, countertops, tile, flooring, and even carpet although the ‘kicker’ is the demon’s tool.  If I had to, I could probably build a house from the ground up, with the right references for details and some help.  That doesn’t mean I WANT to do any of that though.  Times like this, when plumbers are just not available and there is a problem (even one I created myself), it’s a comfort to feel reasonably confident that I can do what it takes to fix the problem.

After that, if it’s not raining, the plan is to do some gardening.  My neighbor is building some raised beds, and from his offhand remark, it’s because he’s worried about food in the future.   I hope he has better luck than me, then he can help ME!

In general, this cold snap was an eye opener for folks, I think.   We all expect problems during hurricane season, but to have them in winter is unusual.   Everyone wants a generator now.   Even my wife has actually scheduled an electrician to come and quote us for the whole house gennie hook up (this coming Friday).  The few people in Lowe’s last night included a guy buying pipe insulation.   That’s a guy who learned from the cold snap and is DOING something about it.  I think he’s not alone.

And that’s a good thing.  Everyone who is better prepared is someone who isn’t looking to take my stuff, and who has reason to resist calls for ‘redistribution’.

Encourage the newbies.  Help where you can.

Skills, friends, stuff.   Stack them all.

nick

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Mon. Mar. 8, 2021 – did some cooking and cleaning

Cool again today, and hopefully dry.   It stayed cool yesterday and was sunny and bright.   A beautiful day.  A day for . . . yardwork!

Well, my wife did some planting, and I did some cleaning.   She got some new plants into the herb garden and replaced some of the decorative stuff that froze.   She cut back the stuff we’re hoping recovers.

I raked some more leaves, especially by the citrus trees.   I shook and knocked most of the dead leaves off the trees and then I cleaned up around them.   I didn’t quite get everything bagged, I’ll have to finish later.  In the back yard my wife planted some tomatoes (and the herbs) while I picked up debris and ran the lawnmower.   Put the fire pit cooker back in the middle of the yard.   Pressure washed some spots on the patio and a few things I’d missed, basically just to run  the gas tank dry.  And then, because the firepit was just sitting right there, we decided to have a little fire.   And if we’re going to have a fire, might as well use it to cook dinner, says the 9 year old… wisdom from the mouths of babes.

So that’s what we did.   The firepit is enclosed with mesh all the way around and has a cast iron grill that you can cook on.   We re-heated beef stew, put some mushrooms in butter in foil, and grilled some kielbasa sausages.  I put a can of red beans and rice on too and that made a real nice meal with the sliced sausage.   During the blackouts we ate a couple of cans of the stuff, and gave some to the neighbors too.   Recommended.   Tasty, hearty, and easy to make.

(And of course dessert was s’mores.   We had the fire going anyway…)

Canned and ‘instant’ versions of food and ingredients should be high on your stored food list.   They take less time and less heat energy to prepare and you might be short on both of those things during your emergency.   I’ve got lots of regular rice, but during short term events, I reach for the Minute Rice.  Everything we had for dinner had already been cooked, and really just needed to be heated.

Speaking of shortcuts, for breakfast I made eggs, and biscuits with sausage gravy.   First time for me and the gravy.   It was from a can too.  Biscuits from a tube, gravy from a can, and eggs (ultimately from a chicken, but yesterday just from the store.)   The gravy was pretty good, the family all ate it and my wife got seconds.   It was FAR better than the white goo I got from a gravy packet last time I tried biscuits and gravy.  Younger daughter also got fried sliced spam.  She loves it.

So breakfast was from medium and long term storage, and dinner was from the pantry but cooked over a wood fire.    Eat what you store…   and store some stuff you don’t normally eat so that you have some novel foods if you get bored.

Cooking over a wood fire is fun when you don’t have to do it.  Practice using some of the different ways you have stacked to cook, clean, heat water, etc.  MUCH easier to do so in the daylight on a nice day, when the indoor stove is there for backup…

And of course, keep stacking the stuff you need.

nick

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Tues. Mar. 2, 2021 – some time this month I will complete my 55th orbit without an obit

Cold and wet.  Rain on the plain, and the plane, and the horse’s rein for that matter……

Monday was mostly cloudy, misty drizzle, and occasional patches of nice.  Temps were in the 60s most of the day.

Fairly early in the day heavy trash came and picked up the 11 bags of leaves and dead grass that I raked so the soreness from Saturday and Sunday’s exertions was worth it.  But I am sore.

