Woke up this morning to be welcomed by a chilly misty morning. Anybody that pays attention is aware that changes are afoot to our climate and although I still believe our weather is not too extreme and thus easily survivable I look and prepare so that it does not impact me too much.
The normal average is fine for humans, imo, it is just the extremes where we are at risk. In the UK though we still don’t get hot extremes that are likely to kill us. The extremes that kill the old, the infirm and the homeless are the cold snaps. Not that long ago temps of -10 were few and far between. Now it seems we get them every winter. Cold is the extreme we need to prepare for.
As a society we have the technology to protect us from the cold but it relies on power. That isn’t likely to be the solution available to us. We may have the capability to generate heat but we don’t want to rely on our limited power generation for that. We would aim for using fire to resolve that issue for us. Fire though also has a disadvantage of raising our heads above the parapet and we might not want that.
The solution in my opinion is much easier. We stock up on clothes and bed coverings. Clothes designed to keep us warm are relatively cheap and readily available. We should put aside enough cold weather clothes so that we all have several outfits we can wear, ensuring cover for when one gets wet so we can wash one, have one drying and have one to wear. Get everything from boots, socks, hats, gloves as well as underwear and make sure we get plenty of layers. That will cover us for when we are out as well as when we are in. This also uses no power and protects OPSEC.
In addition to this we should also stock up on bed coverings. We can buy cold weather duvets at reasonable prices and they can be used to keep yourself nice and toasty. You can layer then as required and even utilise quilts, blankets and the like to keep warm overnight when it is coldest. Even ordinary sleeping bags can be bought cheaply and layered as required. It is how animals prepare for winter, they don’t have the luxury of electric or gas fires and we can learn from them. Stay in bed in the cold, keep warm, it’s not like there is much else to do anyway outside when it is -10.
It is coming to spring and the winter clothes and blankets can be bought on sale. Soon it will be the time to stock up on your warm weather clothes and bed coverings at a lower price than they normally are.
Using no power except your body they can be layered to protect us from much lower temperatures than we get now. So buy plenty, clothes and bed coverings, so you can add them as it gets colder. It will be the cold that kills off most of the people that are not prepared. Make sure that isn’t you.
very interesting article,
you make a good point about the cold being the main weather obstacle that people in the uk would face.
however stocking up on winter clothing, and blankets etc. will take a lot of space and will also mean a lot to carry if you need to move in a hurry.
I strongly suggest you spend a little time in a city during the winter with a few homeless people.
the ingenuity of these people and their ability to keep warm yet still carry very little is outstanding.
theres a lot to be learned from the homeless.
when it comes to survival these people do it every day of their lives.
good point, but from personal experience with Glastonbury homeless they are usually homeless because they have a drugs, alcohol or mental problem..sometimes all three! none of them have enough clothing to go around, they have very little to carry not because its their way of life but more to do with lack of cash to buy any, their all on the breadline, existing on handouts and “soup kitchens”, i dont think we should cite them as an example of how to live, in any case i think if any of us tried to live like that we would be dead in the first cold winter to come along.
They don’t take up that much space in a cupboard but I agree there is too much to carry. However, that is the trade off, bug out and you can only take what you can carry or what you have in your BOL. Duvets and sheets takes up a lot less space than my books, water or food.
The tip about the homeless is a good one. First of all you seem to need a dog and then a cardboard box. I’m certain that we can do better in houses with cardboard etc. to insulate us.
for those who are planning on staying somewhere and defending it. i.e small farm etc.
rotting compost has a reaction that creates heat.
this heat can be harnessed through pipes and will raise water to around 68oc connected to a radiator it could make a handy mini central heating system large enough to take the chill from 1 room.
and you would need compost for your veges anyway.
Sometimes it isnt what you have got that saves your life , its what you know how to make.
Luci, Welcome.
Know how to make compost. I know I can make compost not sure of the method though. 🙂
I have noticed the cats sitting on the compost bins. They can always find the warm places. I would have though you need to feed a lot to make a central heating system though. Might be worth checking out though.
bigpaul
the ones you see at glastonbury festival are not homeless people they are festival bums.
they travel around all the festival gatherings during the summer
during the winter they go back home to mummy and smoke dope all day whilst playing xbox.
you wont learn nothing from those , other than how to skin up, or make a bong.
you are VERY wrong Luci, they are not festival bums they are the LOCAL homeless, i know most of them PERSONALLY, many of them are my friends, most have NOWHERE to go to, others are “sofa surfing “, i had a lot to do with the local drop in centre when we lived there, my wife’s friend used to be the manager.and i can tell you there isnt an X box between them.
