When All Hell Breaks Loose (23 page)

While most smaller blankets are flimsy, noisy in the wind, and too small for many applications, such as covering an entire person, this handy piece of gear reflects radiant heat, is lightweight, compact, easily accessible, cheap, and has many, many uses for the urban survivor.

Wall Tents, Teepees, Yurts, and Such

These guys are basically tents on steroids, and I've owned and spent time in all three. Most are made from heavier canvas that's UV-treated for longer life in the outdoors. Sunforger is a type of canvas that's supposed to be the bomb in sunny weather. My-eight-hundred-dollar wall tent was made from Sunforger canvas. It sported a ten-foot-long rip after being up for less than fifteen months. The particular maker fixed their product for free, minus shipping, and upon looking at my trashed tent, stated that the canvas looked several years old. After telling him my story, and wondering why he didn't keep the lot number for the canvas to identify the poor quality of material, he said he would make it right with me, as repairing bad canvas is a joke. Although it has been nearly four years now, I'm sure he'll follow through on his promise someday. The bottom line on tents that don't support making a fire inside them is this: when it's 20 degrees F (minus 5 degrees C) outside, you will hate life in your tent, no matter how much you paid for it.

My yurt (a Mongolian structure) worked great and I lived in it for three years in a friend's backyard. While these shelters are more expensive and less portable than tents, all of them come with options that allow you to either have a fire inside or install a woodstove for heat.

Teepees are cool but the poles are a hassle and they are extreme overkill for a disaster scenario.

Improvised Tents

So called "tube tents" can be improvised from two fifty-five-gallon drum or barrel liners or large-capacity lawn and leaf bags. Drum or barrel liners are available at hardware or discount stores and usually come in clear or black plastic. These liners are much larger than the usual lawn and leaf bag (thirty-nine-gallon capacity) and are created from a thicker "mil" plastic for a tougher product. Simply cut the end out of one of them and duct tape the two together. Plastic and all other fabrics or materials that are completely waterproof (as opposed to water-resistant) are vapor barriers, thus they don't "breathe" and will collect the moisture exhaled from your lungs and the perspiration lost by your skin. This rising moisture collects on the surface of the plastic and can drip all over you or freeze and drip all over you later when it thaws, thus getting your clothing, gear, and spirits wet. If condensation is a problem, do your best to vent out this moist air however you can. If condensation is a serious problem, you can also vent the end of the tube tent that you're not using as an entrance or completely cut the end out.

Improvised Sleeping Bag

An improvised sleeping bag can also be made from two fifty-five-gallon drum liners and newspaper. The plastic bag provides a protective barrier while the newspaper provides insulation or dead air space. Put one drum liner inside the other and stuff the void between the two barrel liners with crumpled up newspaper or something else that will provide insulation. Condensation from the vapor barrier you are creating can be minimized by creating a series of small puncture holes in the inner barrel liner with a pencil or pen. This will let some of the water vapor out and into the void between the bags. The exterior barrel liner can be treated the same way, as eventually the newspaper will get soggy from the water vapor.

When making the sleeping bag, it helps to have one person stand up inside the plastic bags, holding them up and apart, while a second person stuffs the void with crumpled newspaper. The "collar" or entrance to the sleeping bag where the two barrel liners come together can be duct taped in key places to hold in the newspaper. Refrain from completely sealing the collar with duct tape as it will breathe to let water vapor escape and allow oxygen in. Also, keep your head out of the bag when sleeping, as a tremendous amount of water vapor is given off by your breath.

Recreational Vehicles [RVs], Trailers, and Automobiles

I have lived in a few vehicles and trailers over the years and there are pros and cons to doing so. Having a house that moves can be handy when needing to evacuate an area, but in certain disasters with high winds they can become a death trap. For those who are inexperienced with building shelters or have a seeming lack of materials with which to do so, these vehicle options, running or not, will provide some semblance of home when conventional housing is not an option.

Be careful during cold weather not to burn fuel inside these improvised shelters where the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning can manifest itself. During times of hot weather without conventional air conditioning, it may be cooler
beside
your vehicle under a tarp that is suspended from the vehicle itself or from surrounding anchor points. Vehicles that can be moved should be relocated under vegetation or other natural or man-made shade sources that will substantially cool down the inner environment of the vehicle itself. You can heat your vehicle in cold weather if you orient the vehicle's main windows to face solar south. RVs, trailers, and automobiles that are not needed by your tribe can be a welcome relief to neighbors who have lost their shelter options in the aftermath of a disaster.

