Wanna start a nice little flamewar in a discussion group? .45 vs 9mm, AR vs AK, etc, etc. One that I’m curious about is, if you were going to build your middle-of-nowhere bolthole how would you power it? Gas? Propane? Oil? Turbines?
I really like the idea of propane since its shelf life is the same as the tank that holds it. It heats, runs generators, and can even fuel a vehicle. But, as someone pointed out to me, you can’t walk down the road with a five-gallon bucket and borrow/barter some propane from a neighbor like you can diesel or gasoline.
And, as Friend Of The Blog Harry would tell you…there’s that little matter of the guy with the propane truck navigating the jeep trail up to your place. I wonder if a fella could just mount the tank on a trailer and bring it to town once a year to get filled.
I suppose the smart survivalist would go with the whole Rule Of Three and set things up for propane, diesel, and some other third energy source.
What got me thinking about this? I was up at CostCo yesterday and as I was tooling around through the spring-is-here section of outdoor furniture and whatnot they had 20# barbecue bombs on sale. Hmm. I have two that I use for rotating on my BBQ but it’s never a bad idea to have more. So, in the cart they went.
I have only a few items that run on propane…a Volcano grill, the usual heater, and a little geegaw to let me fill 1# bottles.
Still, propane seems a convenient way to fuel a household without worrying about fuel degradation, algae, the caprices of wind and sun, and that sort of thing. On the other hand, the ability to easily transport and redistribute liquid fuel has a lot going for it as well. Hmmm.
When I finally get Rancho Ballistica (aka Commander Zero’s Post-Nuclear Bunker O’ Love and Lingerie Proving Ground) up and running I’ll have to make some choices. I’ll have to decide on things by then. Opinions?
Before you build the bunker, choose a design that is the most energy efficient (and with as few moving parts) as possible. Then you won’t have to worry that much about how to warm or cool the place because it does it naturally. As far as what energy product to choose, I’d say all of the above.
Propane costs more if you take your tank to them. Seems stupid but it has been my experience at a couple of places.
There is a reason for that.
Allowing the transfer of inflammable gasses by (probably) unqualified customers REALLY adds to the insurance rates…
Better to allow them to bring it to you!
All the best!
You need a CDL(truck) licence with a hazardous materials endorsement(with all the headaches that go with it) to move over 1000lbs of fuel and the tranporting vehicle must be DOT approved(tanks ate transported with special trailers and only empty.
As Scott said – best way to conserve energy is to built it to highest standards of insulation and air-tightness. A super-insulated house would be cheap to heat/cool – and that’s usually the two biggest energy uses.
As far as gas/diesel/propane – me, I’m solar with batteries – which powers most everything. A woodstove for heat. Two propane heaters hooked to 500 gallon tank for kitchen stove/backup heating, and a diesel generator with lots of stabilized fuel set aside as a backup to the solar panels.
Haven’t needed the generator at all – even in winter which is when most people need to supplement their solar collection due to short and/or cloudy days, because I over-sized my solar/battery bank setup to cover us for a week of no sun. Nice thing about the Milsurplus generator aside from EMP resistance is that I can run it at the most efficient fuel-rate to charge batteries, then turn it off and run off the stored energy. About a gallon of diesel gets me 1.5 days of stored electricity.
Also have single induction cooker unit as a backup to the propane kitchen stove (plus a microwave) if the propane runs low. Backup to backup to backup is cooking on the woodstove (although it sucks to add so much heat to the house in the summer).
Adding Radiant heat for winter based on (electric) solar panels heating hot water, with propane as a backup to the solar. Wish I had that super insulated house – would reduce my uses of all kinds of fuels/energy.
We live on solar full time and we heat with wood. I found some surplus propane tanks, a 1,000 gallon tank and a 1,150 gallon tank. I wire brushed them, painted them and our propane company re valved them. Propane use is the stove/oven, clothes dryer and tankless water heater. The tanks are cabled down to 4′ x 12′ X 6″ concrete slabs for earthquake protection. The tanks are surrounded by a 7′ dirt berm. We used 200 gallons of propane in 15 months. We have the 1,000 gallon tank that we work off of, filled about once a year. The 1,150 tank stays in reserve. I figure that we have a 10 year supply on hand, longer if we did not use the propane clothes dryer.
We also have a 15 KW low speed (1,800 RPM) generator. We use it for the welder and to top off the batteries when there are several days of dark cloudy weather. The two sine wave 4 KW inverters will dump 200 amps at 28 volts into the 24 volt battery system.
We also have a 550 gallon diesel tank. The rear top opening has a vacume pressure valve that is air tight and I installed a ball valve at the front, The tank is air tight and the pressure valve will release pressure if it gets hot or or allow air in if you pull fuel out. I put PRI-D and Algecide in the tank 10 years ago and used some this year and the diesel looked and worked like new. We have two diesel vehicles and a diesel tractor. I hear there is a diesel chainsaw out there, I really want one. You would be lucky to store gasoline for 6 months.
great big second on the pri-d, and i’m using 5 year old gasoline now that was treated with pri-g. runs like new.
