Advice Needed: Multifuel Family Emergency Stove

Interesting topic. When I was looking into a large camp stove, I considered fuel type first. There is almost no difference in calories between petrol, paraffin and LPG. The only significant difference is the weight of the container, cost and availability. In the UK the most readily available and abundant fuel is diesel. So it makes sense that for very long term options, your stove should be able to run on that, but for short and medium term, LPG or gas is my choice. Just because it's cleaner and more convenient.

This is my camp kitchen and would work wonderfully as an emergency kitchen. It packs small, is easily transported in my Land Rover, is boxed and ready to go in a few minutes, or can be unpacked and used in the home if you want to stay put...





The stove is a Partner Steel Cook Partner, hand made by Bill Partner. Beautifully made. If I run out of LPG, then I would switch to a heavy diesel stove like the British Army No 12 cooker, or if on foot, an Optimus Nova.



That setup will keep me going on the road for several weeks. At home I have more LPG bottles and more food, but my stuff is geared towards camping - I could probably last up to 3 months off grid with reasonable comfort, but beyond that I would be in trouble. I have stoves that burn diesel, but I think finding something to cook will be far more pressing than deciding what stove to use.

Unlike Lance, I think prepping or "bugging in" is pretty pointless. Aside from the need being exceptionally unlikely, in the event that it did come about, it would be a sure fire way to shorten your life in the fastest way possible. You just make yourself the biggest target on the block as soon as the corner shops have been stripped out. If you start shooting hungry children in order to protect your bucket of rice, you lose the moral high ground and become public enemy number one. One man and an automatic rifle is no match for an armed, hungry, angry mob - with automatic rifles - and petrol bombs. If you have bugged in and you have a mob at your door, there are no walls high enough or thick enough - you are going to die. Best bet is to try and hook up with a group of people and share what you have, work together and try and build a small community. Either that or join a gang. Strong communities and gangs will be the survivors. Lone preppers are just cattle for the mob.

 

So, you're plan is to JOIN the mob. Yeah, and we'll all just get along..... Suggestion: Don't go knockin on Lances or my door with your friend. You will have many less in short order. You will do what the mob does, and that's go for the easy pickins first. Not the guy that's armed to the teeth. Eventually mobs usually self destruct over power struggles within. So, I'll take my chances with my family, you take yours with your mob.

Super nice kit you have there. Top notch indeed. What stands out to me, though is why that fine craftsmanship and use those horrible wavy wire windscreen supports. One of Coleman's worst features IMHO.

Mike

 

toniok,

If you want that gas to last longer invest in a wide mouth thermos bottle. When you cook you can bring items up to a boil and drop them immediately into an vacuum bottle where they will continue to cook. (someone did a post on oats a while back). For hot drinks a second thermos with a pour through lid can be very useful and reduce your drain on fuel by continually boiling water. Look for foods that you can either cook fast i.e. couscous and similar grains or vacuum bottle cook These are just a few ideas to help you possibly save a bunch of fuel.

AR

 

It is a lovely stove, but I agree, the windshield supports let it down. I think Bill just went for the simple solution - they do allow for the use of over size pots, but they rattle terribly and do irritate me. Aside from that though, great kit.

No I dont plan to join the mob, but you should temper your outrage at that prospect - as I said, if your plan includes shooting hungry women and kids, you lose the moral high ground. The choice between robbing a child-killing prepper or joining the mob isn't much of a moral dilemma. Like most people, in the event I would do whatever i had to do to survive, which may include making some distasteful decisions, but hopefully I would draw the line at shooting children. I think I'd rather eat a bullet myself to be honest. I just wouldn't put myself in that position. It's suicide. It wouldn't take long for people to notice you weren't getting as thin as everyone else and rumours would spread. The hungrier people got, the more curious they'd get and the more desperate. Gangs would get to know about you very quickly and if your defence was good enough to hold them off till they got bored, they'd probably just bulldoze you or burn you out - food as well. Bugging in is a tactically bad choice. Who's side would I be on? The side I thought stood the best chance of winning and the guy who is sitting on a pile of food is definitely going to wind up mob-fodder no matter how good he is with a gun - there is always somebody better - or luckier.

No, as I said, I think the best option by far, is to be mobile - go find some people you can work with, pool your resources (share your food and guns) and work together to build a structured community as quickly as possible. Alone you stand no chance, but there is strength in numbers.

 

simple maths makes that the reality. If 50000 survive the event where you live and you only have 10000 bullets then there will still be 40000 left. Much better to join them and share a little. (not everything) Also more importantly if everyone hankers down and keeps to themselves no improvement to the situation occurs. If the event is a big one the government or anyone else isnt going to be giving any significant help for maybe a long time (look at Katrina and Fukishima Both in countries everyone thought more than capable of resisting this type of thing. If people work together as a team then progress is made towards everyone surviving and also improving there state of living. Wether its an organised community thing or just a gang doesnt matter that much although having someone that knows there stuff in charge is always best.

 

Exactly. man has been a tribal animal for hundreds of thousands of years and for good reason. Alone you will struggle to survive, but as part of a tribe, you can thrive. If we are thrust back into the stoneage, for whatever reason, finding or creating a tribe and working as a group will be the solution to real survival, just as it always has been. If you look at it from the other side of the coin, bug-in preppers' refusal to share will mark them out as the selfish bad guys and that will be all the justification the "mob" needs to liberate their supplies for the greater good. Who is good and who is bad, depends largely on where you are standing.

 

I found similar info on a couple of the less wacko survivalist sites, villages exist for a reason. Safety in numbers, diffusion of skills, company and, to a lesser extent but still important in the long haul, depth of gene pool. Even the best set up backwoods cabin is only great in the short term, ok in the medium term and doomed to fail in the long term. Sad but true.

 

Yeah, which is why planning to dig in, hoarding huge amounts of food, guns and ammo is such an illogical thing to do. It wont be prepper v a few bad guys, it will be prepper v absolutely everybody else. They are just impossible odds. It's a battle that cannot be won. If I have no food and you have lots, then good people v bad people doesnt come into it. Unless you share, we are going to have a problem and that is going to be the nature of your relationship with every single person left alive. You will be the bad guy as far as everybody else is concerned and you will be massively outnumbered. You will lose, there is nothing so certain. It might make sense to have the odd cache of food and ammo hidden randomly here and there, but filling your basement with supplies for the long haul, is doomed to failure as you say - unless your intention is to use it to buy your way into a community and benefit from the protection of a group. In which case you are better off acquiring skills than hoarding stuff, as skills are a trade-able commodity, they weigh nothing and will always have value. Whereas when your stuff runs out, so does your worth.