The world is full of all sorts of people.
The ones with nowhere to go will have learned to adapt and learned some tricks along the way.
the ones who are sofa surfing are just lucky that they have friends to help them be unresponsible for themselves. hanging on to handouts. some of those will change when the need arrises, the ones that dont will find it hard to survive when they dont have anyone to provide a sofa.
they are not what I mean by the homeless, I mean the people who really live on the streets
the people who already have nowhere to go,
unlike yourself ive had only small experience with a homeless shelter. so dont know much about what happens in them.
I was turned away from center point in london many years ago. (no room at the inn)
I lived among the homeless for about 3 months.
it was february 1988 and it was pretty cold.
If it wasnt for the (real)homeless I know I would never have survived it.
Thanks for correcting my VERY wrong mistakes though, about your friends that are homeless but can afford to buy drugs and go to festivals, whislt living on friends sofas instead of sort out their homeless problem.
A correction to my previous comments.
if seeking the survival knowledge of the homeless
DO NOT go to glastonbury. unless you need to know how to get someone to loan you a couch, or who might be playing at the festival this year.
appology to bigmike.
I appear to have made a mistake.
I didnt pick up on an error in your first post that seems to have caused a confusion of oppinion.
to quote
“their all on the breadline, existing on handouts and “soup kitchens”, i dont think we should cite them as an example of how to live”
bigmike
Sorry I didnt mean to use them as an example of how to live, I was refering to using their knowledge of survival as a way of surviving for the times that you cant get to your cosy blankets back in your burrow.
if your going to slag me off you could at least get my name right, its bigPAUL not bigmike. you seem to have an axe to grind about Glastonbury homeless but know nothing about them, wheras i have lived amongst them and have actually got to know them.
i still think citing the homeless(of wherever) is a bad example of how to survive post SHTF,if anyone tries to survive any event “on the streets” very few will survive,soup kitchens and handouts will not be available, benefit schemes will be non existent, we will have to survive on our own efforts and knowledge.
youve just said it yourself, you will have to survive on your own knowledge and efforts,
but most of your knowledge originated from someone else.
as does everyone elses.
My point is not to try to survive like them, it is only to use their knowledge of survival as another tool, alongside all the other tools in your toolbox.
The more knowledge you have the higher likeelyness of surviving.
I guess this is just a point i will have to agree to dissagree with you,
I can only hope that in a post shtf world you never find yourself out in the cold with no food or shelter and no help available.
as for glastonbury homeless, the only experience i have of them is when i have been to glastonbury festival. and they werent homeless people they were just young adults that were travelling round festivals.
I have no axe to grind with the real homeless of glastonbury,
I know nothing of them and assume they are like the real homeless in any other city.
my comments on glastonburys homeless in these posts were all based on exactly what you said yourself and nothing more.
i.e.
Quotes
“good point, but from personal experience with Glastonbury homeless they are usually homeless because they have a drugs, alcohol or mental problem..sometimes all three! none of them have enough clothing to go around, they have very little to carry not because its their way of life but more to do with lack of cash to buy any, their all on the breadline, existing on handouts and “soup kitchens””
“i know most of them PERSONALLY, many of them are my friends, most have NOWHERE to go to, others are “sofa surfing “,
as for slagging you off , i can only appologise if thats how it seems, it is purely unintentional, as was the name mistake, i know a bigmike in another forum
although i cant actually see anywhere that i have slagged you off, i will apoologise anyway as if thats how it seems to you then I am truly sorry as this was never my intention.
I was only hoping to open up your mind to the possibility, that people who we consider currently a lot worse off than ourselves. may actually hold something that we consider very valuable. (survival)
Your experience of homeless people has obviously been a lot different to mine, maybe its because THEY were helping me .
but in your case You were helping them.
I really have no idea, maybe I was just lucky enough to meet a few smart ones.
