Tools And Equipment Without Fuel Or Electricity For Prepping

tools-for-prepping

In the event of a SHTF collapse, our fuel refining and fuel operations & infrastructure will quickly grind to a halt while local fuel supplies deplete and disappear within days.

In a long term (or even short term) collapse scenario without electricity (no fuel pumps), your gasoline-diesel-gas-electric powered equipment, generators, and tools will become useless.

Have you thought about this?


 
Even if you’ve stored an amount of fuel for your generator, vehicle, and other such powered ‘tools’ — it will run out.

While reliance on stored fuels for short term disaster is not a particular issue (it’s easily done), if a major (longer term) collapse were to occur, you could be in big trouble without alternative equipment to accomplish life-sustaining tasks, etc.

It may be worth your while to acquire some practical hand tools and manual operated equipment (those not requiring petroleum fuels or electricity) for survival preparedness tasks which fit categories including the following…

Cooking
Processing foods from raw ingredients
Food preservation (without electricity)
Transportation of self and/or supplies
Hand tools for all sorts of tasks
Heating your home (if during winter)
Lights

I could go on with examples, but I suggest that you write a list of top-level categories (your tools, equipment, appliances which require fuel-electricity) and then break each of them down into individual items which you currently use and rely upon around your home. You should consider alternative replacements.

If you have an alternative energy source (such as solar panels with inverter system, etc.), this may be enough – but many people don’t have this.

Think about it, and think about how you would apply yourself after the SHTF without these ‘modern’ tools. How would you do it?

 
Redundancy is important. Two is one and one is none.
Stock up on spare parts and maintenance supplies for everything too.

Survival after collapse is lots more than having stored food, it’s about adapting to a difficult life (however long it lasts) without our modern conveniences of today. Having alternatives for the tools and equipment we take for granted today will be life essential.

What are your suggestions?

9 Comments

  1. I suppose that the answer to this question depends on HOW bad we think it will get when it happens; a week?…a year?…50 years?…or more? One way or another, IF it goes on for any length of time it will likely become self-reinforcing and so the new norm thus,..

    The Foxfire literature gives a good idea of what our ancestor’s utilized in dealing with daily life; hammers, whip-saws, draw-kinives…the list goes on and on. However, in a practical sense we – today – if faced with such a reduced existence might well have an opportunity that they did not…we have access to ‘Stainless Steel’…which didn’t ‘exists’ until the 1930’s…the most corrosion resistant, useful material ever discovered by us. Much of what our ancestors faced in days of yore was the continuous, endless necessity to replenish toolage which had corroded/degraded. Not so with ‘SS’…leave it out in the field for a hundred years and – if it is any good or real formulation of that, 300 series or above – you need only wash it off and scrub a little bit to achieve a near perfect restoration of that to ‘new’.

    Wheresoever and whensoever you have a pair of tools that are offered – one, standard steel, the other Stainless – always select the latter…your children will thank you for it! To be sure, it cannot be employed to all the uses needed…it does not form ‘spring steel’ at all, but it’s intrinsic durability is beyond compare. IF you require something SHARP then you will have to employ something of the 400 series grades which WILL hold an edge…the lower grades will not.

    Lastly, if you can find any pump body’s fabricated from that – as well and especially, the impellers – then you are on the way to a longer, HAPPIER existence.

    Just a few thoughts to guide everyone here.

    NOTE: Some here have Stainless cutlery/dinnerware at home, some of which is at a very high polish and seems to go on forever…THAT is typically “18/10 Stainless Steel”….18% Chromium, 10% Nickel (a more consumer ‘friendly way of specifying it’s composition) which as you’ve already seen last and last….

    1. Good points. I would think yard sales and flea markets are a good place to find old tools.

      My wife asks why I have so many hand-saws (I’m not a carpenter) – it’s because I never turn down old tools. Includes drills as well as files and chisels.

      My chainsaw will eventually run out of gas and/or chain, but those old saws….

  2. I know allot of people don’t think of food preparation as labor intensive. Growing up we didn’t have things like food processors so making things like hash required an old fashioned food grinder. Even making ones own bread crumbs was an afternoon activity for us kids. If you don’t have any non-electric kitchen appliances you will be in for a rude awakening when you have to start food preparation from scratch. I still have my parents food grinder which I haven’t used in many years since we bought our first food processor, but it is safely stored away.

  3. PG You are so right about food prep being labour intensive. Without all our electric gadgets it would take a lot longer to prepare food for eating now or for canning. Therefore some good knives are essential or it will take even longer. We have a lot of non electric / non gas tools but the one I keep putting off is the grain grinder since I have an electric one. If I don’t buy that one soon I think I’m going to be sorry

  4. Electrical transformers either on a pole or a pad mount transformer contain mineral oil. It used to be pcb (poly chlorinated biphenyl) oil. This has gone the wayside via EPA regulations. Anyway, your Diesel engines will run on mineral oil.

  5. If there’s a cyber attack on the power grid we’ll only have the fuel in our tanks. Gas stations without generators, which is probably a great percentage, will have plenty of fuel in their tanks with no way to get it out. Can anyone recommend a hand pump that can reach down far enough down into a gas station’s tank?

    1. @ Prudence
      Just a good old common “Drum Pump” made for fuels with an extension will work, normally. Tanks are usually not more than a few feet deep. FYI, make sure you have a bolt cutter, most tanks have locks on them. And please don’t ask me how I know… HAHAHAHA
      NRP

    2. Just a thought that I never see mentioned about gas stations. A few years back in Washington state, after a pretty nasty blizzard, the whole area was power down for about ten days. My dad and I worked a three way trade with the local gas station and the pub and grub next door. We used our generator to power the pumps to fill 55 gal drums, which the gas station owner sold in 5 gal can increments, and at night we powered the pub n grub so the locals had a place to grab some food and company under powered lights and heat. In return, we got free fuel for the generator and our trucks, and free food and drinks in the evening. We also got to be pretty big heroes for the duration.
      anyways, a gas powered genie can and will provide enough power to run a gas station, which can provide the fuel for the generator as well

  6. Prudence, I don’t think that planning on salvaging fuel from stations without power would be a viable option. Probable that such a valuable commodity would be guarded. I kind of think that all fuel available is going to be “reserved” for emergency operations. Hospitals have to have a 3 day supply of diesel fuel for their generators. After that they are essentially shut down. Gas is going to go the cops, ambulances, firetrucks and any other emergency responders. Having a running vehicle will make you a target for whatever kinds of government still exists. Although I fear a collapse will be catastrophic I don’t think that it would be instantaneous. Government could cease to function at varying rates depending on location and circumstance.

Comments are closed.