I am really feeling every dumb thing I’ve ever done and every thing that ‘made me stronger’ over the years in weather like this.   Cold and damp when you have a ‘weather’ everything is no fun.   One of the reasons I live in a warm sunny place is that cold HURTS.  Cold DAMP hurts too.

Enough b!tching though, I’ve led a charmed life and wouldn’t be who I am today without the scar tissue and missing bits…  I did learn a couple of months ago that if I want to be productive, I need to continue taking my maintenance meds though.   55 used to be OLD.  Now it’s barely middle aged.  Except on cold damp mornings.  And when the NSAIDs run out.

Grid down lots of things will run out.   Even in a long slow collapse, many things that are easily obtainable today will be hard to get.  In my mom’s living memory, citrus fruit in winter was a luxury.   Getting a single orange on Christmas was a very special treat when she was young.   I remember as a kid getting a case of oranges or grapefruit from sales guys trying to bribe my dad at Christmas.  A nice box of fruit was still an impressive gift for people of his generation well into the 1970s.  That wasn’t that long ago.

War adds another level of privation and suffering.

The thing to keep in mind is that none of this worst case, or even ‘bad’ case is impossible.   And on a long enough timeline, it’s inevitable.  Humans haven’t changed.  Physical laws haven’t changed.  Things tend to continue on, mostly the same, until they don’t.  Then it all changes and usually very rapidly.

When that happens it’s important to keep in mind that ‘nothing lasts forever’ and most people will get through it.  That should be your goal, it’s mine- to get through it, whatever it might be.

Flexibility, preparation, strength, determination, knowledge, ‘tribe’, and stuff.   That will see you through.

 

Stacking is the easy part.   Get to it.

 

nick

 

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Sun. Feb. 28, 2021- no rest for the wicked…

Cool and probably raining.  High humidity if not rain.

Yesterday was mostly overcast with occasional sun, but got misty drizzle in the late afternoon.

I did some more cleanup.   Stacked some of the cut pecan tree.   Washed some stuff.   Raked.   I am going to be sore today.  Very glad the pressure washer survived being frozen.  It’s common for the pumps to split if they freeze with water in them.   I guess mine sat long enough before the freeze that it was dried out.

Headed over to the rent house later today to look at the A/C and see if I can diagnose what the problem is, or at least decide if a pro needs to be involved.  I hope I don’t need the same part that everyone else needs.

Supply lines continue to be disrupted in Houston, and there are shortages of plumbing stuff you might not even think of.   People are offering crazy money for outdoor on demand hot water heaters.   And I have one new in the box… but.   It would set our own plan back 3-6 months, and any profit selling it would be eaten up when we needed to replace it with new for our install.   It’s going to continue sitting in storage, because we can’t (in good conscience) get a plumber to do the work now anyway.  We had one scheduled to give us a bid the day everything froze.   Seems like a waste to let it sit though while people don’t have hot water at home, so I might do some more thinking on the subject.

It occurs to me  that it is a bit difficult to tell if the high prices are organic supply vs demand driven or if it is inflation starting to take off.    SOME of it is organic, but I’m getting worried that we’re about to see inflation really take off, and that the rapid increase is masked by genuine real demand driven increases.  Historically the strategies for dealing with rapid inflation are simple.  Borrow money that you will pay back with devalued money and spend it on durable goods that you know you will need later, or that you can sell.  And spend every dime as soon as you get it on the same things.  Savers get destroyed by high inflation.  People who own real stuff have a buffer.  Those on fixed incomes get destroyed.  Make some plans.  Start moving on them.

I’m no financial genius, but gold isn’t crazy high at the moment (compared to some other things), if you can find some, and that makes me wonder what’s going on.  I mention it only in passing, and not as advice.   And I point out that Ferfal talks about the value of broken gold necklaces and bracelets in his book.  With a bracelet or necklace, you can just cut off an inch at a time… and Selco points out the value of wedding rings, you can feign a great deal of reluctance with a ring, and no one wonders if you have more stashed away.  Give some serious thought to a world where your savings are gone.  It happens all the time in other places.   It can happen here.   Our ‘reserve currency’ status won’t save us forever, foreign powers are working as hard as they can to obviate that advantage.  At some point they will succeed.   Think hard about this.

Stacking can help.   Stacking will help.   Keep stacking.

 

nick

 

 

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Fri. Feb. 26, 2021 – “Timber!”

Cool and wet.   Probably raining.   All we got yesterday was dew and a very light misty drizzle.  Which was actually fine with me, but it did play havoc with the OTHER drivers on the roads around Houston.

