I made some splurge purchases today due to having a coupon about to expire. I think that makes me a consumer.

To Do - Old

  • Find a temperature sensor to put on the outside of the refrigerator - two of them: freezer and refrigerator side.
  • Get 4 more 5-gallon gas cans - need one extra to mix special fuel for the generator in
  • Buy 1500W peak inverter
  • Buy generator
  • Find battery charger
  • Buy trailer hitch and cargo carrier
  • Get extra 5 gallon water jugs
  • Research pricing on sandbags
  • Find new storm shutter company

Temperature Sensor

I found this temperature sensor on Amazon for $10. It’s not wireless, but I didn’t want to pay $30 for this one. I’ll put this one inside the refrigerator on a normal day and see what max and min temperatures it reaches. Then, I’ll start lowering the coldness setting on the refrigerator and record the maxes and mins for a few days, then switch it over to the freezer and do the same. I’ll correlate this with the power usage of the refrigerator over that period. Depending what I find, I’ll do a single test at a desirable temperature setting where I fill the refrigerator and freezer empty space with frozen water. Then, I’ll have to figure out how to determine how long it takes to cool down. Then, I should be able to determine how often and for how long the refrigerator needs to be on to maintain a safe temperature under normal usage conditions and when filled with ice (that I swap out ever 12 hours or so).

Inverter

I bought a 1KW continuous / 2KW peak inverter from Harbor Freight today. I’d link it but it’s not even on their website. I can’t find it anywhere. I have a bit of a bad feeling, but I have 90 days to return it. I decided to go up in wattage from my previous 750W/1500W inverter for two reasons:

  1. I will need more power than I think
  2. I had a 25% off coupon - this brought it down to $60 instead of $32 for the 750W. It’s more, but this was the most affordable and powerful (in that order)

This should have no problem with powering the refrigerator (even if those odd 6A readings when the compressor was off are true). If it can’t power the air conditioner, neither can the generator (and I’m fairly sure it should be able to, but I won’t know until I find one).

Air Conditioner

Haven’t found one yet. I’m considering buying a cheap one new ($115 or so). I have a 24” window which seems to be the minimum size for most air conditioners. I still have to check out the local appliance warehouse.

Car Hitch and Cargo Carrier

The whole reason behind this shopping trip was to get the good deal on the cargo carrier that I wanted. I have wanted a cargo carrier for quite some time. We already have a roof bag for our car and tie-down straps to secure it. Since we’re not typing it down to my car, I bought some tie-down protectors to protect the paint job on my wife’s car. Those are 1/4” neoprene squares 6”x6”. It says they’re also useful for sound dampening - that might be worth a try as well. Maybe if I like it I should look for a cheap source of neoprene to soundproof all of my noisy appliances.

But the cargo carrier is another matter. We can pack a lot into the roof bag, but since I have to put everything up there myself I prefer we keep lighter items there. The cargo carrier will work well for heavy things and we can pack 500lb on to it. I’m thinking gas cans, coolers, maybe water (it would get pretty hot out there).

I’ll need to make sure to bring a tarp to cover the contents of the carrier. It’s only like 4’x18” or something. I only have large tarps right now. I may have to find a small one.

The other beautiful thing about this whole setup is that it fits on my car too. We usually take my car camping (much to its detriment) and this adds significant storage space to an hefty car. Plus, now my wife’s car can tow our bikes as well.

Water

It occurs to me that we will need water if we’re stuck for a while. I have a plan.

I will start off by buying 3 extra 5-gallon containers full of water before the hurricane. In fact, I may want to do that as soon as possible. They should keep for all of hurricane season. Maybe I can build a PVC rack for them! They should store fine in the back room.

I recently installed a reverse osmosis system to fill 5-gallon water jugs under our wet bar sink. It can fill a 5-gallon just in a few hours. Before I continue I need to stop. I know what the first thought that popped into your head was. ‘Does a reverse osmosis filter make any water drinkable?’ Then you thought, ‘I’ll file that under the In Case of Emergency list. I want to stress to anyone who is foolish enough to follow my advice: when your water supply is contaminated by bacteria, poisons, heavy metals, etc. your reverse osmosis filter will not make it drinkable. You may be crying foul: reverse osmosis generates the purest water imaginable, right? Answer: I don’t know. And even if I did know, I wouldn’t know for sure - not enough to stake my life on it. And even if I was completely sure I was right I know that only a well-maintained reverse osmosis filter would do the trick. I know my limits: maintenance is not one of my strong suits. My filter works well enough when there’s already cleaned, filtered and sanitized city water coming into it and when it’s fairly new. But if a hurricane doesn’t come this year or next year or the next then I’ll have a 4 year old filter on my hands that needed to be replaced a few months ago. And THEN the hurricane will hit and I won’t be sure if my reverse osmosis filter is even working anymore.

Why is this a big deal? Diahrrea. Diahrrea kills you if you’re far from medical care over an extended period of time, lack safe sources of water and there’s literally no escape from the sun and heat. That sounds exactly like the aftermath of a hurricane. You’re much safer not taking chances with your water if you don’t have to. Your first line of defense is to store water. 5-gallon jugs are good, or you can go with this.

