Posted: 7/15/2011 5:57:24 AM EDT
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Just back from the BOL in Northern MN to build a 12' x 16' shed on a concrete slab and a 8' x 10' showerhouse/outhouse. Both buildings were completed and locked up- sorry no pics. Maximum number of people during that time was 6 adults and 3 small children. No electric other than portable generator for running a skilsaw. I doubt it ran more than 30 min. the whole time. Weather was GREAT the whole time so rain was not an issue. Cooking was on a gas grill and dutch oven and grill over the fire. We rented a porta potty from a local company.
Lesson #1: It takes a LOT of ice to keep food cooled and ice gets expensive when you have a lot of food. For next year I'm looking into solar to power a fridge. Lesson #2: Have a good first aid kit. I cut my hand on roofing metal and had to go to the local clinic for a Tetanus shot- no stitches needed. Lesson #3: The Eccotemp propane shower with 12 volt pump made life VERY nice. The temp setting was a little finicky, though. Water was drawn directly from the lake. Any suggestions on solar? |
| Lesson #4: People require a LOT of clean water for washing hands, brushing teeth, drinking and washing dishes. We got drinking water at the grocery store in town(17 mi.) for $.39 a gal. at their refill station(tourist town-lots of demand for this) where you fill your own gallon jugs. Water from the lake was okay for washing dishes but a little green close to shore. First project next year will be extending the dock beyond the weeds. |
| I would think long and hard about sinking a hand pump well where you are. The water can't be more than 20' below surface and it will be sand filtered near the cabin. That's an EASY weekend project with a hand driver/sandpoint. You're talking less than $200 in outlay to do it. Without a good, clean, reliable water source, it ain't a real bugout location as you learned. |
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How many solar panels will it take to run a fridge in northern MN? I guess the power needed is less since the daily high temps are very mild, but the power/m^2 hitting the ground isn't as high that far north. I don't know much about them, but you might look into a propane fridge? |
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The RV world has several fridge options that might work. Most are 'multi' power. AD/DC/Propane. Find one thats low amp, 12v and can run off a propane bottle and you could be set. You would need a couple of deep cycle marine batteries and a solar array to keep them charged. Rough numbers would be 2 or more 65w panels. This won't be cheap. The 12v/propane fridge will give you options to run off the gas genny, gas grill or car bat.
They do my solar refrigerators, but I know nothing about them Linky |
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I would think long and hard about sinking a hand pump well where you are. The water can't be more than 20' below surface and it will be sand filtered near the cabin. That's an EASY weekend project with a hand driver/sandpoint. You're talking less than $200 in outlay to do it. Without a good, clean, reliable water source, it ain't a real bugout location as you learned. We're 300' from the lake, so we'll be pumping to a 35 gal. holding tank next time. Plus, the site is elevated 50' above the lake. Just one more project to keep everybody comfortable................. |
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I would think long and hard about sinking a hand pump well where you are. The water can't be more than 20' below surface and it will be sand filtered near the cabin. That's an EASY weekend project with a hand driver/sandpoint. You're talking less than $200 in outlay to do it. Without a good, clean, reliable water source, it ain't a real bugout location as you learned. We're 300' from the lake, so we'll be pumping to a 35 gal. holding tank next time. Plus, the site is elevated 50' above the lake. Just one more project to keep everybody comfortable................. Anyone else in the area with a well where you could find out what the approx. depth of the water table is? A simple pitcher pump is usually good for 30 feet or better. I'd rather do that than pump lake water in, that's another option but ground water will generally be a lot cleaner and it would give you a second option. |
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Look into better coolers. Your average cooler especially if a bit older is not designed to maintain ice over a long period of time ( most wount even do 24hrs well). Also you need to be mindful of the sun. Move your coolers during the day to keep them in the shade. Block ice in the bottom , cube to supliment and an a cover ( A piece of space blanket works) layed on the inside over the ice/food help also. Instead of over stuffing a cooler use 2 so your ice to food ratio goes up.
A cooler like an SSI will actually have water from the days melt re freeze into ice at night under the right conditions. Ive seen it happen. Another tip is to freeze or partially freeze or atleast make VERY cold especially with larger items going into the cooler for long term storage. As with anything else you get what you pay for. We usually buy the cheap coleman coolers for beverage coolers but have expensive Igloos for food. The difference is night and day. |
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The coleman 5 day coolers are the cheap ones I was talking about for beverages. Did they hold ice for 5 days in the 90* heat? Mine dont.
Were you using block ice or cube? Try makig up some block ice. Heck figure melt a bag of cube and freeze it in a block. Stick the block and a bag out in the sun and see what happens. If you have people sticking their paws in the food cooler every hour your ice wount last. You need to keep the important stuff closed and in the shade. Ice management is a major thing when there is no corner store. Once you are geared and used to dealing with its not to bad. We used to go offshore with two 128 quart igloo marine coolers 3 days 4 guys (which are OK for the job) but definatly not top notch. In hind sight I wish I sprung for atleast one 200 quart ssi. $39 coolers dont even get you in the game. |
The best cooler I've found is made yourself with the 2" rigid foam insulation and duct tape. I had one once, and even sitting in the shade in the Summer, 90% of the ice will still be frozen after 3 or 4 days. If you had a designated person in charge of the food, you could keep the unopened food sealed up in the better coolers and move the food for the day into others that would need to be cleaned and restocked with ice and food each day. That would keep a lot of ice from melting. Just food for thought. 