I did my pickups, got some great deals on household stuff, and a couple of minor things to add to the “resell” pile.   Daughter 2 was thrilled with a new rug for her room.  It’s very pink, and VERY fuzzy.  I got a new in box 100% goose down comforter for my bed.   It was a bit chilly for the light blanket I normally use during the recent cold snap.  Yes, I know, we’ll probably never have the same problem again, but getting a light down comforter has been on my list for a while. $12.50.  Who would say no to that?

Before I left on my errands, I found the dead rat in the attic.    The trap got him.  First time for everything I guess.   Washing and soaking the trap with bleach hasn’t gotten rid of the odor, so I think I’ll be making another.   I can’t imagine the rat dumb enough to enter the trap if it smells like death.

Today we’re supposed  to have the tree guy taking down our half rotten pecan in the back yard.   The house will be hotter this summer, the grass will not grow as well, but my garden should benefit.   The squirrels are going to be upset.  I say “supposed to” because I don’t know what he’ll want to do if it’s raining, and the national forecast is showing rain for us.

Lots of people online talking about the coming collapse of the financial bubble, and the coming conflict between city and rural, and a lot of other stuff.   Not many talking about what to do if they are right.  One without the other is just distraction at this point, as far as I’m concerned.  LOTS of distraction out there.  FOCUS on what you need to do to get through whatever is coming.    Don’t get distracted.   Monitor, yes.  Obsess, no.

Speaking of distraction, it didn’t take long to bomb Syria did it?

You need stuff, knowledge, friends.   Stack them deep.

 

n

 

 

 

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Thur. Feb. 25, 2021 – so much stuff to do, so little desire

Coolish, probably wet, or at least threatening all day.  It was that way all day Wed. except it never actually got wet.

I spent Wed. cleaning and putting away.  I got the gennies sorted for the short term.   I put all the extension cords away and covered them up.  Cleaned and organized on the patio and in the back.  Looks nicer now, but I still have to put the gas cans away.  Found and put aside some more stuff for the auctions or ebay.

Plan for the day is collecting some auction stuff.  It’s mostly stuff for use at home, but there are a couple of resale items as well.

One of the craziest/luckiest items is a Buffalo TeraStation that matches my failed RAID.   The pix show it on.  If it works, I should be able to pop in my old drives, and recover them.  Fingers crossed, and appropriate offerings to the hidden powers… maybe being lazy will have ended up saving me a lot of work.  I mean, maybe being too busy to learn about home RAID recovery, might save me the work…  *cough*

You almost certainly don’t recall that my TeraStation went belly up with a failed controller board.   That is why we back up a RAID to another disc.   Too bad I hadn’t done that recently thinking that drive failure was all I had to consider.  In the time since, I haven’t really needed anything from the failed discs bad enough to try recovering them so taking a low effort approach worked out so far.

That sort of describes my general approach to prepping and most things, low effort.  I try to get the most benefit from the least work.   Doesn’t always work out but it does more often than not.

That manifests in different ways.   One is that by having a more general idea of what I want, I can be open to getting something similar or equivalent if it becomes available.   My solar project is that way.   I didn’t go shopping for a specific solar panel, I watched for some in the auctions.   When the price was right and there were a bunch all at once, I bought them.   Now I have solar panels.   If I held out for some exact model or size, I still wouldn’t have any.

I’ve done the same with ham radios.  I bought what was available, not what I dreamed about in the catalog.   They are good, solid radios that more than meet my need and they were significantly less expensive than even ebay used.

I even stock the pantry with a version of this, buying what is on sale at the time, not rigidly following a list or a plan, believing that I can balance the inventory over time.

There is a downside- you need time.   If you are short of time, you absolutely can just determine what you want and get it.   Or just buy all the things in a great big hurry (so called ‘panic’ buying.)

Of course, real life is a mix of the approaches.    Going into the pandemic I had my pantry pretty well stocked using the low effort approach, but I still went out on the ‘last run’ and bought stuff I felt I was short of, without considering the cost.   I also stocked up on a much wider variety of OTC meds, believing that there might be shortages later.  I thought it better to spend the money on stuff at full price, regardless of immediate need, rather than not have it at any price later.

The current situation with guns and ammo can be viewed the same way.   You wouldn’t normally want to pay current prices, but time and supply may be short and getting something rather than nothing might be your most important consideration.

