All this brings to mind my idea of the perfect saw horses. They have three legs, rather than four. Because of that, they can be more easily used on rough terrain. It's the old "[a] three legged table will never rock," thing.
[Why don't restaurant furnishing places sell three legged tables instead of the problematic (rocking) four legged type?)]
If you are going to need a lot of activated charcoal, look into fertilizer supply houses that sell to farms. They sell it in 40# bags much cheaper than it would per pound by the quart or gallon. For example, the same amount bought in a health food store could cost you a few thousand dollars, rather than a couple hundred dollars.
On UV lighting, don't overlook LED's. You can buy LED lights ready to plug in or to build your own UV cleaner. They are reasonably priced.
Just remember, the UV light has to hit the target pathogens for, say, thirty seconds to a minute. As such, claims about that light being used to scrub the air in a duct system like those used for furnaces and HVAC's are Madison avenue garbage, because the air is moving too fast. So too it would go if the water you are trying to purify was flowing. In both cases, you'd need long runs of lights to be effective.
UV's in home HVAC systems are best limited to being directed at cooling coils, since they are stationary and you'd just be trying to keep mold down.
This fellow does all sorts of testing on tools, oil filters, and about anything else he and his listeners can think of. Based on what I've seen of his videos, he is a reliable source for information.
This video compares various well known and some not so well known small scale filtration systems. The information could be invaluable for your emergency stash, or even for your day to day wants and needs:
Like your family member, Anatolians are known for taking care of themselves. Once of age, the shepards quit feeding them, but they thrive off gophers and such.
Dogs are just amazing. Our old Collie was a rattler killing fool, when we were anywhere in the area, so in danger. She had no qualms about sinking her teeth in a butt to pull it back from that danger, then she'd go end it.
My youth was of an era a dog was just a dog, though I cried at the passing of more than one. In spite of how he was raised, my dad would bring ours in when the weather was mean. Other times, she had warm places to stay that included a light bulb and four sides and a door. In short, he valued them as much as the transportation he had, as a kid (horses) and he tried to care for them at least as well as he would his horse.
We happened into an Anatolian puppy at the pound. While asses were demanding $400.00 and more for cool looking dogs, he was neglected. Maybe because people looked them up and didn't want to go broke feeding them. We left, after our whim hunt, and came back in two weeks. I told my wife, if he was still there, he was supposed to be with us. We took him home that day.
He's an impressive character. To bad the people training him weren't smarter and better able to take advantage of his full abilities.
I fenced our upper yard to give him a, roughly, two thousand square foot romping area. Then I knocked a hole in our 3/4 wrap around deck and built stairs down into it.
Anatolians are watchers and are used to deter big cats. One, recently took out a pack of wolves vying for his flock. It didn't go well for him, but he survived, and it went worse for the wolves.
They will sit and watch for threats for hours, then move to a new location. Leopards are kept at bay thanks to them, and the leopards don't have to be killed, because they know not to tangle with them.
Ours has a buddy now. A mastiff-mouse mix (he can fit through a six inch hole, so he has a collar and it activates off a fence parimeter. He's really mellow, by loyal to his brother and seems to like us a lot too. The Mastiff mix showed up when I was walking the white pup [with eye liner]. That was a story. Short version is, he stunk of nasty orchard spray, so I brought him in an bathed him, out of fear he'd die, otherwise. He's been our house dog ever since, when he's not backing up his more aggressive brother on the 2nd story deck or the fenced run.
The two dogs are night and day. The mastiff is mellow and will sleep his day away. The Anatolian will spend his day monitoring, and correcting the neighborhood. However, he loves company and making new friends, though their nature normally says they must be monitored for their inclination towards protecting their turf.
In the end, we wouldn't trade our mutt mixes for "the real thing" any time soon.
If you had a regular furnace or HVAC, instead of baseboards, many have a function which lets you just run the fan. It would make an excellent means of moving air about the whole house.
If yours didn't have that feature on the control, a tech could install a bypass to feed the squirrel cage to gain that function.
Vacuum the pine cones out of the yard, prior to mowing, and the leaves from the flower garden, before winter sets in, using my shop vac and a cyclone pre-filter.
I, too, am from the Pacific Northwet. However, I've, now, crossed the Cascades, back near home (Eastern (Central) Washington) where moisture is much less a problem.
