JImJams

You have one of the very best and well informed UK Preppers in the country and he is in your area – check out Tom Linden, he runs the ukprn.blogspot.com – there’s not too many as well informed as Tom is.

There are also many Yorkshire based preppers, so your not alone!!

You have the right approach to your prepping, by doing the best you can with the money you can spare – it’s not easy but still very do-able.

Yes, friends and family are a pain to say the least – and we are only really governed by our conscious there eh…!
But forming allegiances with others, friends, family or fellow preppers has both good and bad points.

The jury is still out on that one.!

Agreed, once a building has got cold, that is it – it takes twice as much energy to heat it back up to temperature again and twice as long, if not more.

My only answer for anyone hunkering down during a prolonged SHTF situation in winter would be to use to use just one room, central in the home if possible and with as few outside walls and windows as possible.
Next is insulation – the room must be well insulated – with anything that will help keep the heat in.
Anything from layers of curtains over the windows to slabs of reflective insulation board [these are light and flat and can be easily stored in a loft or even under the bed] – but always try to use some reflective, insulation on the ceiling to ‘bounce’ the heat back..
It is possible to maintain heat in a room with good insulation – look at how the Swedish do it – they can heat a room with just a 60W light bulb and the heat from the human body in freezing conditions.!!!
If the heat can’t escape then it’s possible to use simple heating methods like the 36 or 48 hour survival candle, which will give light as well.
It takes a bit of thinking about but it is do-able.
Use plastic sheeting to form a porch entrance into the room as a heat shield divider to stop heat loss when moving in and out.
If it was possible to build a fire outside without attracting too much attention then warming clothes and sleeping bags would be good use of the fire, as would boiling pans of water and then brining then into the room to use as a heater.
Any cooking can be done outside and the pots n pans brought inside for additional heat.
Normal house bricks can also be placed in the outside fire and warmed up to use as heat blocks inside the room.

There are a few more other ways you can survive the winter cold and you question is a good one – I think I will put an article together giving information on that very subject of home heating when the SHTF.

thanks

Steve UKpreppersGuide

I can’t see a way around this problem other than my 2 solutions above.
Solar panels would not carry enough energy to run any heating equipment.
A generator would bring unwanted attention.

Any better suggestions?

While a few friends/family laugh about my preparedness, I see this as just taking responsibility for the safety and well being of my family.
I will not be dependent on govt handouts/food/water rations.
I will not be dependent on a non existent Police force coming to rescue me from aggressive would be intruders.
I have prepared accordingly (within the financial restraints that come with having a family) to best survive and take care of the ones I love if TSHTF.

Sure my plan isn’t the best.
I have no bunker in case of Nuke attack. If that happens I’m fu**ed basically. I did look into it and basically it came down to £££££. No way could I afford one and anything I built would be insufficient for any long period of time.
I’m more prepared for a break down in society. (probably through a currency collapse)
If the lights go out and things get a little rough (which I fully expect if/when the currency goes down) then I have everything I need here.
I still have a few things to do before I can say I’m truly ready.
Main thing (and I have been putting this off for too long) is to get some sort of composting (dry) toilet sorted out. Not the nicest of prep duties but an essential one.
With this I should be able to be self sufficient for an indefinite period.

Is it better to buy one or just make one?

Probably one of my biggest problems will be family, friends and neighbours. None are prepared and that gives me the unenviable choice of what to do, if/when these people have no food or water?
I think it would be hard not to be somewhat generous and share (to a certain degree) my stash.
Certainly in a large city like I live in, things could get very rough & we have a much better chance in larger numbers, so there is something to be said for making and keeping friends within the community in your circle.
What would you do?

You are spot on – UK law is very much subjective with some huge grey areas that make the laws on weapons hard to decipher.
Legal carry of a folding knife being one of the most ‘amusing’ to say the least!

This spray however, is not marketed as a weapon, as such, which puts it very much out of the scope of the UK law to a high degree.

Its considered as a defence spray for the purpose of criminal identification.