Whatever approach you prefer, get started if you haven’t already.  Don’t let ‘paralysis by analysis’ keep you from starting.   Any prep is better than no prep.  And if you are already on the path, keep stacking.

nick

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Sun. Feb. 21, 2021 – 02212021 – I guess I just never noticed the weird date numbers before

Cool but not cold.  Sunny and windy.   I think.

Yesterday got up into the 60s and it was chilly shirtsleeves temps out in the sun.  And I took the day off.  Did some cleaning and putting away, but mostly wasted time on the internet with my friends.   Checked on a couple of friends.  Mostly though, had a down day to recover.

Now the actual recovery will commence.   Stuff needs to be cleaned, restocked, and put away.  Damage from freezing needs to be assessed and accounted for.   Then all the normal spring stuff needs to happen too.    I’ve got a tree coming down on Friday, and I need to clear a path, and set up a spot for the wood we’re keeping.  Eventually a plumber will install our instant hot water heater.  That was supposed to be this week but I wouldn’t pull him away from emergency calls even if I could.  I’ve got stuff to get to auction, and delayed pickups to make.  LOTS of organizing to do too.  And gardening…

Some other notes before I forget…

–those one pound bottles of propane are supposed to be removable and re-install-able, but I have about 1 in 3 leak slowly when removed.  That’s one reason not to store them indoors.  Squirt the top with soapy water and watch for bubbles.  Bubbles = leaking.

–the lithium jumper packs from Costco, with S in the name might not be great for jumping cars but they are excellent as power packs to recharge anything with a 5v USB charger.

–buckets rock.  You should have a bunch of empty food grade 5 gallon buckets and lids in storage.

–black plastic sheeting.  Clear plastic sheeting.  BOTH kinds of plastic sheeting.   You need at least one roll in storage.

–space heaters of various types could save the day, even if you wouldn’t ordinarily use them for anything.

— the traditional advice, “storm coming, fill the bathtub with water” is excellent advice.

–a working whole house generator would have made this whole thing almost a non-issue.  Water would have been my only concern.

–check your water.  check your preps.

— the traditional advice, “storm coming, fill your vehicle gas tanks” is excellent advice.

–get some CO monitors.  Then get a couple more.  You’ll sleep better with them than without them.

–I was too busy or too tired to run any radios.  I left the scanner off.   I didn’t need any info we weren’t getting from the neighborhood through texts or groups on FB.   I did notice the local 440mhz repeater that covers the whole city was offline.   I didn’t even try any HF.  Longer event and I probably would have started firing up radios, but my concerns were local local local, and tribe.

–cell coverage went down and stayed down for more than a day.  Voice coverage and data were spotty before and after.   Texts came through, but could be delayed.

–the Middle Earth version of Risk takes two days.  Like the regular version of Risk.  Two very long and frustrating days.  Like regular Risk.  It did keep the wife and kids out of the way– for two long days.  Puzzles have a LOT less angst and conflict.

–hot chocolate is a comfort food.  And we ran out.  Prepper fail.

–bad stuff can happen any time.   Worse stuff can happen during bad stuff.

–having extras to hand to people means you can help others without involving yourself intimately.    That’s good for them and you too.

–there are knock on effects too, ie. second and third and fourth order effects.  Pipes freeze and break.   EVERYONE needs a plumber.  No plumbers are available so everyone heads to the store to try and DIY.  No plumbing supplies are left in the stores.  Pipes break and flood (why?  Because people don’t know or think to turn off the water and NOT turn it back on without watching).   Flooring, walls and ceilings are ruined.   Houstonians know how to deal with wet stuff, you rip it out.  But that means no dumpsters are available.   No dumpsters means piles of debris in front of the house.  I’m going to buy a dumpster bag and add it to my preps.  When one becomes available…

–stuff and systems fail at the worst possible time, because that’s when they are stressed the most.   People too.

–it’s always something.

 

All good reasons to KEEP STACKING.

nick

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Sat. Feb. 20, 2021 – 02202021 – another funny number on a not so funny day

Cold again.   This is really starting to get old, ya know?  I’d hate for this to be the beginning of the new normal.  A whole lotta people are gonna starve if the US can’t produce and export a whole lotta extra food.  Global warming has always been a more human friendly trend than global cooling.   I guess that’s why they hate it so much.

Spent yesterday getting ready to go to my rent house, then coming home.  Don’t know what I’ll be doing today but it’s probably going to revolve around drinking water.

