hot weather prep

[debbor]

I know its freezing outside now, but my question is .....
any ideas as to how we keep cool and keep food cool if the power goes out during the hot months please? especially if people are keeping prepped foods in lofts or sheds etc which suffer extremes of hot and cold during the year.
is it worth keeping a few jumbo rolls of tin foil handy to reflect away excessive sunlight or heat ?

can we prep for a off grid home made cool store for houses / flats in urban areas, I was thinking about maybe getting some granite w/top cut into a box shape and keeping the pieces (sort of flat pack 1m sq) and then bringing this out if and when needed , no chance of "pantry type storage" at my location. or is that just mad ?

debbor

[poppypiesdad]

Nope not mental at all , when we build our new house we did a pantry , no underfloor heating, ventilated , and no Windows and it's on the north face of the house , so that we had an old style pantry . It's at a constant 10° and thermally insulated.

Would you need to build it outside?

Cheaper than granite would be 40mm concrete slabs in either 2x2 or 3x2 size

J

[ForgeCorvus]

Have you looked at Zeer Pots?

The quantity of Granite you'd need for what you're suggesting might prove a bit costly, concrete would work.... If fact it would work better as its porious and can be 'damped down' so it cools by evaporation rather then just being a thermal mass.

Also google 'passive cooling'

[jansman]

I built an American style root cellar last year as I grew so much stuff I needed somewhere to keep it all. It is basically a brick lined hole in the ground 6' long by 3' wide ( over which an old door sits-convenient that!) and it is 3' deep. It holds a steady temperature of 9 degrees c in Summer as I made sure it is in the shade. Even now nothing is frozen out there , though I did drop straw in there tobe sure. When you bear in mind that EU food safety regs stipulate a temperature of no more than 8 degrees C for high risk foods, that is pretty good.
Of course, you do not need to start digging down to the Earth's core like me the old boy down the road here has his ' emergency fridge' outside too. It is a big old clay plant pot sunk in the ground near his kitchen wall with a clay lid on top. He used it in the 70's to keep milk in when we had the power cuts.

[featherstick]

Yep, clay pots work. I use them on the allotment to keep the milk cool during summer. I might get a bigger one as a prep/supplement to the fridge.

[diamond lil]

My parents never had a fridge in their lives far less a freezer. You don't need granite worktops though, you only need an old fashioned pantry withe shelves, on the north side of the house. Use clay or ceramic tiles to line the wooden shelves, and wrap things in wet muslin. The Victorian cookery/housekeeping books have loads of ideas.

[nickdutch]

With any dehydrated foods, the concern is mould surely. If its vacuum packed that risk could be pretty much eliminated. With dry foods such as rice and beans things could be different unless it's properly packaged which many of us haven't done ( )

My only milk at the moment is soya milk and rice milk and i make that myself hot and wait for it to cool before consuming it, so it needn't have to be kept ice cold.

Yes I am still using a margarine and thats a bugger, but I do intend to have more coconut oil based stuff that won't require much refrigeration if at all once I have that sorted.

Yes I keep fresh veggies in the fridge so there is a need to find a way of keeping the leafy greens cool when I am out of power, but I can't go and remodel the flat just for my kale. I intend to start dehydrating kale this summer.

So, yes, I am vulnerable to a power cut of any duration, but I hope I can use the whole flowerpot and sand fridge using the flowerpots I use for flowerpot heaters in the winter if there is a power cut.

Useful things, flowerpots..... now where am I gonna get some sand?

[ForgeCorvus]

Useful things, flowerpots..... now where am I gonna get some sand?

B&Q

[debbor]

clay pots ,
well who would have thought it....

Thanks to all you guys.

Debbor

[grenfell]

Reminds me of a recent episode of extreme cheapskates . On that a family had buried their freezer when it packed up lying on it's back with the door at ground level. Kept a constant cool temperature despite the warm weather.