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The best cooler I've found is made yourself with the 2" rigid foam insulation and duct tape. I had one once, and even sitting in the shade in the Summer, 90% of the ice will still be frozen after 3 or 4 days. If you had a designated person in charge of the food, you could keep the unopened food sealed up in the better coolers and move the food for the day into others that would need to be cleaned and restocked with ice and food each day. That would keep a lot of ice from melting. Just food for thought. Thanks, I'm going to have to try doing this to a couple old coolers since I hate throwing things away. Heck, I wonder how by doing this then putting the coolers into the ground as modified root cellar device to increase insulation. |
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I've got a compact fridge that I carry in the back of my truck when camping along with a Sears Platinum Marine battery and it works great. A lot of the folks on Expedition Portal run them without any problems. You can buy expensive ones from ARB and Engel but the Edgestars seem to be holding up well for several hundred less. Mine is an Edgestar 43qt; the longest I've run mine on battery power is two days in the SC summer without any real change in the battery. It also runs on AC so you can plug it in to an inverter if you have one. They have a low voltage shutoff so you won't drain you battery too far.
These guys have great service and if you watch them, they put stuff on sale a lot including free shipping. No affiliation, juts satisfied with my purchase. Compact Appliance As others have said, you really have to limit your opening and closing of the cooler, keep it out of the sun, use block ice, pre-freeze items for later use, pre-chill items before putting them in the cooler if possible. Put stuff you're going to use first on the top so you can grab it as quickly as possible. Also you can bury the cooler up to the lid then put something like a sleeping bag over it during the day. if you don't bury it, you can wrap it up in a sleeping bag to help it insulate better. |
| Simple solution for keeping food cold in coolers. Get some chunks of dry ice. Not usually cheap but you don't need much. Put the dry ice on the bottom and pour in regular ice. The regular ice will freeze into a solid block. Then, put your food in and more ice. Will last much longer than just ice. |
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Quoted: The coleman 5 day coolers are the cheap ones I was talking about for beverages. Did they hold ice for 5 days in the 90* heat? Mine dont. Were you using block ice or cube? Try makig up some block ice. Heck figure melt a bag of cube and freeze it in a block. Stick the block and a bag out in the sun and see what happens. If you have people sticking their paws in the food cooler every hour your ice wount last. You need to keep the important stuff closed and in the shade. Ice management is a major thing when there is no corner store. Once you are geared and used to dealing with its not to bad. We used to go offshore with two 128 quart igloo marine coolers 3 days 4 guys (which are OK for the job) but definatly not top notch. In hind sight I wish I sprung for atleast one 200 quart ssi. $39 coolers dont even get you in the game. OUCH!@@@!!!BBQ $640 for a cooler... |
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What size genny you got? For less than 200 bucks out the door lowes and many places have little chest freezers for sale. Run the genny for a few hours a day and you can make ice and keep food frozen. I like coolers but after looking over my beat up metal coleman cooler I am considering options. I have some plastic coolers and some are the type that have foam between the plastic inside and plastic outside. They still fail to astound me when it comes to keeping beer or food cold. I have seriously considered buying styrofoam insulation and making boxes for the coolers but the box will need protection or the styrofoam will get damaged easily. I got myself another deep freeze last week and I need to see what it takes to start it up and see if my little genny can handle that. Even if I need a slightly larger genny it would be easy to let the deep freeze do the job and a quiet genny is not a big deal to run for a few hours a day or whatever is needed. I am thinking about showing up at a deer hunting camp and I know I would need to run the setup a few hours a day just to make ice for everyone elses coolers. All my stuff easily fits in a deep freeze and with enough bottles of water I can run it probably every other day and be good for my stuff with ease. I do like the little fridges someone mentioned. I always wanted one and might buy one eventually because they are pretty efficient. But they are small and that only works for me, myself, and I. |
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Quoted: propane fridge, at least thats what we have at our BOL. Doesn't seem to use too much through out the year. In our remote cabin in Maine we had a propane refrigerator, stove and lights. For wash water we had a pitcher pump pulling water from the lake and a good spring not far from the cabin for drinking water. All the comforts of home but still off the grid. |
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Block ice will last longer than cubed. When we camp out of the car, I freeze just about everything,meat, butter, non-carbonated drinks, you get the idea. This cooler gets wrapped in a survival bivy sack, the 3-4 dollar type. I keep a separate cooler for drinks like water and beer, the water however is frozen. I will rarely open the food cooler except at meal time. The frozen disposable water bottles that start to thaw in the food cooler will then be transferred into the beverage cooler. I will however end up buying ice on the second day for the beverage cooler.
This system keeps my food cold for up to four-five days. |