I opened two aquatainers last night and both were contaminated.     One had the spigot crack, which let air and ‘stuff’ into the jug.    There is nasty looking stuff on the bottom of the jug, and the water smells of mold or mildew.

The other jug was stored with the spigot reversed and inside the jug (as I learned to do years ago) but the screw cap had loosened.    Faint ‘stale’ odor, and some sand or sediment at the bottom of the jug.    Prepper fail.

Both jugs spent the summer and fall sitting in the driveway, heating and cooling every day, eventually pumping air into the jug.   Previously I’ve had water in aquatainers, treated with bleach, that was perfectly drinkable after 7 years.   That jug was stored in the proverbial ‘cool dark place’ though.

I didn’t find out until around midnight, since we haven’t had to even crack the stored drinking water to that point.  My interim solution was to put a pot of tap water on the boil, so I could refill the brita filter and make coffee in the morning.    That’s why I think I’ll be looking more closely at our stored water today, in the daylight.

I trusted the aquatainers to perform as they had in the past without considering that conditions had changed.  Prepper fail.

The aquatainers are generally quite good and I recommend having some.  They are about as big as can be reasonably handled at 7 gallons.  They have a couple of weaknesses though.  The spigots are fragile.   To combat that, I take the cap off, unscrew the spigot and rescrew it into the cap from the inside.    That puts it inside the jug when stored, which is safer for it.   It must be sterile and spotlessly clean when you do that though.   You can also replace the spigot with a plumbing fitting.   The threads are standard, and a simple plug can be screwed in.   It’s also a good idea to order and stock some replacements for the spigots, and for the cap over the breather hole.  I’ve got several of each.

Like most plastics, they will become brittle and crack if left in the sun long enough- so don’t.   The biggest downside, as far as I’m concerned, is you can’t stack them, and you can’t lay them on their side and leave them like that either for storage, or for dispensing.

When I fill them, I use chlorinated tap water and add plain bleach.  There are a lot of official and semi-official recipes for bleach to water ratio, but they all boil down to– mix in bleach very thoroughly, adding more slowly until you can just barely smell it in the water.  (this is for already potable water, follow the recipe and rules for treating suspected bad or dirty water).

Doing this, and keeping the container sealed and stored well, I had no problem with 7 years of storage.  The water was clear, and only a bit ‘flat’.   To fix that you can aerate by pouring from container to container a couple of times, or I just pour it through a Brita filter pitcher.   It’s easier to use and chill that way anyway.

I use the same method for all the water I store.  Scrupulously clean bottle/jug/container/tank,  already chlorinated tap water, add plain bleach until you can smell it even after thorough mixing, seal well and protect from air, light, and heat.

Worst case, I might have to use the Sawyer filter on the stored water, or some other treatment option, or just use the contaminated water for flushing and washing while  using the uncontaminated OTHER containers for drinking.    That is one advantage of multiple smaller jugs, if one is contaminated the others are usually still fine.   That’s one reason why I prefer smaller containers to one big tank.   That and mobility issues.  A 55 gallon drum weighs a lot, ~450  pounds.  You aren’t putting a 55 gallon drum in the back of your BOV.

Water is your first need, and you should have plenty on hand.   I think a minimum of 2 gallons per person, per day, half that for pets, is a good number for planning purposes.   More is better.   Plus you need the means to treat the water to make it safe to drink.  Hiking filters are good, if they have small enough pores, and the chemical means should be on your shelf too-iodine tablets for your personal cup of water, gallons of bleach for bulk treatment.

 

 

More on water storage and redundancy later, for now, keep stacking.

 

nick

 

 

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Fri. Feb. 19, 2021 – 02192021 – is a bit weird…. the reality of the day is certainly weird.

Cold again, after temps rose above freezing for a WHOLE DAY in Houston Texas…  this globull warming is killing me.

It was 28F when I went to bed.

I spent yesterday doing silly things so you don’t have to.  Strike that, I’m too short to fill those shoes.

I did do some experimenting, which I duly chronicled in the comments yesterday evening.  The clothes came out clean and fresh smelling, and the kerosene heater I tested worked fine- except for being out of kerosene.   I swear I have a white and yellow round 5 gallon can somewhere, but I couldn’t find it when I went looking.  If I was desperate for heat, I’d siphon some from my other construction heater.  I’m not desperate at all though, so I’ll just buy some the next time I see it.  I like flexibility and redundancy for heat, water, and cooking.   Honestly, all the other things too, but especially those.