Alternative Heating and Cooling Methods for Your Home

I have stressed repeatedly the need to thermoregulate body temperature along with how much time and money Americans spend to assure room temperature in the home. The "temperature of your room" can be a nasty wakeup call to a lack of preparation when your home is severed from the grid with no options for heating or cooling. The following are choices that will give you greater control in regulating a comfortable temperature when conventional methods fail.

It's Too Cold in the House! The Art of Keeping Your Home Warm

(Warning!
There are many heat-producing items that can be brought into the home when it's chilly—and some of them could kill you and your family from carbon monoxide poisoning. The dangers of toxic carbon monoxide appear in detail later in the chapter, so don't skip it. Also, any fuel-burning heat sources pose the risk for
fire danger.
Have a quality fire extinguisher on hand at all times and make sure that it's rotated and replaced or serviced on a regular basis.)

South-facing Rooms: Looking for Naturally Warm Places in the House

My entire home is heated by the common sense of passive solar design. As I write this, regardless of current freezing outdoor temperatures and snow on the ground, sunlight is streaming through south-facing windows and is being absorbed into my stone floor for an inside temperature of 70 degrees F (21 degrees C), with no need for other heating methods. While you might not live in a home that was designed to be heated by the sun, you can certainly modify rooms in your home to take advantage of this free energy source after a grid meltdown.

When it's cold but sunny outside, all south-facing rooms with windows will be warmer than most others. The latitude and seasonality of your location will influence how far south the sun will appear before and after the zenith of the winter solstice. Simply put, the sun will be lower in the southern sky at noon for the winter season. The lowest it will appear is on the winter solstice in late December. After this, the sun will appear slightly higher until it peaks out at its highest point on the summer solstice in June. Along with the proximity of your neighbor's house or garage, trees and vegetation, and other obstructions, the width of the overhangs of your home's roof will determine if winter sunshine enters the windows. In ancient Rome there was a "sun law." It protected everyone from jerks who would have otherwise built a structure blocking sunlight from reaching a residence.

The Romans built their famed bathhouses facing solar south for a reason. Find out which direction your house is oriented. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. South-facing rooms with windows will heat up during winter months from sunlight entering the window(s). This shortwave radiation from the sun turns to long-wave radiation when it enters the room. Since the wavelength of the radiation has been increased, it has a problem exiting the window, thus much of the heat is trapped within the room. Individuals unknowingly experiment with this phenomenon during summer temperatures and kill their pet or child by leaving them in the car in direct sunlight with the windows rolled up.

South-facing windows should remain closed but free from drapes or anything else that will impede sunlight from entering the room, including dirty windows. If the sunlight can shine upon an object that has great
thermal mass
, such as a concrete, stone, tile, or brick floor, so much the better. Thermal-mass resources are typically high-density materials that are slow to absorb and release heat. When thermal mass is heated up by sunshine or any heat source, it will store the heat and re-radiate it back into the room during colder nighttime temperatures. Periodically watch the sunlight track across the room during the day and move obstructions such as area rugs, chairs, or tables that prevent the sun from directly striking thermal mass areas. When it gets dark, cover your windows by drawing the drapes to help hold in the stored heat. Extra window insulation can be improvised with towels or bedding hung in successive layers, if desired, for greater dead air space. Remember to uncover the windows the next day to allow spent thermal mass areas to again recharge with solar radiation from the sun.

Marvelous Microclimates: Creating a Home within Your House

When it's god-awful cold inside your home and you lack conventional methods of heating, you will naturally retreat to the warmest room or rooms in the house. In this case, bigger is not better.
Smaller rooms
with good solar gain and insulation are much easier to heat than larger rooms. Rooms with high ceilings will cause the spiders to be comfortable while you freeze your butt off below. When it's cold, think like a squirrel and create a small, cozy microhabitat that effectively thermoregulates core body temperature. The squirrel doesn't care about impressing the Joneses with space and flash. In cold temperatures it builds a nest that allows it to get inside with just enough room to wrap its fluffy tail around its body for added insulation. There is no wet bar, Jacuzzi, or back porch. In cold weather your McMansion is a detriment, not an asset, when it's pulled, kicking and screaming, from the grid and no other power source is available to heat its tremendous volume.

Block off a "warm room" from the rest of the colder house. Close doors or hang blankets in door openings to seal in as much of the warmer air as possible. If you do have an alternate heating source within the room, don't seal it up so tight that you all wake up dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. Make sure that the room has adequate ventilation. Spaces under doors can be chinked with extra clothing or towels to prevent cold air from seeping into the room.