What Preps are you doing this week? Part 9

[Stonecarver]

As mentioned before we are preparing ready to eat meals and freezing them
Due to possibilty of power cuts I bought a 10kg bag of flour and put in top part of chest freezer. This will act as a sort of freezer blanket for contents underneath the bag. Does anyone know if people will be told WHEN they are having electricity cut off

[PreppingPingu]

My preps this week have to make more room in the kitchen for food storage, to buy a bit extra this week - used the last of my olive oil stocks and almost fell off my perch when I bought some this week. I have made some soups to freeze but hedged my bets and bought more tinned soup too. My other main prep is to get re familiar with my slow cooker - far cheaper to run that the electric oven as has been mentioned on this board somewhere already. The other week I took delivery of 2m SQ of wood for the log burner before everyone starts buying and prices going up and the quality of wood goes down. Got a nice lot of Ash I may invest in a rechargeable mini chain saw. Keep that in the car for after a windy day! I am already picking up random stuff on dog walk, nothing big but if you do that most days, it all helps.

[GillyBee]

We held the first of what will be a weekly family meeting to discuss winter preps/energy/supply issues etc. With 4 adults in the house I need eveyone onboard with saving energy and being sensible. It went better than expected. They are already on board with my prepping habits and have adopted a lot of every day prepper habits already.

[PreppingPingu]

We held the first of what will be a weekly family meeting to discuss winter preps/energy/supply issues etc. With 4 adults in the house I need eveyone onboard with saving energy and being sensible. It went better than expected. They are already on board with my prepping habits and have adopted a lot of every day prepper habits already.

Yes hubby and I had a proper prepping chat re the current situation. As when the pandemic was looming but not quite here, hubby said said, "yeah, it might be worth getting a bit extra in!"

[Frnc]

I've just been checking my boiler manual for the settings to turn the temperature down. Had to get it online as I just have the installation manuals.
Also the Legionaires temps.
Then I turned the hot tap on a bit and watched the boiler temp for a bit.
You need the water in the actual boiler to be about 60 to kill Legionaires.

20° or less – Legionella survives, but in a dormant state

20° to 45° – Legionella will grow rapidly

50° – Most Legionella bacteria will die within hours

60° – Most Legionella will die within minutes

70° – All Legionella bacteria will die instantly

Manual says 1 o'clock on the hot water dial. I turned it 1-2 to be safe. This is the temp it leaves the boiler, whch can be cooler. It only needs to be 60 inside the boiler. Then I assume it's mixed with cold depending on the dial settings.
Boiler temp was cycling between 57 and 65.

I turned the heating dial right down for summer setting. Autumn is 10-11 o'clock, mild winter is 1-2 o'clock, harsh is 2-3 o'clock. Mine was close to 3 permanently in the past.

[pseudonym]

Bought another axe:

https://www.diy.com/departments/magnuss ... 446_BQ.prd

[jansman]

Lure fishing tomorrow, so pike and perch. It’ll be a check to see the count. Just in case food gets scarce. Also an observation of game to take with gun or catapult.

Fungus is the game now. Parasols ,and ( I noticed) chicken in the woods up in some trees I pass.

[ForgeCorvus]

Bought another axe:

https://www.diy.com/departments/magnuss ... 446_BQ.prd

I'm not a fan of that type as a working axe, however as a mini-maul they aren't too bad.

Good price too

[pseudonym]

Bought another axe:

https://www.diy.com/departments/magnuss ... 446_BQ.prd

I'm not a fan of that type as a working axe, however as a mini-maul they aren't too bad.

Good price too

I've had the gransfors, always babied them. With this I'm not that worried. The last year or so I have got the most work out of an Aldi Maul and sledge combo

[GadgetGal]

Inset wood burner/multi fuel stove being installed next week.

Bought 2 cu mtrs of wood & a ton of heat logs + some kindling - should last at least 2-3 months (hopefully longer - I haven't had a log burner before so I don't know how much fuel I will need + it depends on how cold the winter is.

Researching what I can cook inside the wood burner - no top to speak of so that's out. (I needed the space in the lounge and I didn't relish having to make the fireplace bigger, hence not having a free standing stove.)

I've 'brushed off' my Cobb cooker and got some fuel for that - I can now keep warm and cook if we have power outages which is quite possible.

Started a food store - some freeze dried (from Fuel Your Preparation), some home dehydrated and some tins. ... Oh, and some dog food ... my 4-legged companion needs to eat too! (I did consider buying a freeze dryer but they are mega expensive, £6-7K, and have to be imported from the USA AND you still need to buy the food and pay for the electricity. I'm no 'spring chicken' so wouldn't recoup the outlay of a FD in my lifetime! Buying #10 tins isn't cheap but costs a lot less than buying the FD.)

Got a little bit of bottled water + a couple of filters.

Bluetti power banks + solar panels - the latter won't be much use in the winter but I can keep the power banks fully charged in case of outages using mains electric. These are expensive but long term preps! Got USB/solar chargeable lights & low wattage appliances.

Got my thermal cooker/'hay box' ready.

Got a wind-up radio.

Got some fleecy bedding & warm clothes.

In the process of building a good first aid kit.

Changed my car to a petrol/self charging hybrid.

Got some good books to read and brushing off my knitting machines (don't want to get bored ).

What have I forgotten that's important???