What prep items did you get recently?

All American 915 Pressure caner. Now we can can meat for stews and don't have to rely as heavy on the freezer.

Archeryrob said:

All American 915 Pressure caner. Now we can can meat for stews and don't have to rely as heavy on the freezer.

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Did you find one used or are they back in stock?

The wife ordered it back in August and it just showed up a week ago. She ordered it through pleasant hill grain but they show out of stock again. Amazon says they have them.

Archeryrob said:

All American 915 Pressure caner. Now we can can meat for stews and don't have to rely as heavy on the freezer.

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That would honestly be my plan if the grid went down and looked like it was going to stay down for a long time. I’ve got sufficient spare ball and weck jars to can most of the meat in my freezer and fridges. More than enough propane to run my bayou burner to get it all done. Better than losing 100lbs of venison.

My recent prep item was a new generator. Had a 3.5kw surge, 3.2kw constant load generator from the last house. Much smaller house and only a couple of circuits on the genny panel. Well pump bogged it down badly when it would kick on, but it was wired 120v, not 240v and I never got around to changing it over. Only a .75hp well pump.

This house has a 1hp well pump, but 240v. Never run it long as we haven’t had the power to down for long in the year and a half we have been here. But I wired it so the main panel is on a generator interlock, so most of the house gets power (it’s dual service, only one panel is on the generator, but most stuff is on that panel. The electric range, dryer, A/C compressors and a few minor branch circuits are on the other panel. )

Anyway, finally wired in watt meters to the panel for the generator. Everything seems fairly balanced between the phases. Base load seems to run about 500-600w, fluctuating as low as 350w. It CAN run at least one of the fridges compressors running, well pump and the oil boiler with both central air compressors along with the house base load. But that’s tipping the scales at around 2500-2700w. Uncomfortably high for me. If the 2nd fridge compressor kicks on, decent chance the generator won’t be able to handle it. Certainly not if the freezer runs when both fridges are running and all of the above.

Not exactly like common, but I could still see how it could end up happening once or twice a day, which can’t be good for the generator stalling out or tripping the breaker on it.

Anyway, got a Westinghouse 5300dfv from Sam’s club. Similar the the df model, but no electric start, pull start only, but you get a voltage, frequency, hour display in return, which I’d rather have.

IIRC 4800w running, 5300w peak on propane. Way more than enough to handle the typical load for my house with overhead (I’ve got oil/wood heat and for heating water). Part of it was I wanted to be able to run a 2000w microwave in a generator and not ensure it was the ONLY thing running. Might have to switch to gas power to do that if a bunch of other stuff is running (5300w running, 6,600 peak on gasoline).

Other selling point, if the manufacturer’s claims are true, it’s noticeably more efficient than most other basic residential generators. 13.5hrs on 4.7 gallons of gas at half load. Most vaguely similar generators are getting in the 12hr range from similar size tanks. Propane run time is also better than similar sized gennys.

Not going to be as efficient as an inverter generator still since my base load is like 10% of the generator max (traditional generators usually only outperform inverter generators once you hit around 25% load IIRC and that kind of load isn’t going to be the most common. Like in an hour in the winter time I’d bet I’d run 400-600w for 30 minutes out of every hour, maybe 800-1200w for 15 minutes, 10 minutes at around 1500-1800w and maybe 5 minutes up around 2000-3000w with a rare peak above that.

Anyway, generator showed. Need to unbox it and run it up tomorrow. Also got another 20lb propane bottle. Only had two, plus a couple 30lb bottles. Thinking of getting a pair of 40lb bottles at some point to sit on a small pad right next to my garage side door where I have my generator hookup. Building a small pad/deck next to the side walk and then they can sit there under cover. Should be about 3 days of fuel running the thing constantly for a pair of 40lb bottles (at least 2 days if my estimate of partial load endurance is wrong just based on 50% load run time on propane and guessing what it would be at a 10-20% average load efficiency).

But no way I’d run it constantly. Even in happy times it would be more like 10-17hrs on, 7-14hrs off (like 7-8am on and then off around 6-10pm). So maybe 5 days of fuel before dipping in to anything else.

Scary times (but could still run it), 2-3hrs per day max. Higher load while it was running. That’s probably 2+ weeks of fuel.

Plus I’ve got 22 gallons of gas in cans. Plus can siphon the cars, mower and the other generator is gassed up also.

Actually I should consider sinking a small steel post above the height of the deck in one of the piers I put in. Something I could lock the generator to if I ever did need to run it over night. Fairly nice neighborhood and rural-ish. Not so nice if things weren’t looking good someone might not try to take it for a ride.

Also would only run the smaller one completely unattended over night (doing less stuff, lower load means unlikely it would ever get overwhelmed.

Nah, haven’t over thought this one at all.