I, also, am thinking of bumping out existing insulation. Now that I'm in the desert, and the hottest part of Washington, those southern and western walls of this hastily built 2x4 framed house are looking, more and more, like they need help.
The plan you have sounds like a pain, and the exact thing I have planned. I am fortunate in that I have an 1,800 square foot wood shop with at least nine saws, nailers (framing , siding, 16 gauge and so on), etc. and so on. That collection includes worth-their-weight-in-gold antique nail pullers, AND simple pipes, to which I added rough teeth and which JUST fit over the nails holding the T-111 on (the small pipes install in a large drill and give the antiques purchase opportunity.
I just bought the first of several rolls of 10" insulation to lay out in my shop attic.
Next, the house.
SIDE NOTE: I worked an 80 year old farm house the customers gave me a $200,000.00 budge bring to life. ONE of the things I did was, seal every air gap I could. This was so effective that, even before I got the insulation in or the rock on, I sealed every gap I could find. There was little or no opportunity for air to move between inside and outside. Sound is air movement of air (rarefactions and compressions). Subsequently, you could not hear people talking outside the walls or windows. Add the insulation and rock and . . . .
Chi Monger wrote:
Kelly Craig wrote:Be cautious about the idea of just running over the top of everything (e.g., plywood and insulation) to crank up insulation. Think of it like adding insulation to the attic - you add layers that do not have vapor barriers so moisture will not be trapped. You'd end up with a vapor barrier behind the rock / lathe and plaster and a wind stop layer under the siding.
Chi Monger wrote:HEATPUMP MINISPLITS:
I want to install exterior insulation & new siding, over the old.
. . . .We’re in the PNW, & only about 200’ above current sea level. So, similar, but not as extreme.
Our climate in SW WA State, the dew point can be amazing—the underside of our patio roof metal & plastic, drops random drops of condensate during medium temp/humidity transition-times during spring & summer.
When it comes to over zealous agents, it, often, occurs we are our own worst enemy. To be more specific, we talk too much, and don't always fully understand our rights.
Just as the United States constitution has protections, which protect our privacy (4th amendment) and our right to not assist government agents attempting to come after us (5th amendment),
every state constitution has such protections. For example, in The State of Washington, those protections are found at article 1, sections 7 and 9.
Regarding these rights, agents cannot come on to your property to search for a crime/infraction. However, they can respond to violations of law they can see happening on your property from public property.
If an agent claims you have been reported for violating a law, remember, an actual written complaint, done by way of declaration that will hold the complainant accountable for perjury, must exist before anything can be done. Even then, the agent cannot come onto the property without a warrant issued by a court of law for probable cause. There is no such thing as an administrative warrant, though more than a few city and other agents have tried to pretend there is.
Anything the agent learned in violation of the common law (constitutional protections) can be excluded from any legal action, even at the administrative level.
You are not obligated to talk to a public agent who comes to your property to obtain information they would use against you. However, there is nothing wrong with asking the agent for identification and a card with their name. Nor is there anything wrong with telling the agent your name. Everything else, including if you are the renter or property owner, does not have to be answered.
If the agent is on your property, you have the right to demand they leave, and even to call 911 for a trespass by the agent, if they have no authority to be there and will not leave.
These things even apply to written communications regarding an alleged violation.
If you receive a notice from an agency without any indication of the identity of the agent sending the notice, including no signature or an illegible one, indicating it is not just a computer generated document, it may be a good idea to warn the agency of a potential fraud, and someone illegally using the U.S. Mail, to issue threats, the ends to which you lack knowledge. Nothing more.
Often, key to dealing with many agents is, having fun. If your state has public records disclosure laws, get familiar with them and use them to investigate the agency supporting stupid laws, or whose agents are abusing authority.
I tiled my counters nearly ten years ago. I used black grout. It remains black and there are no white stains ;)
I used the epoxy type grout and avoided sand. The reason I chose the epoxy was, look at a KFC or heavily trafficked commercial building with tile floors. If that grout can hold up to us for a few decades, it's what I want. I watched a guy grouting a KFC I was helping paint (new build). That is what he told me he was using, so, twenty or so years later, that's what I used.
I used 12" tile, greatly reducing the number of lines, and that helps a lot.