I helped out several neighbors with plumbing issues and did some of my own.  What made it possible was having the parts in storage.   The local stores are empty of the kinds of things people need right now.  Even pros can’t get parts.   I’m a firm believer in having stuff you might need close by where you can lay hands on it.  Like what?  You know your gear and your stuff better than me, but I’ll list some here to start you thinking…

Plumbing parts.

I think you should have a variety of fittings and some pipe on hand in a couple of pipe sizes.   They should be whatever you have in your house, and what is common in your area.   Besides fittings and pipe, you should have the glues, tape, solder, and tools to put the parts to work in a simple repair.   You should also have a toilet seat, toilet tank flush system replacement kit, toilet bolts, and a wax ring.  You should have some of the flexible hoses to connect faucets and the toilet.  Some of the quarter turn shut off valves, and a spare hose bib.   Plumbers putty.  Sprinkler parts if you have sprinklers, replacement heads, riser pipe, sharkbite repair fittings, and some sprinkler pipe fittings too, as well as at least one valve and solenoid.  You should have some garden hose repair ends, and some other hose parts like washers and nozzles.  If you have gas appliances, you should have at least one ‘gas appliance installation kit’.  All of this and more will fit in one flip top bin…

Electrical parts.

You should have a couple of light switches, outlets, and at least one GFCI outlet that match what’s in your house.   25ft of Romex or similar for wire.  Replacement ends for extension cords.   10ft of lamp cord and lamp repair parts, like a harp, a bulb socket, and a 2 prong plug.  You should have light bulbs for all your fixtures.   Tape and wire nuts.   Next level, have a spare 20amp breaker for your panel.

Automobile parts.

At least one complete oil change for each vehicle.  Replacement windshield wipers.  A tire plug and patch kit, and a tire inflator.  One headlight bulb.  One set of tail light bulbs (assuming your vehicle uses bulbs).  One complete filter change (air, cabin, oil).   Spare fluids, including the “leak stop” ones for each system.  Fuses that match your vehicle.  If you can swing it, one set of mounted spare tires, but at least one extra tire (can be used, or one you took off, it’s an emergency backup after all.)

General repair parts.

Screws, nails, bolts, nuts, washers, “plumber’s tape”, bailing wire (rebar tie wire); glues (white glue, yellow woodworkers glue, cyanoacrylate (crazy glue), gorilla glue, five minute epoxy, and JBWeld metal repair); tape- masking, blue painters, good duct tape, electrical tape (3M only), zip ties, aluminum tape for ducts; a couple of 2x4s, and half a sheet of 3/4 plywood.  Depending on where you are, you might want a piece of window glass and a glass cutter with a can of glazing compound and some points.  Drywall compound and a leftover piece or a patch kit.  And paint.  Kilz primer, and some spray cans in black, white, brown, tan, your house color, and one florescent color.  White latex interior paint or whatever your walls are.

Sewing and clothing repair parts.

This is a whole separate topic, but a selection of needles, stout black thread, a couple of buttons, shoe goo, a roll of velcro, some safety pins, and a few buttons salvaged off stuff you threw away are a minimum.  I have  18″ of black thread on a needle wrapped around the golf pencil in my altoids tin everyday kit.  SUPER handy to fix some web gear, or a tear.   I also have a kit of iron on clothing patches in my travel bag for quick fixes of tears in clothes.   ‘Fusible interfacing’ is like an iron on glue for cloth and can be used to hem pants, or attach patches.

And finally, buckets, lids, and plastic sheeting in clear and black.

It’s a big list but it doesn’t have to all show up at the same time.   I bought most of mine at yard sales and estate sales, or by picking up more than I need when I go to the hardware store for a project.  It took a while to build up a fairly comprehensive stack…

Ideally you already know how to use those parts to make simple repairs, but if you don’t, there are several good books on household repairs.  Home Depot and lowes both have a display rack with some of the books and you can leaf through them to see what level they’re aimed at..  and Goodwill almost always has several of those types of books on the shelf.  But even if you don’t have the skills, knowledge, or desire, you might need to have the part so that someone else can do the work.  That is certainly playing out here in Houston this week.

 

The usual caveats apply, seek out expert advice if you don’t know what you’re doing, read books, watch videos, watch home improvement shows on tv, and consider what could go wrong before undertaking something new.   That said, there is tremendous satisfaction in fixing things, and they are already broken, so sometimes you might as well give it a try.  And sometimes, you might be the only one available TO try.

Keep stacking!  It works!

 

nick

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