So It's TEOTWAWKI & No More Electricity How do you Make & Maintain Ice?

That solar power is enough to power the chest freezers? How much solar power do you need to keep the chest freezers on so that everything stays frozen and/or cold. What is the chest freezer model and brand you have? How much roughly would it cost to have a similar solar power setup? Thanks for any info.

You are absolutely right except I'm here for family reasons until my 89 year old mother who has cancer- she's not in any pain and gets shots and some kind of radiation treatment every few weeks not chemo, passes which may be several years away. The Air here is disgusting. The only good things I can say about my 12 years living in LA are the Doctors and Dentists on my Health Plan are excellent, I can travel anywhere I need to go by (electric) bicycle and the Bike Paths are good, public transportation provided you use schedules are good, there are some decent places to eat at reasonable prices & there are plenty of reasonably priced supermarkets and Trader Joes plus it's not cold in the Winter. The bad things are no really good pizza (I order excellent Deep Dish Pizza from Chicago- Giordano's sent frozen in dry ice www.giordanos.com/shop), the women are no hotter than anywhere else despite what you see in the movies & TV), rent is high and people are for the most idiots who may be packing guns who would shoot you at the slightest verbal argument without considering the consequences of going to prison. The End (LOL)

 

I have gas refrigerators for emergencies .
Once the propane is spent I can make methane gas .
Aside that, I have 12 volt units that bring the temperatures down to 40 below ambient , safe enough to store medicines for my friends.
The problem with those, is that they must run 24/7 ,no thermostatic control .
providing solar panels and wind mill survive the EMP, or worse an CME, I'm OK .
In practical terms though I need to put aside more solar panels in safe keeping in the event things get worse.
Come to think of it, down the line having a few spare solar panels might be good barter.
Plan is though , that after the grid goes down most all food in refrigeration can either be cooked or sun dried and a generator can keep it going till the greatest volume is preserved or consumed.
in the mean time fire up the gas frig and only the critical stuff is kept in there .
For that matter the gas frig can make ice and that ice can be put in another dead refrigerator and use it as an Ice box.
Post SHTF there will be no milk or dairy products ,except what can be made with powdered milk . eggs don't need refrigeration ,there are other methods of keeping them, and that is only if they are being stored for several months . Meats can be salted, dried, and smoked, for storage.
. So what needs to be refrigerated long down the road is very little .

 

Keep your cigar out of my Scotch...

 

If it is TEOWAWAKI you will have one hell of a lot of other things to worry about and deal with besides, How the flip am I going to make ice. Sorry man but get with the program and pull your head out of your ...... s
.
Here is a site you might find useful. Though not all that informative for making ice.
Grandpappy's Hard Times Survival Home Page by Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E.

 

Why do you need ice? You should be learning how to live with out it. I rarely use ice, they say ice water is not good for you.

The above was sarcastic- @AxesAreBetter and @VisuTrac are correct. This is how I would preserve snow or ice. One- you should be currently observing your area. Is there a place that is always cool, little sunlight like a rock formation or a hillside, that is where you will start. Straw, wood chips, leaves or saw dust are great insulation that will keep ice and snow from melting. I could have green grass on the lawn but will find snow mixed into a pile of debris. You probably will not be able to keep ice all year long.

The hillside- dig into the hillside, think root cellar. I would used stone inner layer of walls and probably wood on the outside. I have no reason for this but in my mind this would maintain the coolness better. I may be wrong but I know in shaded areas in the woods, stones are very cool to touch.

 

Save all your milk jugs and clean and filter water before filling (3/4) and set those out side or freezing . No insulation necessary between jugs and those melting would not be warming up the rest with their water as the weather warms.
Once frozen begin stacking them in your prepared storage .
The water is not necessarily used out of these jugs, however put into a dead refrigerator, it would act as an ice box, with out the mess of ice melting, and loosing the water.
That water can be run through a simple gravel, sand, activated charcoal, filter, aerated and made to taste good again.