Whatever the answer is I hope you all the best for the future, whatever it may hold.
a BIG T H A N K S
just to say thanks to bigpaul for interacting with me,
It is through interaction that we learn, even when we disagree.
i can always agree to disagree.
i do get annoyed as soon as i mention Glastonbury people say ” ah yes, THE festival”!, Glastonbury has nothing to do with the festival, it gets no money from the festival, its just that Michael Eavis stole the name for his own festival, it should really have been called the PILTON festival as its 8 miles away from glastonbury, the only “Benefit” glastonbury gets is all the rubbish the festival goers deposit in the streets of the town whilst waiting for their buses home, nobody in glastonbury can afford to pay for tickets to the festival…the most they can do is get jobs there picking up everyone elses rubbish. as for learning from any homeless people, i think as preppers we can do better than that, many homeless people are found dead after cold weather, not even they can survive out in the open.
of course some homeless are found dead in cold winters, theyre usually old and frail, or not been homeless long.
even people in houses who are old and frail die of cold in winter, and only last year a perfectly healthy woman froze over night in her own garden.
there will always be those who die and those who dont,
the key is just gaining enough information and knowledge to limit the possibility of you yourself becoming one of them.
Appology
I appologise to bigmike and all the homeless of glastonbury.
I mistakenly assumed bigmike was refering to the bums I met at glastonbury festival 18 years ago.
As big mike pointed out , glastonbury festival has nothing to do with glastonbury itself. and even less to do with its genuine homeless population.
I appologise profusely for my mistake.
its bigPAUL not bigmike…how many times do i have to repeat myself???
oh forget it, what the point. no further comment.
oops sorry dude,
like i said purely unintentional,
when i go in ps3 forum , ive got a fealing im going to call big mike , bigpaul and annoy him too now.
It reminds me of a terry pratchett book,
where one of the characters is called BiggerthanJockbutnotasbigasbigJockJock
“when i go in ps3 forum,….”
What has play station got to do with this?
I have totally lost the ‘thread’ of this discussion – if you can call it that.
iaaems,
ps3 forum and playstation has nothing to do with this subject , neither has terry pratchett .it was only me explainin why I kept making a simple name mix up,
hopefully the sight owner will read these comments and see they dont actually have much point other than the original one made that was entirely missed lol
due to those grounds , it probably best if it was just all deleted.
I think the lady refers to P2S in error,I’ve been homeless and up here in the north east it can be bleeding terrible, I lived for over 3 weeks in a starwell in a multi story car park in Teesside, much nicer than homeless shelters cos they are always full of druggies and alcs, it was hard but it was better overall than ending up pat of the system. the saving grace was getting a long tern room in Stockton YMCA, cost £35 a week all in, I had to work washing taxies, cleaning toilets, walking dogs,gardening etc to find enough money to pay the costs, But thankfully I never had to sklum in and claim off the state.
One point often overlooked with outdoor warm clothing is its care and maintenence, its vital fleeces, parkas stuff with thinsulate etc is kept not only clean to prevent excess wear and tear, but it should be stored so it does not lose its ” loft” ( fluffiness), and clean clothing is usually warmer that dirty greasy clothing.
lol,
Simple enough mistake but the lady is a dude.
as in Lucianno lol
Sorry Paisan.
Skean Dhude
the method for harnessing the heat in a composter is pretty simple.
sadly its of no use as a full central heating system.
At best you could use it to keep the chill out of one small room situated close to the composter since the max the temp gets is 68oc even in ideal circumstances.
but in a world with nothing easy and nothing for free 68oc water from nothing but organic waste cant really be disregarded as a possible tool.
regarding my comment about the homeless having ways of surviving with very little it was never meant as an alternative to having a warm cosy little hobbit hole,
Ideally wed all be building underground palaces with hydroponic growing systems running from electricity generated from our own excrement. but thats only fantasy untill the necessity becomes a reality.
it was meant more to point out that there will be times when you cant get back to whatever it is your calling home at the time.
Also to point out the fact that things deteriorate and very soon your parker will be full of holes, your top of the range £200 waterproof sleeping bag will be threadbare.
We cant just concentrate on surviving an event. Theres little point to surviving if you dont know how to continue to live after all your supplies have gone.
also a note on carboard and paper.
brning both cardboard and paper will get you warm.
but not for long , as they burn fast.
rolling them tight makes them burn longer but not enough
yes you can make logs by compressing etc. but its too much effort.
before you burn any paper or cardboard of any sort always remember its long term insulating properties first.
although it is a fire hazard, 4 people cuddled together under a pile of cardboard will stay a lot warmer for a lot longer than 4 people burning the same sized pile.
sadly sometimes to get the best benefit out of something requires teamwork lol
but a cuddles good for you anyway. (especially in hard times)
“there is little point in surviving if you dont know how to live after all your supplies are gone”….thats is the very reason MOST of us are on a prepping forum, so that we can receive information and learn how to do this or that, as i have said on the forum, we are not here for the chit-chat.
