As long as you still can get gas cartridges or gas bottles.



For prepping, I recommend to have one burner for every kind of fuel possible. The rocket ovens burn biomass, and this model burns also charcoal and brickets. I have, for doomsday party, a stove for gas cartridges, gasoline, tupintine etc as well.


If it burns, I can safely use it without attracting unwanted attention.



Thats often overlooked - in such scenarios, you do not want to attract attention, but avoid attention getting. Thats why it even kight be better to leave the oven cold and not make any sorts of fire (smell).

Regarding cars for 'preppers' i take it Diesel is the only way to go, along with no (and i mean no) electronics, maybe apart from the radio.

And use an old Diesel with precombustion chambers, and a fully mechanical injection pump only. No TDI, in fact no turbo at all, much too sensible and impossible to repair without spare parts. Get tools to adjusting the pump to plant seed oils, use different glow plugs, and inituial electrical/later heat-exchange heater for making other-than-Diesel fatty fuels more liquid. An old Diesel engine will run on any fatty fuel.

Store away some spare parts you know will break down sooner or later. This way the car will run with almost every fatty stuff you come across.

Use a car that does not consume much fuel. A halfways bad-terrain-suited car should not weigh more than a ton, skip a four wheel drive that ony puts weight on the car, and which you will not be able to repair.

This way you will only need mineral oils for engine and gearbox lubrication, and bearings, and the quantity is minuscule compared to using gasoline which will not be available, and which you cannot refine.

You want a Russian Scherp, maybe?:03:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...0/06/Sherp.jpg

As far as I know even new Lada Nivas are, for Lada standards, electrohorrificized these days.

Legal demands make it impossible for manufacturers nowadays to avoid each and every electric system.

Basic models of Dacias are mentioned to be low on electronics, but not completely free of them.


A used oldtimer probably is the best way. With all the financial risks involved.

First thigns first, the son of friends of my parents is an electrics engineer with RWE, a European energy corporation, biog player. My parents said their friends told them he has gotten fired some weeks ago after having corroded patience of his superiors over "impertinent" internal warnings - not whistleblowing in public! - for dangerous instabilities and risks of supply interruptions in the continetal power grid. I cannot judge this narration and know only what they have been told, but if it is true as they were told, I would not be surprised. And I would take it as another warning, another weriting on the wall. The man, my age apparently, is specialising in powergrid egineering as a professional with decades of experiences under his belt. He seems to expect the big one before end of this decade.



Now, my latest project, and I like it:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdoB3nW9VVI


Facts by one day experience: The tank holds short of 4 l, I filled it to the half, and that halved load lastet close 4.5 - 5 hours. A standard big cannister of petroleum weighs 9-10 kg and holds 20l, that thing would give you around two full days of constant heating, I restimate, 48+ hours. Its just that you do not run this constantly, you dont need to. I give 20l a standing time of short of one week, therefore.



You need only four batteries, size D.


The thing stinks heavily in the first 2-3 minutes when igniting it. It stinks again heavily when shutting it down, but after ignition, when the temperature of the flame got right and is perfect, the smeel levbel goes down tremendously, ypoiu then can rtun it inside your home. I did not bepeive it until I red it, I so far believed that petroleum lamps never are to be burned inside living rooms and houses if you have no good air circulation. I would nevertehless recomemnd to run these things never without a CO2-CO-warner.


This thing is ideal for glasshouses with plants, cellars, garages, outdoor huts etc, and in case of emergency you will tolerate the smell in your home if the alternative is ice covering your wallpapers.:D As I saiudm, the smell if bad durign igntiuion phase. I thus placed the thing near my door to the loggia, and would open the door during ignition in the future.



I woudl recommend to establish a time pattern for frequent air exchnage envertheless.


The charm of this is - it is a.) surprisingly effective (it heats, not warms but heats, my main room which is more than 25 sqm), and b.) you do not need stilk wokring powergrid and electricity to start it, you are fully independent. The consummation rate for petroleum also surprised me, I expected it to be worse.



I will store 4 cans of 20l in my garage. That would possibly bring me over one month of siberian winter. :yeah:

What about the moisture ? It looks like one of these heat oven and the moisture increase when in use.

Markus

When you cant move your fingers anymore because you are so cold, and your kids peel off the skin on their faces because they are bored, and frozen as they are they do not feel it anyway, I think you would not care about profanities like that. :D

I alos red some more comments. In practical use and with real-life consummation, it seems many people say they get over "one full season" with just 20l petroleum. Talking of campers in the main.

Note that you need special heater petroleuum for these ovens, lamp petroleum will ruin them. I dont know why, I just red it. Quality differences between different brands seem to be about how smelly the petroleums are.

Some more on the petroleum oven.

I have googled it more, and found many test sites and reviews for ovens like this, all more or less similiar in construction, to give a consummation rate of 1/4 l per hour. The inbuild tank is close to 4 liters, that means you can expect a standing time of 15-16 hours. I would not run this at night when I sleep, so that 16 hours are one full working day. That means with a 20 l cannister of petroleum you get at least 5 days, probably more, since you may not burn it all day long.

