common materials turn to gold

zigzagbarry · Coal Joined: Jul 27, 2005 Posts: 6

I have been thinking a lot about the Peak Oil situation recently and I've realized that there are many household and home depot items that will be very useful in tough times such as a fishing pole with lots of line and tons of spare hooks as well as 55 gallon barrels and 5 gallon barrels for water collection. I would like to hear a collection of others ideas on common materials that we can still get our hands on that will be otherwise non-existant during the 'tough times'. This is not only for me, but anyone who checks this message out can add things to their list of useful items that they had not considered. If a lot people give me feedback then we will all be more prepared and will be able to inform others ahead of time. However, if we just sit around a talk about what is necessary in 'tough times' we will be kicking ourselves later. So go out and buy this stuff while it is still cheap.

kelee877 · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:12 am Post subject:

AS for the fishing poles..if I had to I would use a stick and opt out for more line and hooks..
lately for the normal things I have had to do it seems I have an over abundance of plastic containers..
Thermas,s I have 2 for each in the family handy for our canoe trips..
Old clothing in garbage bags and needles and thread..and yard for darning..

kelee877 · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:23 am Post subject:

oops thought I had posted ..you have 2 on the go here..lol..need another coffee at this end...

MacG · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 1169

For my climate with snow in the winters:

Shoes! Preferably army surplus which can be repaired.

Insulated gloves.

A couple of showels and other gardening tools. A prying bar. Hand tools to dismantle cars. There is a lot of really useful stuff in a car.

For a transition period: Rice, pasta, conserved meat, outdoor meals, flour, sugar, SALT, a camping stowe and 10 gal of fuel....

Bas · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:30 am Post subject:

I was wondering; What food can be stored the longest?

zigzagbarry · Coal Joined: Jul 27, 2005 Posts: 6

You would also need a lot of jars with spare seals to keep all that stuff fresh

mikeh433 · Heavy Crude Joined: Jan 25, 2006 Posts: 201

Only been at this prep business for a month. Started by not throwing out any bottles or containers - at least until the place is overflowing. No problem of that soon. Started a composter in tub on apartment balconey - experimental, but I started plants and want all organic material. I even "borrowed" a couple bushels of wood chip mulch bull dozed into a big pile at nearby construction site. Windows are huge and get full south sun. So I've got 18 planters growning. Anyway I figure waste not, want not... Feel comfortable with that.

Waste galore is what leads to this problem, so start by not wasting.

strider3700

Being a natural horder/junk collector I keep lots of things.

Emergency housing supplies tucked into my crawl space. Things like foam insulation, rolls of poly and some plywood to quickly fix broken windows.

Some roofing shingles but really I'm concerned about what to do with my roof long term.

I have a box of various plumbing fittings and electrical connections.

In the shed there are gardening tools, rakes, shovels, clippers, hatchets(reminds me I need a good chopping axe and a splitting axe soon)

I never know what I'm going to end up building so if any piece of wood is longer then 3 feet it gets saved, smaller then that and it usually becomes firewood.

If I had a safe place to keep it I'd also be keeping old glass.

oh I have a 50lb box of 3" common and a box of 2" common nails. always useful. I also never throw away screws of any size the small buggers can be hard to find.

I don't have to worry about getting water, I have to worry about too much of it getting to the wrong places so a couple of tubes of silicone are always around.

For regular house hold stuff I live in a modestly chilly area so a good sleeping bag for everyone in the house was high on my list of things to collect.
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pedalling_faster · Intermediate Crude Joined: Dec 10, 2005 Posts: 768

this has been on my mind too.

a lot of washing machines & dryers have a real good electric generator inside. (the motor)

every hard drive has a few supermagnets inside (very useful if you're trying to make electricity, very energy intensive to fabricate)

getting back to containers for water storage, there is a major functional difference between these 2 containers.

it's really difficult to wash out the area of the handle in the container on the right. trust me, i got food poisoning from just such a container. i was using a half-gallon milk container to mix up my DAILY HEALTH DRINK, but, even though i followed my chemical engineer father's dictum of "rinsing 3 times", it wasn't enough.

the container on the left is a lot easier to clean before water storage.

of course, there might be some caveat, i haven't researched the materials used in these particular containers. perhaps the container on the left turns into napalm when exposed to sunlight, or UV light.

but, in the mean time, albertson's & ralph's & cala foods are selling 1/2 gallons of mediocre apple juice for $1 each.

throwing away plastic is like throwing away energy !

well, a lot of things, when you throw them away, you are throwing away the energy used to make them, but ... that's a separate (and related) subject.

Dukat_Reloaded · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jul 31, 2005 Posts: 1005

I have a very strong stomach, I was sick from food posioning when I was 8 years old and since then I have never suffered from food posioning ever again, and I eat alot of questionable stuff and most of it is out of date (Place were I work throw out lots out of date items, I take home and eat). I think pedalling_faster you might need to increase your bodies resistance to microbes. I myself would never get sick from drinking out of an unclean container (what is yoru health drink btw?). From what I understand of microbes, a plate of food sitting out on a bench in the tempature range of 20-60c should grow microbes and double every hour. So to build up resistance, leave a plate of food out for 1 hour and then eat, slowly each day increase the time you leave the food out until you feel slightly ill from the food, now slightly back off the time left out and use this as your base to build your bodies defences up and after afew weeks you should be able to continue to increase the time the food is left out again.

Schneider

For water storage,i use 2 liters Coca-Cola bottles Smile

!

Since we are 3 here to drink a bit of it,it doesn't take long to have plenty of bottles..

Why 2L soda bottles !? Hey,theses bottles are designed to resist a huge internal pressure (the CO2 inside) and to resist the attack of his acid content !

I have a water supply of 2 weeks for 3 people,with 1gallon/day per person..

And they don't take a lot of space !

Schneider
French-Canadian
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markam · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 271 Location: PA

frankthetank

rinse it out with a little bleach water.

drinking bleach will NOT build up a resistance to anything... Smile