This is the most direct piece of law I have on it:

Section 5(1)(b) of the firearms Act 1968 prohibits any weapon of whatever description designed or adapted for the discharge of any noxious liquid or gas. Because a criminal identifier spray does not contain any substances and the can itself is not designed to discharge a noxious substance, it is not prohibited by the Firearms Act.

I have also discuss this with my local police who agree, so long as you do not go around spraying people and actually using it as a weapon, but simply carry it as a means of ‘helping’ the police identify an attacker, they would be fine with it.
In fact, the police I have spoken to, openly agree it would help them in the case of an attack.

But I do still thoroughly agree with you – trying to get any confirmation on UK weapons law can be a real pain.

Steve – UKpreppersGuide

Thank you for a very good review of our apparently UK legal folding pocket knife article.

We have had a customer that says his local police station says its NOT.. we are not sure why but they have measured it from the point to further back down the handle which of course would make it longer by 1/4”, since the handle is almost ‘open plan’ with one side longer than the other, but measured as we thought .,it is defiantly under 3”
.
We are under the impression that all blade measurements are taken from the tip of the blade to the outermost point of the handle.
Can anyone please give a definitive..?

please let us know at laguiole.fr@outlook.com

Thanks in anticipation

UK Preppers Guide

Here’s an example of the Spray With Pouch {bottom of article].

Happy Prepping….

Also checkout these BUSHCRAFT SHOWS, they are very good things to go to. You will learn loads and everyone is really friendly.

Happy Prepping……

But what I was looking for – was those survival courses. I’ve heard they do “urban” survival courses. Have you been on any? And could you recommend some?

Thank you!

yes I regard an economic collapse as a high possibility, I am also concerned about the slow escalation of events in Ukraine, especially now that Nato is looking to bolster its forces in eastern block countries and the USA is looking at adding arms to Ukraine. Couple that with Russia’s attitude and it’s recent fly bys just outside our air space.

Ebola has just had an increase in cases when they thought it was coming under control and they have finally admitted it is mutating.

As for the currency, all currencies these days are fiat, there is no longer any gold or other valuables to back them up, they are just numbers on paper, in a full collapse all money will be worthless. If you can, stack gold and silver, for preppers I think silver is better, it is easier to buy and could be used as currency.
Happy prepping.

But do not forget all the other equally important things!

Its no good having years worth of food and water if you do not look after the other essentials.
Health.
Cooking.
Lighting.
Opsec (operational security)

Health
You need good supplies of soap, deoderant, toothpaste, washing powder etc. All the things you usually use. Cleanliness is next to godliness so they say, it also helps to keep you clean of infection and toothache etc. You can buy fish antibiotics from the internet, they are the same as the ones we take just re packed for animal use. You can find which ones to use for what on the net.
If you can go on a first aid course. Both myself and my wife have been first aid trained over the years.

Cooking.
Yeah ok you have a stack of food, how do you cook it when the power goes off and the gas does not work.? I have built a couple small wood burning stoves made from large cans that work well, used them wild camping. I have a small meths camp stove that works well and enough spirit to use it for about 2 months. On top of that a large gas barbecue and two big gas bottles. Hot food is important and so is the ability to boil water both for drinks and sterilising the water. I also keep a stack of dry split logs.

Lighting.
First get use to walking your house and gardens etc in the dark. If the lights go off in the night you don’t want to be walking in to things.
Batteries, stock up on batteries for torches, try to keep a torch in each room or at least on each floor and practice getting to them in the dark. You don’t want to start off being injured.
Candles, stock up on candles, tea lights are great you can buy a hundred at a time for a few pounds.
If you can see about setting up a light powered from a solar powered battery system, there are kits on the net.