I ran it the third evening in a row now, for the dakr hours before I go to bed. Because I simpy like it. I like the glow of it, the quality of the warmth it radiates, even the very mild smell in the air. I have the door to the loggia/balcony and on the other side of the huge room a window opened a bit, not much, just so that their is an air exchange. A CO2 and CO sensor of course is mandatory as a precautionary measure. The oven stands close to the loggia door, and I fire it up outside and let it burn there for the first 5 minutes or so, then carry it in carefully (it has a shut off-function if it does not stand elevated any more). The same I do when shutting it down, I place it outside, and leave it there for 15 minutes.

Very good buy. It works well. If you buy one, make sure it does not depend on electricity supply other than batteries, or even piezo ignitor. Always have good air exchange, always use a CO2 CO sensor.

Its gemütlich! :cool:

I like my old fashion wood stove, I can cook on it and even in the basement I can get the entire house cooking over 90 degrees. Course, I have an unlimited supply of wood right behind my house. I'd hate to live in the city during a major end times crisis.

Since maybe somebody considers this item, I give these numbers from the manual for the two models R4224STC and R7227STC. I have ther smaller one for my main room with around 32sqm and a ceiling height of 2.40m, giving it 77 cubic meters for an oven with a recommended using range of minimum 40 m3 and maximum 85 m3. I am in the upper range fo that, which mans the ventilation should not become any problem at all, ever. In smaller rooms, it might beocme an issue, and miore window-opening is necessary, also, while you may think smalle rrooms heat up better: the ovens have unbuild temperature locks,. at around 19-20°C they shut off. If the surrounding temperature is lower than inside homes, say in the open, or a glass house, it can have raised limits before the automatism snaps again.

The brand is Japanese. 4 years warranty.

I will try the oven again in January or February (if no blackout occurs earlier :D ) and then see how itbehaves with those much ower temps I woudl expect then. Right now I am veryhappy. If fuel consummation stays like it is, this might be even cheaper to heat than the normal and installed heating we have in the building...?!

Petroleum prices for these ovens in the past 5 years have varied by around 400%. :o They were as low as 40 coins per 20l, and as high as 150 coins per 20l. Right now, high quality low smell petroleum comes at prices of 60-80 coins per 20 l (at least over here).


If you burn this oven (smaller model) 8 hours a day, a 20l cannister petroleum will warm you up for 10 days.

I love these things! :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

Steve1989 is back on YouTube, and he still hasn't gotten food poisoning. :yeah:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtgdbucX3nc



:rock:

Eating food rations form WWII maybe is an extreme, but in generla, if hygienically correcly filled and the can is good quality material, food in cans will remain perfectly consummable for much much longer than the printed date. In Asia coutnries cnaned food doe snto even have date stamps on it.



20 years? No problem. If the can and filling process was good quality at the tiem of making.



I still have some cans of pea-potatoe soup, which formed my ground stock of reserve building back in days when i was a bit short on money. They are 15 years old now. And they still are fine. 3 or 4 still are left. Think its time to buy another dozen of them now. It tastes good.

Check out his page on YouTube. Steve has eaten rations that date back to the Civil War and WWI. :doh:

One thing to keep in mind, military field rations were not designed to keep you healthy or well-fed. They were designed to keep you alive when there was nothing else available. They were also loaded to the gills with calories, stimulants, and preservatives. The idea being to keep you alive and moving. :03:

:) A kind of oldfashioned German word for "condom" is "Präservativ" :D

I'll make a note of that. :yeah:

AKA- "Huh??" :haha:

I still owe a pic of the petroleum oven. This is the second one that I got for my parents. Hehehe: they are rated for energy efficiency "A" grade. :D


https://i.postimg.cc/4dmtCxq2/20211105-154945.jpg

I braced myself. Winter is coming? Let it come. :Kaleun_Salute:

When I was a kid we used to use those kerosene heaters all the time when the baseboard heating wasn't enough or if the power went out.


A few years back, I got into making "penny stoves". You cut the bottoms off of two aluminum cans and very carefully slide one into the other. It is vital that you don't tear the thin aluminum and that they seal fairly well. One side gets a few small holes drilled around the perimeter and one in the center. (Through trial and error I have found that it's easiest to drill the holes first, then cut the cans and assemble.)

And that's it! Now you have a functioning alcohol stove that weighs almost nothing, has no moving parts and is [relatively] safe to use indoors with the correct fuel (very pure methyl or ethyl alcohol).

Here is one I made from two soda cans:

https://i.imgur.com/iIirn0Xh.jpg

To light it, you pour some alcohol into the center hole and then cover it with a penny (hence the name). Then you pour a little more alcohol into the depression over the penny and light it. This initial flame warms the stove up until the alcohol begins to vaporize rapidly and exit the holes in the perimeter where it is ignited.