Use a block of wood with sharp edges to make sure every tile is even with the one next to it so when you slide that glass of ale across the counter you don't waste the contents when it hits a speed bump (I should have given myself this tip - I have one coffee cup speed bump).
Susan Boyce wrote:Wow bummer. I would think that this can't be the case in every tiled kitchen otherwise no one would tile it. I might have to go to a pro tile shop and ask them about it too. I appreciate your input though :)
I'm one of those [evil] windmill fighters. I became that after I learned fighting them was a purchased thing I could not afford. I beat up my fair share of them, even though others said you couldn't. Most those fights were for others who'd already been devastated by a windmill.
Fighting isn't always a bad thing. Consider HOA's, cities and towns that are said to prohibit growing your own food in a small location. Often what is passed for law is just convenient interpretation, but it takes being willing to throw yourself into the fray to change things. That may include promoting the idea of changing a law, or challenging those with a different mindset.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, yep - changes to lifestyle can make life a lot better. Not just for the disconnect from artificial persons, or reduced connection, but for the emergencies that sneak up on us, like the recent bitter cold.
Long before I ever heard of rocket stoves and gasifiers, it drove me nuts to hear friend talk about "only using four cords of wood" to heat their energy efficient homes. Around 72, I rented a two story farmhouse with zero insulation. I heated it, comfortably, using what, today, would be a tall brown ceramic coated stove. I heated that old farm house in well below zero weather (Bridgeport, Wash. (home of Chief Joe Dam)) off a cord of fruit wood and a quarter cord of fir, used most to get the 12" logs of apple/cherry going. In short, I'm not that impressed with the lack of real improvements to commercially built wood burners over the last fifty years.
________________________________________________
World hunger: create systems that pump out food with a tenth the effort (hugelkultur, swales, adding texture to the landscape ... large scale polyculture gardening rather than massive scale monocropping). By demonstrating and documenting these techniques, people can save thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars by growing their own. And they then know the REAL story of their food. Rather than depending on corrupt food systems, just grow your own. If a person has a ton of food growing in their yard, it could save a few trips to the grocery store. And if these techniques become more and more well known, the seeds can get into the hands of people that live in places where food is scarce. If this knowledge can find its way to the global population, then I suspect that we may have ended all world hunger.
Be cautious about the idea of just running over the top of everything (e.g., plywood and insulation) to crank up insulation. Think of it like adding insulation to the attic - you add layers that do not have vapor barriers so moisture will not be trapped. You'd end up with a vapor barrier behind the rock / lathe and plaster and a wind stop layer under the siding.
Chi Monger wrote:HEATPUMP MINISPLITS:
I want to install exterior insulation & new siding, over the old.
This brings up a good point (wiring capabilities aside)- it does not matter what the heat comes from, it's still heat. The end effect would be the same whether it's one hundred bulbs running at fifty watts or a five thousand watt, ceiling suspended heater.
Steven A Smith wrote:I scanned through most of this (12 year old, very long) thread and didn't see much reference to the use of literal *heat lamps*.
In the "good ole days", heat lamps (screw into socket) seemed to often be 500W and deliberately filtered to put out only red light. These days they are more often (almost exclusively?) 250W and can be had in unfiltered versions where the light is white-ish and therefore can replace an incandescent bulb in contexts where heat buildup in the fixture is not a problem.
I fully understand the jack of all trades, master of none thing, and the dilemma of wanting to be good at something.
My shop has tools and equipment with which I work granite, wood, plastic, and metal, do glass etching and sand blasting, do finishing, do copper plating, build and repair things that rely on electricity, perform auto maintenance and repairs, and so on. I've built kitchens, including my own (cabinets, lighting, plumbing, flooring), repaired and customized my own rigs, made art that got me invited to foreign art shows and many other things. The kitchen cabinets I built for our home are nice, but pale in appearance before the work some, actually, many do.
After a lot of searching the Net and not being able to find anything like several of the things I've done, it occurs to me the many unique jigs I've made and published, and that are used and shared by others, puts me in the category of being pretty darn good at that thing. So too it goes for the wood-plastic lathe turnings, a unique door stop I designed, my walking sticks and several other things. Taking a ninety degree turn from trade work and art, I've done a lot of legal work that found me up against major law firms, against which I prevailed.