If push comes to shove and I run out of water and I can’t leave (or there’d be no clean water where I was going either) here’s what I’d do:

  1. I’d hook the reverse osmosis (RO) filter up to our well connection. The well connection is for our sprinklers and since it comes from the aquifer, it’s under pressure. It’s not a lot of pressure, but it might suffice for the filter. If not, I have to find a pump. Normally the stuff smells terribly, but the reverse osmosis filter should take care of that.
  2. Fill 5-gall jugs from the RO.
  3. Use bleach (40 drops per 5 gallons) to sterilize it. Iodine works for some microorganisms. There’s also UV light but I don’t know enough to recommend it.
  4. Let it sit for a while in the sun for extra confidence
  5. (If I’m super scared or know that there’s cholera or dysentery or something around) Boil everything we use for handwashing, teeth brushing and drinking for a few minutes

This would be a lot of hot water. I wonder how much a standalone ice maker is and how much power it uses.

Shelter

Our shelter will be my workshop - it’s roughly 10’x10’, all concrete and has single-hung windows. In fact, it’s the windows that make all the difference: they’re the only place we can mount an air conditioner that has any hope of cooling the space we’re sleeping in. We could have gone for a portable A/C unit that uses a duct to spit the heat out - then we’d have a lot more options for where we could stay. However, we would still have to air condition an inefficient amount of area, and we’d need a more powerful air conditioner. This would necessitate a bigger inverter or a larger generator and it would balloon our costs. The key to success in this venture is to limit your scope to what’s manageable. The workshop is full of crap, but I’m working to get a lot of it out of there.

The problem is that the only entrance to my shop is a garage door. This means I have to build a wall with a door that people can go in and out of without letting every single cool breeze out for the front of my shop. I’m handy with 2x4’s and screws so I think I can do it. I’ll make the frame with 2x4’s and use some nice (cheap? thick?) plywood for the exterior walls. My opening is roughly 6’, so for a 3ft door that would mean 2 roughly 1.5’ wide frames with plywood on them. I could probably store those in the attic. The door wouldn’t be too hard - just make a basic barn door. Maybe the outside piece of plywood could rest over top of the exterior plywood and we could throw some weather stripping around it to help seal in the cold. We can latch it from the inside and secure the frame into the concrete with concrete screws. A real door would mean we could avoid going to the bathroom in a bucket in the corner at night.

Another benefit of this is that it allows us to close the garage door and still be covered by two layers: the exterior plywood and the garage door inside of it. If another hurricane strikes (or the same one strikes us twice - don’t laugh it’s happened) then we may need to hole up in the workshop with enough water and power to wait out the storm (8 hours?). It’s all concrete other than the garage door and the two windows, so it should be very safe.

Bathroom

We have a half bath in our entry way which is pretty close to the garage and the workshop we’ll be staying in if things go south. I can keep a 5-gallon bucket of water in there with a hand transfer pump to fill up the tank after each flush. We’ll conserve flushes of course (when we can) and probably wash our hands in the bucket water. The RO system has a waste water line out - it can fill the buckets or we can fill them direct from the well faucet. As long as the tank is full and nothing’s blocked, the toilet flushes right? The question is, if the sewers get backed up from excessive rain….

Well, we have a field next to our house and an abandoned golf course across the street. And I have a shovel. I’m not above this.

Hygiene

Assuming the water is out or dangerous, we’ll use one of these (solar shower bags)[http://amzn.to/2rPOehP] to heat up water for hot showers. We have a half-wall stall where the well faucet is - that’s a perfect place for it. Lots of concrete so I can screw a tall pole into the concrete to hold the bag. Maybe if we’re lucky the pressure from the well will reach up to the bag and we can leave it - just fill the bag by turning a valve when we’re done with our shower. There’s even a drain in that area, but it just goes out to the lawn. Not too bad though, but we might need some extra privacy. Also, there’s a lot of stones stored there that I’ll have to organize or remove.

Alternately, we can put it on the pool deck or on the concrete slab outside of the workshop where we’ll be staying. Wherever there’s more privacy.

To Do

  • Move/organize stones around shower area
  • Design and build frame and door for workshop
  • Research standalone ice maker
  • Get 4 more 5-gallon gas cans - need one extra to mix special fuel for the generator in
  • Get extra 5 gallon water jugs
  • Build a PVC rack for the water jugs
  • Research pricing on sandbags
  • Find new storm shutter company
  • Find cheap source of neoprene
  • Buy an air conditioner

Costs So Far

  • 1KW Inverter - Harbor Freight: $60 (after 25% off coupon)
  • Generator - Harbor Freight: $89
  • Car Hitch - Amazon: $114
  • Cargo Carrier - Harbor Freight: $40
  • Tie-Down Protectors - Amazon: $13
  • Temperature Sensor - Amazon: $10

Total: $326