The alcohol in the top burns away rather quickly, but the burning vapor from inside the stove will last for much longer. Maybe 10-15 minutes or more. I don't know for sure because I've never had to leave it burning for very long - it's very efficient. It will boil a cup of water in just a couple of minutes. To extinguish it, you simply cover it to smother the flames.

There are only two real downsides: 1) Pure alcohol burns with an almost invisible flame, unless you're in the dark. Sometimes it's difficult to tell if the stove is lit or not. It is a good idea to make absolutely sure it is extinguished before adding more fuel or moving it. Ask me how I know this. And 2) Relatively pure alcohol isn't always readily available - although I suppose you could make some, if you're good at distilling.

Speaking of fuel, I usually use a product called "HEET". It's available in most auto parts stores and is sold as a gas line anti-freeze. It's basically pure methyl alcohol. NB: Only use the stuff that comes in the yellow bottle, not the red one!

https://i.imgur.com/crLJBJ8h.jpg

I have also used Everclear - a commercially available alcohol for mixing into drinks. It is nearly pure ethyl alcohol. Although, in Virginia, you can only get real Everclear on a military base for some reason. The advantage of using Everclear is that you can also drink it. (DO NOT DRINK THE GAS LINE ANTI-FREEZE!)

I also made a little stand for mine out of the top of one of the soda cans:

https://i.imgur.com/KDmOuJXh.jpg

And I made a wind screen out of an old soup can (not pictured, but I can post a pic if you like). The top of the soup can also makes a great place to set a small pot or pan like the ones that come with a camping mess kit.

I burned in the oven for my parents. I am stunned what power it has. I broke off a test after 9 hours - and the tank with 3.8l still was half full. I had to stop, because despite having all doors in my flat open and two windows opened by a few centimeters, this thing brought room temperature to 25 Celsius, mounting more, at an outside temp of 6-10 celsius over the day. The height of the flames is difficult to spot and the wick adjustment should be done well. Then the petroleum i used, a low odor brand of higher price, burns without causing any smell. The oven smells however during ignition and the following minutes, and during shuttdown. Use a balcony.



Everybody should have such a unit, for winter emergencies.


I am enthusiastic. Its a wolf in sheeps fur. But do not save in oven petrol quality. I use Qlima Kristall No Odor. With a correctly managed flame you really will smell almost nothing. Petroleum lamps like Feuerhand Baby Special give way more reason to be concerned. But I Love them. No LED garden light could ever rival its charms.

I mentioned the partial shading problem, the dramatic effect I saw when taking out that one panel that was shaded by maybe 30% of its surface. On a Germna site, I found this explanation. The water hose comparison explains it understandably.

Friendly weather and day today. The setup works fantastic even with just two panels, possible are 400 Watts in total. From the moment on the sun crawled over the roof, the show was on, and got hot soon. I set up some wire magic and so at the same time charged a bicycle battery with a capacity of 500Wh, ran a wire with seven lamps 2W per on it plus one 6W lamp (which was de facto my complete living room lights), cooked 4.5 liters of water, all that on AC, and the DC with the many USBs I used to charge a smartphone, a tablet, a pocket torch, a bicycle front light. For fun, I had the vacuum cleaner on for a few minutes, too. All at the same time. I then ran out of possible consumers. The fridge, maybe, I forgot. :D
Simultaneously the panels charged the battery. I could, if I only had a car, charge simultaneosuly with the panels via car, or wallmount: you can run two charging ways at the same time. But two of three panels already did the job, and while I stressed the battery and emptied it to 50% or so, most of it already is rechgarged again and I am absolutely certain before the sun gets too low again the battery will be filled up again.

Works much better, way much better than I expected. There will be greater losses on more grey days, but in serious situations I would then ration the battery power anyway, and find a way to set up the third panel as well without it being shaded.

Very happy customer. Expensive, but no hassle with single electric items, and no handcrafting and manual wiring. Here you get it all in one box, without any further work and need to think things out. Can only recommend. Took me five minutes to set up the panels this morning, and as long it will take to store them away and roll the powerbank behind a curtain. Super!

Food for thought, they offer also cheaper 120W panels, but these also have lower Volts. With only two panels I woul not get the needed Volts to get charging started. I would always depend on having all three panels out and all of them unshaded, and then have 360W at max and best conditions. With the more expensive 200W panels, I can vary between 2 panels (400W), and 3 panels (600W). Worth it, absolutely, in my living situation and limited place!

(One panel alone also does not charge.)

I think the model of this powerbank they sell in the US has not 2 but 6 AC mounts. Dont know any further possible differences, by looks the rest seems to be the same.

I've always kind of wanted the zombie thing although a good ol EMP attack plunging us all back to the dark ages again seems rather nice. I always feel like with an EMP attack we would recover pretty quickly though, even if it was a massive global type thing, but what do I know lol.