Overlooked Prepping Actions

Many people, when they first dip their toe into the world of prepping, find themselves particularly attracted to one or two subjects and run with those for a good while before branching out. It is all too easy to find food preservation and storage fascinating and all engrossing. The same with planting a garden or getting your first chickens. Ditto generators and solar panels, water treatment, bug out bags, guns and ammunition and/or trauma and nursing care. Others recognize that there is much to do and that it all needs doing - they try to do everything in equal measure, butterflying from one subject to the next, stretching their resources and themselves thinly. And then there are those who find themselves quickly overwhelmed and paralyzed by analysis. Remember our advice: eat the elephant one bite at a time by trying to do one thing each day/week/month which makes you better prepared than you were before. Rinse and repeat.

Amid all of this study, to-do lists and activity there are a large number of additional, important actions which all preppers should take to harden their lives but which are often overlooked in favor of the more sexy. Mundane things like checking your doors and windows are locked each night, reversing your car into the garage each time you park, keeping its tank at least half full at all times, inspecting plumbing fixtures for early signs of leaks or electrical panels for early signs of failing breakers might be boring and not really considered what prepping is all about. But each one of these without question makes you better prepared for lots of the potential disasters that life throws at each and every one of us. Indeed, the probability of a more "mainstream" disaster - a house fire, a burglary, a flood - along with the inherent risk to life, limb and finances, is much higher than a civil war, invasion, economic collapse, pandemic or other apocalypse. And you are way more likely to save a life through good medical skills than take a life through being a combat master on the gun range. You do have a First Aid course and Stop the Bleed under your belt, don't you?

So, on that theme, here are some of those many easy steps which everyone should at least consider:

1. Insurance. Keep it up to date and appropriate. Be pro-active and responsible about evaluating your true needs, whether for the house, vehicles, valuable goods or specialist activities. If you have loved ones who depend on you, get 20 or 30 year term life insurance at ten times your annual income to look after their needs if you meet a sudden and unexpected death. Stay away from whole life policies. If you carry a gun for self defense, consider carry insurance (we like USCCA). An umbrella policy might be a good fit if you have significant resources which someone else might target for a payout. With inflation rampant, think carefully about the insured amount for your house vs. what it will take to replace.

2. Along similar lines, spend a weekend cataloging your entire house and its contents. Have a photo of everything you own. This is very easy to do in the era of digital cameras and smart phones. It is priceless should you every have the misfortune to suffer a total loss. A single house fire is bad enough. A large wildfire can vaporize almost everything. The more photos the better, the more detail the better. It both helps you remember at one of the most traumatic times of your life and it helps prove to the insurance company that you really did own that $300 Williams Sonoma toaster rather than a $10 one from Walmart. There is some very candid advice from insurance adjusters on the web about how to ethically and legally avoid undervaluing your claim by richly describing everything down to the smallest detail and including a hyperlink to the replacement item from for example Amazon. Adjusters get paid by the number of items they clear from claimants' lists per day. If you make their job easier, they are much less likely to query any item. While you might not bother to even think of what was in your shower stall, a photo of the expensive shampoo and soaps, along with washcloths, shower curtain, liner, sponge loofah plus holder, bath bombs, refining pore mask and other sundry items can quickly turn zero claim into several hundred additional extra dollars for you. On other items, the adjuster has to match all the features you list in your claim. So there is a huge difference between toaster from Walmart (you'll get the cheapest they sell, about $10) vs. "High end toaster, stainless steel, red power button, settings for bagels and english muffins" (probably $50). It should go without saying to keep all your receipts for more expensive items (televisions, camcorders, computers). Scan these and copy them with all these photos onto multiple USB sticks. Keep one in a fireproof safe and others off site with friends/relatives.

3. In the same fireproof safe you should also place copies of all important documents such as birth certificates, passports, driving licenses, house titles, bank accounts, life insurance papers, insurance policies, wills, powers of attorney, vehicle titles, education certificates, stocks, shares and bonds, important telephone numbers and emails, passwords and recovery codes. Plus anything else you can think of that would be vital to have if all you suddenly had to rely on was in that safe. Scan all the same papers and add them to the USB drives you are storing off site with friends and relatives. Perhaps put some cash in there with a prepaid phone. Maybe a spare pistol and a knife. Consider cloning the safe and leaving it with your most trusted friend.

4. To help reduce the likelihood of ever having to rely solely on the contents of such a safe, make sure you place plenty of fire extinguishers around your house and make sure they are the correct type. It goes without saying to have one or two in the kitchen. But don't forget the garage, the mechanical room, the laundry, the barbecue and at least one on each floor/basement. Clogged dryer vents and worn out bathroom extractor fans are a significant source of house fires. So too are malfunctioning battery chargers, especially those with Lithium Iron Phosphate chemistry. So make sure you clean that dryer vent out at least once per year (kits to do so effectively are cheap on Amazon) and, for peace of mind, consider replacing extractor fans that are over, say, 10 years old. Recharge batteries and devices on a fire resistant surface or inside a metal box or outside if they are exotic ones for RC cars, airplanes or drones. For motivation, search for battery fires on YouTube.