I forgot to add that the generator is propane with it’s own 575 gallon tank that I found on Craig’s List.
Home made bio-diesel sounds interesting. In the event of mass upheaval, there will be vehicles with empty fuel tanks everywhere. But, what about their crankcases? The best quality and easiest to make bio-diesel is made from re-refined motor oil.
Easiest to make doesn’t mean easy. This link gives an idea of what will need to be done:
https://usfiltermaxx.com/en/content/9-make-black-diesel
This is deep survivalism. Maybe I’ll get this far.
great info. he also has a book on generators and inverters i found on his site.
Propane is an ideal primary home fuel. I’ll grant you that it may not be available when the balloon goes up, but if we’re lugging 5-gallon gas cans around town, the end is probably near anyway. ‘Plus’ side for propane is, you can store *A LOT* of propane, safely & very securely near the ‘lingerie proving-ground’ (I’m stealing that, BTW- sorry).
Where I’m at solar and batteries can do most the powering of a little cabin, plus it’s windy so a small windmill could pitch in. A solar radiant heat system can heat the house and give you hot water. You’d need a wood stove for some heat in the early mornings and do backup work during the coldest, darkest part of the year.
We’ve got plenty of hardwoods around here and making homemade charcoal is fairly easy so I’d have that for grill duty and maybe for heat or a small forge as well.
Propane’s handy stuff and could be put to use in outdoor lighting and firing up a stove when it’s time to do big bunch of canning.
To answer your question about a propane tank on wheels, growing up in west Texas a lot of Tractors ran on propane. We had a 150 gallon tank on wheels that we rented from the propane dealer. So, they made ’em.
There’s quite a few propane/gasoline generators available. For that matter, you can get that option for a vehicle as well.
Here in the high desert a few years back during a Arctic Vortex we had three weeks of minus 15 every morning with a high above zero in the single digits. The townies run on natural gas but everyone in the county is propane or wood pellets ( desert, firewood is $350/$400 a cord ). We ran out of propane ( town was at the time almost 20k ). No big tanks were getting filled, nor any small tanks. I was able to find a few of the five gallon tank swaps. I had enough back-ups at the time, but not nearly as many as I got after that lesson. And I stuck with five gallons. I had stayed with the small sizes as all three propane companies in town had bad reputations with filling the large. Which I imagine is everywhere. As a bonus, when I retired the truck and went bicycle only, a tank fit in the back milk crate basket ( it was hilarious the first time I did it-cars madly veering away from me as if I was about to explode. I kept it covered with a laundry bag after that ). Take the above for what it is worth to you. I just found decentralized worked better for me.
I think that set up you posted from the guy on pawn stars is pretty cool. A good source of water, and hydroelectric could do the trick at least part of the way. At the very least, it would cut down on the fuel you have to store.
Sure, but you cant put all your eggs in one basket. Gotta have at least one more power source.
If you are taking a tank to them, that is normally considered to be consumer level use (ie: portable), and you pay full rate. You roll up with a tank trailer (yes, that is a thing) you should be going to the distributor and paying wholesale prices, as that tank trailer may be as big, or nearly, as what the service station has on hand.
You will require a serious vehicle to tow that trailer. Propane runs about 4.2 lbs/gal, and I think those trailers run 300gals or bigger. You may have to build a smaller one if you have a difficult access, but may pay more, and have to make multiple trips to fill your home tank. Thinking about it, a smaller tank could be disguised easier, if you didn’t want the public to know what you are dragging around, opsec wise.
I’m building a bugout/camping trailer to pull behind my jeep and 4Runner and the main weight of the trailer is my 100 pound propane tank and 40 gallons of gasoline. Not to mention the water reservoir. When I arrive at my remote 10 acre secondary location in the mountains, I’ll have my the trailer full of fuel and also several propositioned stores of fuel ready and waiting when the lights go dark. Now I just pray I can get there before it gets too sketchy….. 👍🏻. Great site CZ
For “isolated living” propane, IMHO, is a necessity. I can’t see it as a primary heat source because of the expense/supply issues, but as a cooking heat source and emergency backup building heat, sure. Given the BTU/gallon issue and portability, I’m not convinced it’s better than diesel for generators, but a full-size diesel gennie – 8-12KW – PLUS a small “emergency backup” propane one (~4KW) isn’t a bad combination, even with the maintenance headaches of diesel fuel. A mix of solar PV, solar stored hot water (very large extremely well insulated tanks) with in-floor tubing, solar hot water for showers, and wood stove(s) pushes propane use down to just cooking and (sometimes) lighting and – maybe – tankless hot water. As CZ said, multiple sources, avoid single point of failure scenarios.
2X 250 gallon tanks are better than 1X 500, and I’m inclined to go with 3X, 4X 250s (having 4X 500s is my wildest dream…). My local supplier can deliver 2K gallons at a time, but that much has to be scheduled. His trucks run on propane, so if an “immediately after the SHTF” fillup can be had, 1-2K gallons could go several years when used only for cooking.