In the end, it took a while to realize that I had done one of those things I hoped to do - be good at something. I just did not, at first, recognize it. Even after it already happened a few times. I suspect many others with the want to be good at something also are, but just have not come to recognize the fact.
Now, I know it is more than probable there will be many other things I'll do quite well. Too, I know I will do some things better than most, if not all others. At least initially, since I did and will invent the jig, glass etch, wood project, electronic project or what have you.
Not brass, but copper: A bit more than a decade back, I remodeled a house with literal sheets of copper covering the entire attic. The copper was badly corroded and tarnished. I bought a gallon of taco sauce from a restaurant supply and tried it. In mere seconds, you could see the sauce do its magic without any scrubbing. The copper shown like new
For those unaware, EVERY apple tree, be it a Fuji, a delicious, a golden or what have you grown here in apple country is grown from an established tree, which has been grafted to a rootstock tolerant of our climate.
If suckers (branches) were allowed to grow from below the graft, they would produce an entirely different apple than the apple above the graft.
That aside, I'll have to test drive one of these apples some day in the not too distant future.
On the battery-concrete thing, it was mentioned information suggested a possibility other than conductivity causing drainage. The concern was about a chemical reaction.
I couldn't say yea or nay to that possibility. I had not heard about such a problem. I am ignorant of any way the concrete could interact with the sulfuric acid, since there is no direct contact between the two.
I do some copper plating and store sulfuric acid on the floor with no concern about compromising concentration of the acid, which would be a concern, because it would alter the outcome of the plating process.
SIDE NOTE: I just ran a search and the only thing I could find was WAY BACK info: Initially, batteries used wood cases and glass to encase the cells. Hmm. The wood would warp and this would cause the glass inside to break. Also, "batteries would sometimes lack a case altogether, allowing electrical discharges into the concrete. Then came porous rubber cases which contained carbon atoms: this also created electrical activity between the cells in the presence of moisture, leading to prematurely discharged batteries."
A clarification. Storing batteries on concrete or the ground was a problem in the past, but has not been a problem for some decades. The cases used for batteries do not conduct electricity. However, a dirty battery can conduct electricity between the terminals, draining it.
As to storing water in concrete or plastic, remember, we are talking life and death availability of water, after the tap shuts off. That is why a few of us talked about filter systems, LIKE the Berklys.
Yep - a buddy was building his own home forty years ago. The PUD guy inferred he was foolish for wasting money to build with six inch walls, for the increased insulation factor. The PUD guy pointed out our electric was the cheapest in the several, united states and D.C. My friend's response was, "[w]ill it always be"?
Amy Gardener wrote:N. Neta, the author of the OP (original post), "How to make your home more resilient?" wrote,
But what if you can’t (or won’t) relocate or start all over again…
This topic highlights a problem that many people face: working with a house that is not ideal. Maybe it's too big, or carelessly designed, or built when fossil fuels were cheap, or any number of problems. How do we make a home better without abandoning it or selling it to some other inexperienced person?
In my case, I bought this house before I knew anything about permaculture or the climate realities where I now live. I trusted people that I should have questioned. I didn't know the questions! Now that I know more, I feel duty bound to make this house better. The more I learn, the more I wish I could have read threads like this when I got started. I am truly grateful for your careful consideration about how we can help each other be better stewards of place: land, home, resources.
Today, I did a little thing to make this house a tiny bit more resilient: I made a door snake with some worn jeans, filled it with cedar shavings for insulation and pea gravel for thermal mass. Such a satisfying project.
Please keep those ideas for improving our less-than-perfect homes coming!
(1) I need to swap the carb on my Honda generator so it can run on propane, to overcome the stupidity of the idiots who tainted gas so it has no shelf life.
(2) Second on the metal roof, because fires are always a thing.
(3) Grit my teeth and cut down the beautiful shrub reaching all the way to the second story wrap around deck, to minimize fire danger it poses.
(4) Swap my aluminum windows for energy efficient windows (the one I already did was a game changer). Too, get rid of the two sliding glass doors that are huge problems for heat transfer.
(5) Since two of the three sliders are on one wall (28' long) and it's the west side (where the heat of summer hits the hardest), pull all the T-111 and bump the framing out to six inches, add better insulation and a vaper barrier.
(6) Insulate the daylight basement.