5. Spend the few hundred dollars it costs to put smoke detectors, carbon monoxide alarms and explosive gas alarms all over your house and garage. And change their batteries per the manufacturers' instructions - put reminders in your smart phone calendar or just pick an obvious date like 01 January to do the needful. CO alarms should go near where combustion is happening (again, follow the manufacturer's guidance) and outside bedrooms. Explosive gas detectors belong anywhere propane or natural gas is being used or the pipes for it are being run. Make sure every member of the family know what each alarm does, what the dangers are between them and what the immediate course of action needs to be.

6. If you have any threat whatsoever of a wildfire, whether from forest, patches of trees or grasslands follow the advice to reduce combustibles around the property, create defensible space (at least 30 feet, preferably much more), remove debris from gutters, cut back trees and bushes near to the house and have some source of water that can be accessed. Have a plan to seal soffit vents, a major ingress path for embers into the roof structure in the event of a fire in the area. Above all else, create an evacuation plan that leaves no room for panic over what to take and where to go (with back up options). Consider bug out bags just for this scenario and don't forget to take that fireproof safe with all its precious contents.

7. The latest technology is excellent for further protecting you castle. We are not advocates of voice controlled tech such as Alexa or Siri (no sane person should place microphones all over their house and allow big brother and their AI to listen to everything). But the LoRa (long range) low power systems are a very good way to track what is happening inside your home whether you are there or a continent away. Temperature devices in your fridge and freezer with parameters set will let you know if someone has left the door open or the breaker has tripped: potentially saving you hundreds if not thousands in spoiled food. Water sensors under every sink, in the laundry and by every toilet will alert you instantly if there is a leak and before much damage can be done. They even incorporate glass break sensors, door and window opening switches and passive infrared movement sensors to help you build an inexpensive but sophisticated alarm system. If anything is not right, the hub will send you an automatic email and alert. There are even devices which will turn off you main water feed if they detect a leak - or allow you to turn it off remotely. We like YO Link for its ease of set up, robust app and reliability - see Amazon.

8. Talking of turning the water off, it is a good habit to turn off the main shut off valve on the water system if you are going to be away for any length of time. So much damage can be prevented this way if a fixture or pipe were to spring a leak during an absence and water could flow unimpeded for days if not weeks. It's a simple 10 second action and good prepping discipline. The main shut off valve is usually in the mechanical room but, if in doubt, any plumber or handyman should be able to find it for you within minutes of being asked.

9. Adding cameras to your security architecture is well worth considering. There are lots of options these days from wireless plug and play to full blown 4k wired IP pan tilt zoom surveillance cameras that would not be out of place at a nuclear weapons facility. But for a few hundred dollars you can get started with high quality Wifi based cameras which alert you to movement or other triggers and allow you to sound the alarm if you don't like what you see. Even a Ring type doorbell is a great start: not having to stand behind your front door or open it to see who is there plus the ability to talk to them even if you are not home (though want to pretend that you are) is a huge security advantage. The added situational awareness cameras bring to looking outside the castle without having to leave its walls should not be under estimated either. We like Eufy for its picture quality, local storage without monthly fees and very robust app.

10. Back to that fireproof safe and its clone stored with your most trusted friend. A few more items to consider placing inside are spare medicines, copies of prescriptions and spare glasses/contact lenses. Having copies of your prescriptions stored on your phone can be helpful if anything goes missing while traveling and you need to urgently get a refill. While you are at it, you might want to get a copy of your medical file from you Primary Care doc and any specialists should you find yourself being forced to go to other providers at short notice.

11. As far as your vehicle goes, preventive maintenance is the key. Check the tire pressures regularly and before any long trip. Don't forget to check the spare to make sure it remains usable, even if it is just a temporary undersized donut. Replace worn tires promptly and with quality products. They are not cheap but too much depends on them when driving at speed and in adverse conditions. Check the oil and change it on schedule plus follow the service guidelines to spot issues before they become major breakdowns which put you at risk. You do carry a fire extinguisher rated for fuel fires in you car, don't you? What about a tow rope and jumper cables (which someone else can use to rescue you)? Flares and warning triangles? A flashlight, a knife, some pepper spray? A glass breaker and seat belt cutter? A ratchet strap or two can make a field expedient for the jaws of life should you need to pry open a door, move a steering column out of the way or straighten a pedal that is trapping a foot. You do always wear your seat belt and make sure others do, right?

12. Take that same vehicle out on the roads in winter and you should make sure you throw in a bag of additional gear. A sleeping bag, blankets, inflatable pillow, water bottles, emergency food, shovel, traction tracks, kitty litter, change of clothes, extra jacket, warm high boots, ice scraper and snow brush are just some of the items to consider. If you are stopped due to conditions don't ever leave the engine running if there is any chance of falling or blowing snow blocking the tail pipe. Keep the vehicle out of the way of potential snow clearing equipment and emergency vehicles. Consider getting some training on how to drive in icy conditions and how to recover from loss of traction.

We trust we have given most of you some food for thought with the preceding. It should at least be a healthy start to getting squared away in your everyday lives. Please share these ideas with anyone and everyone you think might benefit. They are a very practical and innocuous way to develop discussions that can lead to full blown prepping exchanges. All part of the strategy for expanding your network too.