Some interesing points coming out here, its making me think about the courses being held in places like Harehope Quarry like Weaving, Spinning, basket making etc, one lady i know has just bought a spinning wheel from New Zealand. It would not hurt to spend a bit of our liesure time trying out traditional skills.
It would appear I am not in the right place.
I was looking for somewhere to chit-chat, as thats the way I gain and absorb the most information.
Through comunication etc.
maybe even set up a form of comunication between eachother that would work after the power all gos off.
comunication, (chit-chat) being the whole reason i was actually here.
sorry to have bothered you all , it was a simple mistake.
Au revoir
Northern Rider
I am also in the teeside are of the north east
would have been interesting to see if we could have created somesort of comunications system.
maybe wel bump into eachother after an event.
still getting the names wrong eh?? if you want chit chat your on the wrong site, we come here to learn, better get yourself on to facebook!!!
bigpaul <—- right name
shame your such a small minded little man.
your supposed to be helpfull and polite to newcomers, not rude and obnoxious,
your meant to make your little group grow bigger so that it grows stronger,
not keep everyone away with rudeness .
chit chat is comunication, and comunication is the fastest way to share information and LEARNing.
Northern rider has the right idea by new skills like weaving, thatching etc.
You only seem to want to be in your own little world , like your praying for an event to happen.
BigPaul Little mind <—- your indian name
anyway this is obviously not the place for me, no harm done and il chalk it up as an experience.
cya
final note
Skean dhude
keep up the good work , loads of great info, and good to see a uk tailored site.
Hey Paisan why not join the main forum? then you can chat with loads of us ?
exactly, if you’ve got something to say you are losing your audience by not being on the main forum.
How the hell did this article get so far off the rails so quickly ? theres a shortage of preppers up here in the NE as it without us losing passing guests.
OK I’ve reread the whole thread and I think it was the words ” Chit chat” that caused the misunderstanding, Chit chat and debate are really the same thing.
cant say i agree, chit chat was my doing and i stand by what i said, however if this person thinks they have so much wisdom to impart let them join the main forum where we can ALL have the benefit of their words not just a few on this page.
I’ve sent Luci a message saying if she wants to chat the forum is for that. She obviously is unaware of the forum.
A lot of people slate the shops but sports direct usually does a big sale on the previous winter season clothing (things like ski jackets, pants etc..). I got a winter ski jacket for £12. Nice & warm, machine washable (while we have power) & build in thermal ski mask. I’m planning on getting the pants this year.
As for the homeless mention, although I’ve never tried it, I’ve heard scrunching newspaper up & stuffing it down legs & sleeves helps insulate in the same way a quilt does & helped people survive cold nights.
I feel that the devil is in the detail with this chap and his on line persona – could be a deliberate misspell
Lucifers on
Lucifer son
Anyway ’nuff said!!
i was homeless in uk a few years ago after leaving home! I found out survival isnt so hard if you make hard choises, their is food out their. Ok you have to do things that you might not wish to do, surfing bins ect. When something happens we will all have to do things we wouldnt like to do have hardships to overcome, and will not be so comfortable… Newspaper keeps warm, but cardboard boxes are better, they trap in warmth… Wool jumpers are a must, as they keep the body warmer. Dont go for big clothes but layer it is a must.. Get wool socks, Try to keep hands feet and head as warm as possible, as thier the things that will hit you in the cold .
It doesnt matter how good you think you are, their is always somebody that will know more! So never put others down!
Oh i found one good trick, put a razor under your jacket colour, when somebody grabs it they will slice thier hands, i lernt it from an old homeless guy. Wouldnt recomend doing it till you really have the need of it.
most long term homeless will tell you the cold isnt what they worry about.
its staying dry.
they know how to find a dry spot in a swimming pool lool.
and they rarely move about when its raining.
if you do see one sat outside getting soaked in the rain.
its usually for the pity vote. stand them up and take off that outer layer and youl usually find a dog under their coat for warmth, and theyre bone dry.