NEEPS

Maria

When thinking about Peak Oil, and what we might need during a decline in cheap energy, hoarding is one of those things I think about. Yet I can't claim to do much about! I'm not an alarmist person and greatly believe in providence and reaping what you sow. I suppose this is why thoughts of hoarding drift through my mind - but never settle long enough for me to act seriously on them. One of our members has just shared a website on oil depletion and a section on the 'solutions' page says...

andybebbington · Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 7:22 pm Post subject:

Should we hoard? do you?

I do hence the big list on the emporium and i have not even started looking at what fishing tackle engines etc i have to get rid of i have a cupboard full of tackle at home thats my own - and god knows what at the fishery i mean is there any need for 6 fly rods aswell as the ones i have at the fishery? esp as you can only use one at a time

As for things like candles we have enough t lights to light a village and boots i hit the sale at the spotty bag shop and got 8 pairs of work boots i will prob never get through.

now my nan she is a master hoarder, when i take her home after christmas i will visit asda,tesco, lidl and aldi and get her shopping, she has a min of 6 months food in incase the weathers bad and she can not get to the shops she panics if the bleech and washing up liquid levels drop below 6 bottles of each. her shed is packed with stuff, she has prunes every day so 2-3 times a year i have to go to asda for 4 trays of prunes and 2 of irish stew we then have to visit lidl for 20 tins of milk powder, you can never have enough in and it wont go off!
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Smooth Hound · Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject:

it makes sense, its what i do, but i havent got to the aspirins, or rice yet, im working on it,

my brain thinks the same way, im not sure if it good or bad

but my instincts and beliefs tell me to hoard stuff like that.

Smooth Hound · Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 7:48 pm Post subject:

i even have a 350 engine here that will run on alchol, and you can make that

Ina · Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 11:10 am Post subject:

hoarding's all very well if you have a large house to keep the stuff in - safe from deterioration, too. Looking at the number of times I have moved house in my life, traveling light seems the better option!
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Ina

lachlanandmarcus · Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 8:46 pm Post subject:

My dear husband has what he calls his 'nuclear store' of unappetising tins of stew and tinned haggis. Quite why he thinks these tins will miraculously escape contamination in the event of a nuclear strike is something he has not yet been in a position to explain.

He gets around the storage issue by filling up the storage lockers in the living area of our old horsebox with the booty

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Martin · Neepster Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 663

Having grown up with a father who was a past master at "make do and mend", I find it terribly difficult to throw anything away in case it may prove useful - as to quite when I'll be using a 1940's Seagull outboard and a box full of Primus type paraffin stoves I'm not sure........but I'm hanging onto them (and several tons of other detritus) "just in case"

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http://solarwind.org.uk

JamesB · Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 11:49 pm Post subject:

Ive thought about this many times. My current list of must have items is

1) A manual water pump, like the ones you see in India. Our current water supply is pvt and completely dependent on electricity. A nice simple manual pump would be ideal for backup, doesn't have to connect to the existing pipework at present. We have a inline ceramic filter at the moment for drinking water but in the caravan we had a gravity fed 2 container ceramic filter system which worked well enough and we'll keep as backup.
2) A lot of rice, once we have our utility room sorted, I'll be ordering a 25kg bag of rice
3) A gun, partly for defence and partly for free meat in the form of rabbits. Obviously anything beyond a airgun requires a license at present so it might take me a while to do the training and get a license. It is rather worrying when one looks at investing and some people say the really smart money is going to weapons manufacturer since conflict on some scale is unavoidable in the future as oil becomes more expensive (note, it will never really run out, just become more and more expensive, there lots of oil out there is you are willing to pay the high cost of extraction)
4) Self dependent fuel source. At the moment we have about 2 years of wood stacked up and we have planted 3 acres of woodland to provide for the future but will need 10 years I reckon for this to be of any use!
5)Self contained electricity generation. Solar electricity for lighting. Still a while off for us. We are also considering a wind turbine but again a while off. As long as we have wood then not really a priority.

On hindsight I wish i'd made our solar hot water gravity fed, it would of been more awkward to make the tank higher than the solar panel but possible. Hopefully will replace the 240V pump eventually with a solar one aka solartwin (although I dont like their solar panel designs).

OUr house relies on electricity for ventilation but doesn't require much. Could just open the window slightly if we get long power cuts. Yes i kow about passive stacks for ventilation and I guess we could adapt in time but for a true passiv haus then it is difficult to achieve the sort of heat retention required without using a powered ventilation system.

Whilst Im not too pessimistic about the future (maybe reading my list people might think otherwise!) but I do think that within my lifetime we will see some major shocks in food/energy/employment/lifestyle and to me it makes sense to think about the what ifs. A friend of mine said you'll be ok since you now have land but i said well if its gets really bad it will just get taken over by the goverment in some form of enforced nationalisation!

James
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JamesB
Mintlaw area

Maria · Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:57 pm Post subject:

Smooth Hound · Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 6:22 pm Post subject:

im sort of expecting them to have killed each other before they reach me, but who knows

thats the theives im talking about