We power with solar. It’s so dang cheap anymore. Sure the battery bank cost as more than a used Subaru but its worth it. Very quite too. Our propane drive delivers once a year. We have a 1000 and 500 gallon tank. The 1000 typically will last 3 years of normal use. I can stretch that by not using propane heat and hanging cloth to dry instead of drying. We still have uses for diesel and gasoline though. We only buy and store “snowmobile” gas. We have a 500gal tank but it’s not as full as I would like. I have a 300 and a 250 diesel tank. Only used for tractors. All fuel is treated with PRI.
we use a small solar backup system, we can do without most grid power. keep a 100 gal tank of gas, five or six 20lb lp tanks and a few cans of diesel for the small tractor/backhoe for those late night mountain funerals. i figure if i’m looking for gas its far past the time that everybody else has run out too. wood heat back up to lp, two tanks,one kept full. one problem i realized when i deployed to bosnia. no trees, little furniture, everything burned for heat during the war. little old lady went out every morning, must have walked miles, gathering twigs to use in the tiny stove. came back about dark, hunched over under the weight of the mound of sticks on her back. wood may get scarce too. if you look at historic pictures, the now forested lands were denuded of trees up until the depression era make-work programs planted millions of seedlings….maybe find you a coal seam and dig your bunker into it…
okay, i know you’re tired of seeing me…but there are regulations to deal with in respect to transporting large tanks. some dealers won’t fill anything over 30 lp tanks for private transport. check your local folks.
You my man keep my amazon prime list filled. Keep it coming
I was going to comment and question about the difference in “energy density” difference between propane vs diesel vs gasoline . But after reading the comments, I figure, never mind, y’all are way ahead of me. Carry on.
Meh, just do like my neighbors. They have a gas well on the property. Part of the deal is personal use. The company tapped a line and ran it to their house. They have forever free natural gas. They use gas for everything including refrig,dryer and AC/heat. They also have a pretty good income off the rest. Also there are laws about transport. Here the max is 100 lbs.
You live in Montana. Wood is the state tree. Exploit this gift from the gods. Make sure you have sufficient oil and treated gas to get you through the first few years. After that, you’ll be on your own with the cross cut saws.
Difficult? Yes. But you’ll get a lot fewer BTUs trying to burn an empty propane tank.
Not sure about where you are, hauling large trailers with propane needs a special commercial vehicle license. I guess that would be another thing yo look into.
Don’t build Rancho Ballistica too big, insulate it well and you will not have that big a demand for heating.
For the exterior walls and the foundation structure you could use insulating NUDURA Insulated Concrete Forms. These have the advantage of adding extra insulation when you build. When we built our log home we used these for the concrete foundation. From my experience, they work very well. Summer, winter whatever the basement temp is always around 70 with no heat being used. One other thing, for what it’s worth using these forms will cost considerably less and be a lot easier to work with than the concrete logs you were thinking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu9SkhypFnY
As for power, as a backup, or alternative to what ever you chose, you could look at a generator run off a gasifier. I’m not sure how well it would work since I’ve never built one, but it’s an option. The downside is that you would need access to a good sized woodlot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6e3CprVTi8
thx for the tip on the forms!
Our transfer station serves as a collection point for unwanted propane cylinders left over from grilling season upgrades. With a smile and polite demeanor I was able to acquire about 20 of them, gratis. Most were still in date, others I had to exchange to get a current hydro on them. Then then all went back into the larder. Modular, portable, and fungible. Because I can’t move a bulk tank when it’s full, or trade a few gallons from one to a neighbor for some antibiotics.
I’ve had the same experience at county landfills in several states. A dumpster filled with tanks — no one cared if you added or subtracted from the contents. And no one at the local big-box cared about the status of the tank being exchanged for a full one.
Safe storage is nothing more complicated than a well-ventilated garden shed in the back corner of the yard.
Cheap, simple and versatile.
https://missoula.craigslist.org/hvo/d/missoula-peterbuilt-fuel-tanker-truck/6862311143.html
Got any friends with a CDL?
I can remember when my grandparents got on the grid. Before that they had a wind turbine that powered a hydrogen setup that fed into a tank with a rubber bladder with water on top of the bladder to presser the hydrogen to the stove to cook with. They heated the house with dried cow crap. I think I can even remember seeing an old book on how to set the system up. I know there was an old guy in NEB. in the 80’s that still ran a similar setup. But his bladders were tractor tire innertubes. Hydrogen would be a better power storage than batteries also. can run a gen set if you need to.
New here, and a bit late to the discussion, but I do have a couple comments that might help some.
Tri-fuel conversion kits are fairly inexpensive, and allow your main, and backup generators to run on either gasoline or propane. Of my three 500 gallon propane tanks, one is piped directly to the main generator.
One of my other tanks has a “wet leg” valve, allowing me to fill portable bottles. This comes in handy for grill bottles, plus being much less expensive than having them filled individually at a dealer.
If you’re leasing a propane tank you’re at the mercy of the tank owner as to price, and that can be a substantial difference. Used tanks are fairly available, at least in my area, and finding one with a wet leg gives great flexibility.