 

Similar here - I moved back to Nutlandia to take care of ageing parents as well. I'm not staying. Both are now gone and we are hightailing out of here likely this time next year. I'd stay even though the constant drizzle and gray skies are lousy because the natural environment is wonderful, also I grew up out here when it was sane and love the place.

Unfortunately it has become a single party dominated state that is on a fast track to liberal fascism - they actually had to be held back on their legislative agenda by national Democrat leadership to prevent a backlash. Prior to that California would have looked like a gun owner's paradise by comparison when this year's legislative session was over.

If you have seen Portlandia it is funny, but also more real than you would think. It's pretty much devolving into moochers, potheads, protesters, gangs, victim classes (that were never victimized) and strippers. The middle class that pays for it all is disappearing, so now they want to impose sales taxes on businesses that will force them to relocate. We are talking double digits on sales not profits paid by the businesses directly to the State. They will go and the money will go with them. When it falls it will fall HARD. Food prices last year went up by about a third, this year not as bad, but still faster than it should.

 

To run my refrigerator while the sun is up takes about $1,000 worth of solar equipment.
To power it 24 hours a day would take more like $2,000.

 

Ya might could think about maybe rescuing the strippers on yer way outta town.
Just a thought..

 

Strippers?
Do you want VD?
Because that's how you get VD.

 

These are the only strippers I get to see since I got married. And, yes, I will be bringing several.:

 

It was a Joke..

 

Now I understand.
As far as I know, you've not mentioned this before. Now a lot of your earlier questions make more sense.
First off, I truly am sorry about your Mum's health issues.
Next a bit of advice if I may.
I'm sure you are tired of reading all "GTFO of LA it's a $#!&hole" replies to several of your posts. I'm sure many of us are tired of reposting them as well. By dropping that little bit of info above you've let me and everyone know that you're not staying simply because you like it there. Folks may be more inclined to offer help because of it- I know I am. A person doesn't need to tell their life story, but sometimes a bit more info can make a difference.

Now as far as ice in your AO?
Gonna have to have some form of alternate energy to power a fridge/freezer. Maybe a portable solar set up on the roof that could recharge deep cycle batteries that you switch out in your apt to keep a small bar fridge running. Propane powered isn't wise indoors unless you can run a vent out the window or something.
Hope this helps.

 

ICE can be made by compression and expansion, so all you really need is a bit of machinery and a source of rotary motion.
Like a stream, or a windmill. Or twenty kids willing to crank the handle (or walk the treadmill) for X-many hours in exchange for ice cream and slushies.

After the Crash, the man with an ice machine (that works) will be a multi-gazillionaire. He'll be able to barter for anything he wants with anyone that has it.

Now, just to flog a dead horse a bit, anyone that wants a free power source (now or later) is invited to study up on two-stage mechanical oscillators, which can be seen at Two-Stage Mechanical Oscillator - A Mechanical Amplifier - Veljko Milkovic - Official presentation.

These devices extract work directly from the Earth's gravitational field, and they can be scaled up to any size desired.

Spoiler alert: Requires thinking outside the box.

Pay attention to the video of the water pump (that usually requires whole-body effort with two arms) being operated with the energy input (think of that as timing energy) of one finger tip.

And at that, the timing energy is being input six times more often than necessary.

Just sayin'...

 

Thanks, that sounds like a good deal!

LOL

 

I know I do. I live in a city and I am not going to give up, trash my life prematurely because I am fearful something may happen. Posts about move now always make me wonder why am I here? Sometimes it comes off as if you do not live in the sticks then why bother learning. My dreams are to live elsewhere, in a small population area but right now it is not going to happen. I have things to do first. What if someone likes living in the city? They should be learning to do what they can, where they are at. I will never forget that video I saw of the old man that had less then an acre and was raising all his food. That is the good stuff. He was learning, producing etc... Many of us are trying to earn what we can so we can retire comfortably. I am betting that collapse will not happen tomorrow and hopefully not next week but if it does, I am thankful for all I learned on here.


Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. ~ Les Brown ~

 

During the winter months ,anticipating some disruption is normal, and during the summer the chance of earth quake is always present.
Life is more exciting anticipating an event , not so much fun in the middle of one ,unless your prepared.
Ice is not only a luxury ,it is a tool as well.
Some bearing to shaft fit's are so tight, that cooling the shaft and heating the bearing are the only way to get things in place.
Cooling or freezing the metal shrinks it and heating expands the metal. the way a bi metal spring works .
With out ice the job is more difficult and having to heat the bearing too much can spoil it.
If I'm welding I like to have ice both for cooling my hand should I burn my self and or cooling the material I'm working .
Granted, liquid nitrogen might be more efficient for quenching certain metals ,but you use what you got.
There you go .
I wonder how long a bottle of liquid nitrogen would last ?

 

I work on cryogenic servicing carts for the air force for F-16s.
They need liquid oxygen for the pilot and liquid nitrogen to gas charge the emergency power unit.
The 50 gallon liquid oxygen tanks burn off around 1 gallon per day. A little less if you keep them out of the sun.
The 70 gallon liquid nitrogen cart is supposed to burn off around 2L per day because the tank is much better insulated than the liquid oxygen cart.

I think you would be better off making home made dry ice. A CO2 cylinder will hold CO2 for years. Just depressurizing liquid CO2 into a cloth sack is about 25% efficient.
If you cool the cylinder down as much as possible, built a small rig that used cold waste CO2 gas to remove the super heat from the liquid before it is depressireized your efficiency could go to 50% to 75%. That is just an estimate I have not ran the numbers yet.
But this is how industrial dry ice makers work and they appear to make much more solid CO2 than gas CO2 (waste).

In the machine shop they would take a part and cool it in acetone that was cooled by dry ice. They could take landing gear bushings cooled this way and drop them right inside the larger part. They would warm back up and lock into place.

 

I agree that urban prepping is valid and needs to be covered. Many of us, if not all, are making compromises as it's likely we don't have the funds to live in a fortress farm protected by a small army. You also have to remember that Denver is very different from SoCal, in fact think of Cheyenne is to Denver as Denver is to the SoCal Inland Empire/Los Angeles/San Diego Megapolitan Area. I can envision a tenable survival situation in Denver because of the surrounding resources, especially if you are strategically situated on the fringe of the population. It's pretty similar to my current location on the fringes of Nutlandia.

I can't envision surviving very long in SoCal because even if you can flee there are limited routes you can take and they mostly go to desert areas. By the time people know they have to bail to routes will be to kill zones so others can take what you brought with you. I don't see a way to lay low and wait it out before running out of resources or being detected. The only strategy I can see is a stocked and secure bug out location that you visit whenever your spidey sense goes off or you try to get to when the other shoe drops. I'd go on road/off road motorcycle and just enough food and water to get there along with a small arm to clear the way if needed. If you have a family then a competent and small 4x4 along the lines of a Jeep wrangler/cj, et al or the original Cherokee. Map your run in advance along with at least two alternate routes (including off road) for each section and make practice runs. I can't see a viable BOL within a day that wouldn't be over-run by the time you got there.

In Denver the same applies but to a much lesser extent - perhaps there is a suitable and affordable BOL, some unimproved land off a dirt road near a water supply? Perhaps find a way to hook up with other preppers for a common goal? I think we all realize that none of us could survive very long on our own. Do you have skills (medical/agricultural/military/etc) that would make you valuable to such a group?

If you absolutely can't leave the city, then your ability to survive is dependent on the city's. In that case how do you improve your city's ability to survive and maintain order? This may be the most realistic solution for all of us. Certainly keeping stocks of food, water, and medical supplies helps, but unless most citizens do the same the city is vulnerable.

In my post above I advised getting out of LA because the air was staining the rain - that ain't good or healthy and is a real threat. The only reason I advise getting out of such areas is because I care. I don't see anybody staring down there noses at others.