(7) Scheme really hard on a way to install emergency wood heat (surrounded by free apple wood).
( Scheme a way to install totes (cheaper than barrels) for emergency water (a good use for that Berkly or equivalent). Scheme on how to keep them from freezing.
I'm not a tiny house type of person, but I like looking at what some accomplish in a small space.
My house isn't overly big, but my shop is eighteen hundred square feet. Aside from work areas to assemble things, every square inch is spoken for by a tool or piece of equipment (cabinet saw, re-saw bandsaw, scroll bandsaw, scroll saw, sandblast station, electroplating station, etc.). Every time I bring in a new piece of equipment (e.g., sanding-carving station, lathe, welder, long bed jointer), a whole lot of rearranging goes on. In the end, I have as much packed into my little shop as many of the bigger shops have. I only have to pull one or two items out (when reasonable, everything gets casters) to use the item (i.e., carver, router table, router crafter).
Looking around at the photos, this and many tiny homes like it have as much going for them, square footage aside, as homes several times their size. Accordingly, it's obvious a whole lot of planning AND re-planning went into it.
If I were starting anew, on a place to live, there are a few things that would be a must:
(1) Thick walls so I could insulate them well.
(2) An attic I could be sure did not give up any of that protection from the elements gained at the walls.
(3) Drawers rather than lower cupboards, so I didn't have to remove anything to get to the things at the back.
(4) A heck of a pantry - probably tied to a root cellar.
(5) A daylight basement approach to some or all of the construction, so I could take advantage of the relatively stable ground temps for heating and cooling.
(6) A lot of cabinets, many with glass doors, to minimize the complications of dusting.
(7) A LOT of stolen ideas from pages like this, to crank up the efficiency.
Another possible alternative to using nichrome wire (heating elements) MIGHT be, a parabolic lens.
I have a large screen television parabolic lens, which has to be stored carefully, because a bit of sunlight shown through it can be enough to melt a brass padlock. In other words, it concentrates enough energy from the sun to do some major heating and could, easily, take out a shop, garage or house, if not stored right.
I long wondered about burying a culvert vertically in the ground, filling it with basalt rock and focusing the beam of the parabolic lens on it.
Mindful of that heat rises, piping could be ran through the basalt to allow the heat focused on them and the liquid in them to transfer to radiators inside a green house or other structure.
K Eilander wrote:Another interesting option... what about using a homemade "sand battery" as a foot warmer?
Sand would be super comfy on the toes. Your own personal tropical beach!
Another possibility is, conductivity and infrared heat from a light. That way, you can walk on the heat conductive surface all day and not worry about problems mentioned above.
Granite fabrication places have, literally, tons of granite they have to dispose of, so it is free for the taking, upon request, from many.
If a person wanted, they could cut the granite down just using a circular saw and a diamond blade. All it takes is a dribble of water to keep the blade cool. I've gone this route for pieces too big to cut on my tile saw many times. Of course, you have to apply common sense rules when using electric tools around water.
If need be, you could layer something like diatomaceous earth on top the stone, to act as insulation against heat loss in areas not used for the actual heating process and just to get the heat from the lamp to point B.
Somewhere on the Net, it may have been on the Instructables web site, I saw plans for making your own heater for dog dishes. Large 10 watt resistors were laminated to the bottom of a galvanized trough.
If I were going that route, I'd opt to toss in ground fault protection and a way of monitoring how much voltage I was pumping into the resistors (e.g., a volt meter) and a means of checking the heat (e.g., a laser thermometer).
The latter would require an investment, but would have all sorts of uses. You could start with a Variac and feed it to outlets AND a rectifier module, for DC outputs [along with a DC meter]. Power lights for clear indication of power in and out could be handy too.
I have a shop with an over-arm pin router, carving machine, re-saw and scroll bandsaw, cabinet saw, etc., etc. The wood working equipment is supplemented with granite working tools, plastic forming tools, sandblaster, carbide metal cut off saw, a welder and so on. As such, I can build a lot of things. For example, I built all the cabinets for our kitchen. It took a lot of time, but saved us thousands of dollars, including for the granite work. It was worth it.
On the other hand, there are things other people can do far more efficiently than I can, so it's the smart move to spend the money to let them, then use my time to do what I can do efficiently, or for pleasure.
