The Practical Preppers Complete Guide to Disaster Preparedness by Scott Hunt

Author:Scott Hunt [Hunt, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466859241
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

MY DIESEL GENERATOR

I am a fan of diesel generators that run at 1800 rpms because they typically have the longest service life. They also allow you more fuel options as we discussed (here).

Overall, generators are great tools to weather a storm. My personal setup has provided clean electricity for over 1,600 hours or over two months’ worth of 24/7 power. During one ice storm I ran my diesel generator for seven days straight. It is a 2-cylinder diesel running at 1800 rpms. I find that a 2–3 cylinder 12,000-watt diesel generator strikes a good balance between having plenty of power and great fuel economy. I run twenty-four hours on eight gallons of diesel. Many residential standby systems use about 1.5 gallons per hour, or thirty-six gallons a day. That is quite a difference. You need to plan your expected time of usage and your storage accordingly. Make sure you can easily start and stop your generator. This allows you to run it only when necessary and greatly conserves your fuel supply.

Batteries

Batteries are energy-storage devices and instead of talking about them in the fuel-storage section I wanted them sandwiched between generators and photovoltaic (or solar) systems as they are the two most widely used methods for charging batteries in a grid-down situation. The batteries I will mention start with the small 50-cent coin batteries and will progress to a $40,000 Ni-FE 48 volt off-grid battery bank that will last a lifetime.

Stocking up on batteries is a must. Once you start practicing using your preparations you start to realize how many batteries you need. Batteries and battery-operated devices allow you to have effective defensive measures. There are many combat or force multipliers that rely on battery power. Without them you will need a lot more manpower and thus a lot more food and supplies to take care of them. I always say that it is a lot cheaper to feed those Dakota Alerts batteries than five to ten grown men sitting out on the perimeter.

Make it a priority to standardize your equipment as much as possible to minimize the different types of batteries you need. For our retreat, AA and CR123s are the mainstays. They are used in radios, alarms, transmitters, laser aiming systems, night vision, flashlights, driveway probes, cameras, and video cameras. I try to get good rechargeable batteries for as many devices as possible. I have had good success with Sanyo Eneloops and Tenergy rechargeables. Of course you also need good chargers and some spares.

Lithium ion batteries are very much a part of our gadget world today from cell phones to laptops to power tools and electric vehicles. I have found the new external lithium-ion battery packs very handy to charge or run anything you can plug into them. In remote places or when traveling they have kept my cell phone and tablet going for the day without access to the grid. They can also be recharged with solar. I like charging DC-DC as it is more efficient then having inverters and transformers in the loop.

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