Finally Opsec.
Be careful who you tell you are prepping. When the SHTF the last thing you want is hungry people beating down your door and taking the lot. Believe me they will if they know.
Walk your property in the day and at night, see where the blind spots are where people can approach and not be seen. See how secure your gardens are and if you can improve them. taller fences, drive gates, railings etc. If you have sheds keep them locked. If it becomes a long term incident your tools will become valuable.
Keep your preps out of sight in the house, so when your “friends and neighbours” come round there is nothing to see.
See if you can build up a few like minded people close to you, if you can get a small group of preppers going you have a better chance of surviving. See what they think about the shows on tv, get them to view their opinion. If they outright say they are all nutters then change the subject. They might say some of them are extreme but the idea of having some extra stuff in the house for emergencies is ok, then you can expand the subject.
Finally don’t make it obvious that you are eating and drinking well if it all goes to s**t and others are starving.
I am lucky, both my wife, both daughters and their partners are in and they are also prepping.
In case you wondered we are not bugging out, I can protect us easier here and our preps are here.
Feel free to comment or ask a question.

Agree with everything you say, especially the air borne attack scenario. Might add to that economic collapse as being one of my high up killers as well.

yeah, weapons is a touchy subject.. sshhhhhhh… !

Self Defence weapons UK

Legal Weapons UK

Why do I prep? I could go on about economic disaster, solar flares, nuclear war, ISIS, ebola the list just goes on and on. Sometimes you just need to look at your local environment and see what happens.
We live in a small town on the edge of the Fens, and in the ten years we have been here, we have:

Had no water for two instances, once for almost a day and a half.
Had a couple of power cuts.
Had floods nearly every year that seem to get worse each time, they close one road in and out of town and start to risk the others.

Prepping does not have to mean that you are building a bunker or a stupid great castle in the woods, its a way of life that we have left behind. Its just too easy to go to a supermarket 24 hours a day and get food, but supermarkets hold a little over 24 hours worth of food, so if those lorries stopped arriving they would empty really fast, even more so when panic buying settled in. loss of electrical power would also mean no water, something most people don’t realise is that for most of us the water is pumped to our homes.
You can last three days without water.
Three weeks without food.
Its the rule of threes. Its not hard a fast but it is a good guideline.

Personally I think the biggest threat to people in the UK is something like an air borne virus with a high mortality rate. The reason for this is that as it hits the population and infection occurs a few things will happen. the hospitals will rapidly become overloaded, followed by the other emergency services. One reason for this is that they will be at the front of dealing with the affected and so will be at a higher risk of infection. Once the emergency services are no longer able to deal with the problem the military will step in.
At this point we will see companies cease to function properly as people either stay at home or get sick.
As it increases we will find it harder to deal with the large number of dead bodies. Supplies at supermarkets will start to decline as will fuel deliveries at petrol stations.
Then people will start to die in their homes and not be found.

Yes it is a bleak picture but look at what Ebola has done in Africa and it is not easy to catch, imagine it airborne like flu.

So we prep for the local problems and take into our preps what we would need for other scenarios. We have 2300 litres of water on hand and the means to sterilise it and collect more. Inside we have 100 litres of drinking water bottled. We have food for three months.
We have 5 raised beds and grow staple foods each year, potatoes, beans, onions plus some fruit and a plum tree.
We started jam making last year and have always done pickling, beetroot, onions, red cabbage cauliflower and picalilli. We have also started dehydrating to see if we can add extra real food to our preps. We have gone wild camping away from toilets and showers, cooking over a real fire and sterilising water just to increase our survival training.
We have disposable suits, hospital grade masks, gloves and hospital grade hand cleaner.

Do I think I am mad? No. Do other people? I don’t know, we practice good opsec so we don’t tell people what we do.
People prep for different reasons. We prep for water supply failure and being cut off, after that its general with a lean towards a Sars / avian flue type outbreak.
Comments please! Don’t ask about weapons as that can be a touchy subject in the UK.

I am curious to know how seriously people are taking their prepping and if they have bunkers etc? If so how far away from your homes are they and what roughly how much have they cost you?

If not are you planning a bunker and how much do you think you will spend on one?

Any feedback would be appreciated.
Danny