by Jim Long | preppingandsurviving.blogspot.com [1] | January 12, 2016
As the weather cools down it is the time when many of us begin to start thinking about cold weather preparations.
Roofs should be checked for cracked tar and be set up with tarps over swamp coolers. Windows can have plastic put over them to double insulate them. Some people even use the Mylar survival blankets on them to help keep warmth in. In a survival situation, you will have finite resources to keep warm and you must do things like this to preserve them.
I cannot emphasize enough getting a stockpile of wood. For many city dwellers, the fireplace is decorative and not used due to air pollution controls . Have yours cleaned and serviced anyway. During operation clean ups, where the garbage department takes unwanted items away, look for people throwing away firewood and collect it. Go to the mountains and cut some. Go to the county yard and see what they have. Many times from clearing roads and streets of down branches they have a stock pile and sometimes give it away. NEVER USE CHARCOAL OR A BARBECUE IN THE HOUSE…..You will be asphyxiated.
Have a way to burn this in your backyard, a 55 gallon barrel with holes in the bottom, chiminea, or an old wood stove works great.. You can even build a decorative rock or brick barbecue for this purpose if you are worried about aesthetics. Remember, this will most likely turn into your cooking source, post collapse. It will also be a family/group gathering point before on retires to a mound of blankets or sleeping bags in an unheated house to get warm. Charcoal starting fluid and kindling will be important to start this. If you are going to the woods for your wood, collect pine cones as an inexpensive fire starter.
Have pans large enough to heat water in for sponge or washcloth baths. I also suggest digging a slit trench in a far corner of the yard that a tarp can be strung up along for people to defecate behind. Have a shovel designated to that site to shovel dirt over their feces to keep down the smell and flies. Some cedar shavings purchased at a pet store will aid in odor control. If you are using a bucket type toilet, dig a deep hole that this can be dumped in. The shavings can be used to help with odor in the bucket. Trash compacter bags work great for containing feces and keeping the bucket reusable. have some nitrile (surgeon’s gloves) on when handling this material.
Just some cold weather ideas to keep you a little more comfortable this winter in a collapse situation.
Source:
http://preppingandsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/01/cold-weather-preps.html [2]