Of course, there is that problem of finding people who can or will do projects. Kids seem to think they're worth $50.00 an hour these days, so I may get stuck with doing my own digging and rock stacking.
One is part Mastif and part mouse (so can get his butt through holes he makes 1/4th the size of himself). The other is an Anatolian-Sheppard mix. Both should be able to weather the weather, BUT they spend a large portion of their lives inside, out of the subzero. Since acclimation is everything with any species. . . .
Lived in 50 below country and had everything from a Collie and a Lab to a Norwegian Elkhound. To find him at night (checking up on him when the temps hit the 50 below mark), we learned to check the snow backs the plow had made. Even on the coldest nights he could be found snoozing on top one. However, those dogs lived their lives
outside the home, except in nasty weather.
Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Kelly,
I'm not a dog expert, but we did keep a couple dogs in Maine, where it gets fairly cold. I don't think you mentioned what kind of dogs? If you did, I missed it, and I'm sorry. Naturally a long haired dog won't need as much protection as a short haired dog. If the dog house/fort is small enough, you shouldn't need any kind of light for heat. We built ours small and put lots of straw inside for bedding. I don't recall exactly the size, but it was less than counter height and couldn't have been more than 2 and a half feet wide and not more than 4 feet long. The dog we built it for was a husky/chow/lab mutt to give you an idea of size. Our second dog used it too for a while. That dog was a lab doberman mutt. Our dogs would move the straw around and make a sort of nest on the side away from the door. We did add some foam insulation to the sides to help. We had some of the roll roofing left over from a shed, so we used that on top. I don't know if it would be any cheaper than metal roofing. But building them smaller would use fewer materials and help the dogs to stay warm easier.
Jan White wrote:I was going to suggest pallets, too.
Do you know your dogs will go in a shelter? I've got three different dog houses and a bunch more temporary shelters and one of my dogs won't use any of them. The most he'll do for himself is lie under a pine tree, which isn't much help in a heavy rain. 🙄 My old lab was the same.
I thought about standing them up. I would have to deal with leaks where they joined [and there will be major leaks].
I'd still cut them, for various reasons. Those range from that we had 70-100 mph winds the other day to that I'll have to work on aesthetics (it is next to my house). Anyway, cutting them is no issue. A Sawsall and a bi-metal blade makes cutting them very quick work.
In the end, that one is still on the board, as a potential.
Heather Staas wrote:Why not do them standing up? Seems that might save some cutting and roofing work? Bolt them together. Fit a solid back over one opening. Make a flexi-door for the front side out of something that lets light in? drill some drainage holes? I can imagine my dogs finding that a pretty cool fort?
I wasn't thinking enough and ended up in a last ditch scenario regarding shelter for our two, medium sized dogs. I hadn't thought much about it because they live inside, with us, except when we go to town. It dawned on me they need significant shelter in the hours we are away (town is an hour away, so. . . .).
The commercial stuff I looked at on line was a sad joke. Nearly everything was too small, the equivalent of buying a tiny home, or both.
I priced building one and even that ends up around $275.00, after buying a couple sheets of ply ($150.00), a few 2x's (trusses, corners, etc. $30.00) and some metal roofing $80.00).
I'm starting to eyeball combine, or, in a pinch, stacked tractor tires.
Any ideas?
SIDE NOTES:
(1) The door would be flaps of treadmill fabric layered so it made a good barrier to wind.
(2) I'd cut a "window" and install a piece of Plexi from my hoarded stock.
(3) I'd leave a 40 watt bulb running to warm the house
(4) The floor would be a pallet covered in layers of old carpet.
(5) I'm out to lunch on the roof. It may be some heavy gauge metal from the side of a combine in my buddy's scrap field. It may be two 2x's (arched) for temporary support of a tarp.
My first hand experience is, even standard (e.g., 1/8" thick) glass can be worth its weight, if used right.
I did a ton of work on the Byrd House in Olympia, Washington. It's the oldest Queen Ann in town. One of the things I did was, rebuild the front door, which just had a single pane of glass when I got it.
After rebuilding the door, I focused on the window. I wanted it tight enough you could slam the door and there would be none of that rattle many of us were familiar with over the years. Too, I wanted more sound proofing and insulation. Too, I wanted to make it relatively easy to access the glass, in case it broke.