Went to a estate yesterday at a farm and it wasn't a yard sale kind , Lots of farm equipment , shop equipment , not much of that I could use but I bid on a group of cast iron skillets , Dutch ovens . They need to be cleaned and seasoned again . Their was a Cast Iron 2 plate wood burning little stove too that will heat my work shop and I can stop using propane in there

lazarus said:

Anyway, finally wired in watt meters to the panel for the generator.

Anyway, generator showed. Need to unbox it and run it up tomorrow. Also got another 20lb propane bottle. Only had two, plus a couple 30lb bottles. Thinking of getting a pair of 40lb bottles at some point to sit on a small pad right next to my garage side door where I have my generator hookup. Building a small pad/deck next to the side walk and then they can sit there under cover. Should be about 3 days of fuel running the thing constantly for a pair of 40lb bottles (at least 2 days if my estimate of partial load endurance is wrong just based on 50% load run time on propane and guessing what it would be at a 10-20% average load efficiency).


ll.

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What watt meters did you use. Mine gen only has freq and voltage.

I just ordered a 40lb bottle from Home Depot for $76 (just over $80 with tax) and free shipping.

Is it my imagination or has the price of TP doubled , i have never bought it before this year and really never paid attention to any price but boy it is off the chain .

welder516 said:

Is it my imagination or has the price of TP doubled , i have never bought it before this year and really never paid attention to any price but boy it is off the chain .

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I think we just paid around $27 at Costco. I thinks that just a few bucks from what we were paying a year ago.

Just grabbed a 5500 watt dual fuel generator. Plan is to mount an external 30A plug for it. Next I just need to grab a couple more large propane tanks.

And the wife and I have been doubling up on the TP purchases at costco by just standing in line separately. We have a solid tower of TP building lol.

lazarus said:

That would honestly be my plan if the grid went down and looked like it was going to stay down for a long time. I’ve got sufficient spare ball and weck jars to can most of the meat in my freezer and fridges. More than enough propane to run my bayou burner to get it all done. Better than losing 100lbs of venison.

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This is our thinking also. If anything went down for more than a week, you just can't sustain with a generator. You can only store so much gas and if the grid was down they aren't pumping you any at the gas station either. I have a generator and If it's more than just storm relief for power problems. As a real SHTF type thing, I see them as a blinking light for the "have not's" sort of like a sign "We got plenty" and painting a target on you.

We lost 9 whole chickens we grew last year because a refrigerator/freezer went bad. So this time might kill those roosters and make a 21 quart canning pot of chicken veggie soup and ladled in to quarts and pressure can them. Put up some front shoulder, neck and trim from the next butchers in to raw pack jars. Maybe pack some venison stews or stroganoff without thickening and noodles and add them when you open the jar.

My daughters already, "When are you building the Canning shelves?" All I got it, "Soon, its hunting season. We can store some on the floor in boxes for now."

I've seen those weck jars but they look expensive. I like the idea of that, but didn't like the ball lids with plastic lids and gaskets, as i though the lids would stain. Did you find the wecks cheap anywhere?

welder516 said:

Is it my imagination or has the price of TP doubled , i have never bought it before this year and really never paid attention to any price but boy it is off the chain .

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In addition to being more expensive, I was at Costco today and they were back to only 1 pack per customer. Those signs weren't up when I was there two weeks ago.

I'm pretty much going to the grocery store every other morning and buying stuff.

I get what we need for whatever recipes we're working on, then target one part of the store for items to stock up on. Makes it so much easier to put things away when I get home to just have one "type" of stuff to store at a time.

Still no limits in stores. Stock up while you can.

My...but those are pretty colored bullets! Sierra...Barnes...?

welder516 said:

Is it my imagination or has the price of TP doubled , i have never bought it before this year and really never paid attention to any price but boy it is off the chain .

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I think my last count, I have 255 rolls of TP and 160 or so rolls of paper towels.

Uncivil Disobedience said:

Still no limits in stores. Stock up while you can.

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Or, .. you can just buy candles at the dollar store, or keep a kerosene lamp in the garage cabinet, as i do. The 5 gallons of kerosene will light that lamp a long time.

My wife is funny , i told her to start stocking up two months ago ...So she gets one extra can of tuna or an extra soup ... I go once a week and add to her part .

Blaster229 said:

I think my last count, I have 255 rolls of TP and 160 or so rolls of paper towels.

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We have about 50 rolls , plus i have at our company 100 rolls or so . I stock up at our company with water and all the other important items .

welder516 said:

My wife is funny , i told her to start stocking up two months ago ...So she gets one extra can of tuna or an extra soup ... I go once a week and add to her part .

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It is amazing, however, that if you adopt the mindset of for every can of something you open you have to buy two to replace it, how fast the stuff adds up.

Norton said:

It is amazing, however, that if you adopt the mindset of for every can of something you open you have to buy two to replace it, how fast the stuff adds up.

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I think she is smarter then me in some sense , she knows i use my money to buy all the extras .


I spend about 100.00 to 150.00 a week . Our food stock is decent though not like some here but good .