Just adding a second pane completely changed the characteristics of the door. With it closed, you could no longer hear normal traffic noise from the street. Holding your hand near the glass, it did not feel nearly as cold as before the second layer of glass.
I, too, relied on nothing more than airgap (1/2") between the two pieces of glass.
Sealing everything was key to success on fighting both sound and cold. That is, stopping air movement.
Before I got insulation in my 1,800 square foot shop, winter dilly dallyings were not always comfortable to do. I set up a four quartz tube infrared heater about four or five feet from where I was working. The result was a magical as walking through a Costco, as winter was contemplating driving us all inside, and being warmed by the radiant heaters they sell.
The highly directional nature of infrared allows it to heat things and not just the air.
If you live in a rental and cannot tamper with it, think about things like quilts and tapestries, which is how they improved the miserable conditions of castles. Of course, that's how we keep warm in bed too, so it's a proven method.
You can make simple wood frames that either lean against or attach to the walls. Using two pieces of wood to sandwich the covering would allow you to stretch it without puncturing it. Just invest in some screws, washers and wing nuts.
You could set your coverings up so they were a foot or so from the wall, to allow you to hide things behind it.
These coverings could be as mundane or fancy as you desired. The latter so they became part of the decor.
You could add vertical or horizontal wood strips to allow you to hang a picture on the quilt or tapestry.
If you liked the effect, you could pop down to the local fabric store and buy more batting to up the R value of your project. The batting could be held in place by double back tape or whatever means you find appropriate.
We bought the roll up canvas like blinds. They look nice and completely changed how much of a hit we take from the late afternoon sun, so that shading effect is as bitg a deal around the house as it is when a cloud rolls over.
SIDE NOTE: I wrote this before reading Chi Monger's post, so this is just a second vote for that approach.
Here, every year, at least one, if not several, orchardist pulls a hundred acres of fruit wood and burns it. One fellow used a cat to create a large, shallow pit to throw the wood in, then lit it and, once it was going, buried it to smolder.
This, like others experiences, produced a lot of mixed results, but the end product was worth it and there was a lot of potential to the process.
I went to mechanical keyboards because I wipe the letters out about every six months to a year (I type, a lot).
Older keyboards had etched keys and held up pretty good, but decals stink for longevity. The mechanical keyboards allow you to swap out the keys that last far longer than decals.
My first mechanical lasted about two years, but it cost$200.00 hundred (K70?). It had glitches that went beyond just swapping key caps. The one I'm using now was about $70.00 (HyperX) and I like it better (easier to keep clean, etc.).
My computer stays on 24-7 and has for about thirty years. Because of that, I've only had to change the BIOS battery once. And: the first computer got replaced because there were better options out there; the second got replaced because though it ran faster than most 486's, it reported as a 386, so programs would not load and I had to replace it to upgrade to programs with more capability; the next only made it about ten years and died, majorly.
An upside of leaving electronics on is, less heating and cooling and wear and tear from it. A downside is, it does consume electricity. For example, when my office was downstairs of a house with an uninsulated basement, leaving two computers on 24-7 kept the office room comfortable. Shutting them off required heating the room to remain in it. It's amazing what a couple one hundred fifty watt power supplies and a couple of the old, CRT type monitors did for keeping the room warm.
Now days, many power supplies consume even more wattage, but monitors far less.
All that aside, surge suppressors can take only so many hits and they may still provide power, but without the protection.
If everything on a power bar is off, the suppressor should have any voltage-amperage running through it, so it shouldn't suffer damage.
Just shutting off a computer via a power bar is, essentially, crashing it. It can result in lost strings and other computery-ish things that will, at some point, have to be cleaned up.
The kind of rice you buy will determine the shelf life.
Honey will outlast all of us, and our kids.
If you open a big bag or bucket of food, you may or will have to deal with it in a timely fashion. If food is scarce, that means putting a vacuum on it again and so on. For that reason, with a few exceptions, I try to store my food in pint to gallon containers and bags. For example, I may not want to gorge on powdered eggs for a week, or two or three, so I store them in quart and even smaller jars or bags.
If there is no power, you can resort to a brake bleeder to pull air from bags.
Scheme a way to install totes (cheaper than barrels) for emergency water (a good use for that Berkly or equivalent). Scheme on how to keep them from freezing.