Underground Shelter

I clump realtors along with used car salesmen...

DrDragon ,

I appreciate all the help you have to offer on this subject. Thanks again!

Dendrite: I myself have been thinking about an Underground Shelter. Though I am over in BC. Would you be willing to share these "plans" you acquired for your own shelter ?

Nighthawk,

I came back from lloyd lastnight, and paid more attention to the location and 30 km west were 5 types, on different hieght towers, but then as I got near Edmonton to the south of 16 before the Ukraine Cultural Center was one yard with a HAWT, and VAWT, the vawt was a good size.
Anyway, I looked over the site you bought your turbine from.
First I agree, 1600 watts is a lot of power. You will never see that from your wind turbine. I know they claim that,in fact they claim at lot of things without giving actual data.
That is a well known ineffiecient Delco three phase alternator. Many companies use that for building thier mills around, changing the names, and hypeing the performance. In my estimation you have at best a 210 watt mill in a 20-21 mile per hour wind speed, maybe not even that as with 13 blades rpms will be limited.
I suspect it will burn up, and out in the first wind event it sees if you dont take it down.
That site and 95 % of them are absolute marketing lies.

The only way to get anything out of low winds is with a larger diameter rotor, not more blades.
Any wind mill site that does not put the volt/amp curve vs wind speed of their product on first page or two of their advertising is planing to lie to you, and you may as well not read anything else they print.
If anywhere in their advertising they have the wording "instantanious power" they are trying to deceive you.
If they are making claims about their product in winds greater than 29-30 miles per hour they are trying to deceive you, believe nothing they say.
If they make any claim about low wind power that their product makes without stating the amperage, voltage, and the wind speed they are trying to deceive you.
If their product has 5 or more blades(and its not pumping water) be suspitious.
A rough rule of thumb is the most power that a 5 foot dia rotor has applied to it in a @20mileperhr is 800 watts. Now thats the force applied to that size of swept area, thanks to the Betz limit we know the most power a perfect set of blades can extract is 59% of that so that gives us roughly 470 watts that perfect blades can extract. Now because of blade ineffiencies and alternators with magnetic drag losses, bearing losses, conversion losses, winding losses the rough rule of thumb is to apply a cp of 35 to the potiential power..so from 800x.35= 280 watts that you might just get...maybe.
This is standard well known factual data. Someone trying to sell you any product that performes better than the example I gave ( 280 watts at 20 mile perhr with a 5 foot dia rotor) is lying to you(with any currently known automotive alternator design). I am using numbers from memory so I may be off a percent or two.
I mention this to you only so you dont find a surprise when you come to need that power.
And please dont take my word for it, there are sites with fully qualified people who can crunch the numbers for you, otherpower.com in the fieldlines forum is one that comes to mind. You can run your mill by them but I suspect they will be less kind than I am in estimating its performance. Sorry
Just adding you have a 6 foot mill so a little better than my 5 foot example-maybe 250 watts at 20 mile perhr, by the time you get to 10 foot 2 to 3 blade rotors there is enough swept area for manufacturers to claim honest outputs of 1kw in 20 mile or so winds.
In fact if memory serves me the old 10 foot diameter Winchargers (32 volt from 1930-40s)were rated at 1 kw at a 28 mile per hr wind driving a geared dynamo. That was, and still is considered very good, we can do a little better today do to better materials, and get that same 1000 watts in the 20-24 mile perhr wind speed range with axial flux alternators, servos, custom built PMA's, but no chance with a delco alternator( any car alt) mill regardless of rotor dia.

We live in the Edmonton area and have been looking at land as well and there is some reasonably priced land in southern BC, but one of my fears is the proximity to the US border. Their economy is looking pretty bleak and with their large populations it would seem to me that a lot of Americans might be drifting northward in search of food, water & shelter and could potentially be well-armed. In a civil unrest situation there might be less border patrol presence and it would be easier to get across into Canada without detection. While the gardening would be great in that climate and survival would be easier in a warmer, friendlier region, would it make up for the potential problems? Thoughts?

Analog Man

Thanks for the 411. Your right about the out puts. After some more research I found out that MWS was more or less a scam. Seemed real but--not. Been looking into Windy Nations 750 PMA set up. I can hook up just about any turbine to my set up so Ijust need to fine the one thats best.

I find this an interesting topic but in many cases, strangers pooling their resources can create more chaos than peace even with good intentions. "My grandmother always told me.... to many hens in a kitchen doesn't make a better soup if the ingredients aren't there to give it the right combination of flavor". I'd be interested in hearing more about this idea if a meeting was set-up near Calgary in the future.

Its hard to find honest wind info, as so many sites inflate their performance specs, that it puts pressure on the honest builders to do the same or lose sales. Plus with all the BS they push the BS starts to become fact in the minds of the puplic.
On the otherpower site if you go to the product section they sell two types a 7 foot 300 watt($1400) and a 10 foot 800 watt($2200)
I know of 4 of the 10 footers in Alberta, and seen/measured two of them, and they are great performers.I have measured 85 amps steady as a rock at 20-21 miles per hour wind Speed thats 85x12= 1020 watts from one, and nearly that from another. They rate their machine conservativly so you get better than advertised performance.Either one of those mills will outperform anything you have been looking at by a huge amount, a HUGE amount.
I should add, you will have to bolt it together, and treat the red cedar blades to some linsead oil, then balance them, but that is minor to do.I have been told, and do believe that there is one problem with these mills, and you will agree when you see one, and that is that once the linsead oil is applied to the blades and it brings out the grain of the wood. It becomes hard to put them on the mill, and not hang them on the wall.
two others that come to mind with honest or at least less deceptive ratings are Jacobs, and Bergy. Though I dont think you can touch either for less than 6000.00 or so, and that is just to much for me to spend when I can build or buy(otherpower one) for a third or less

I find this an interesting topic but in many cases, strangers pooling their resources can create more chaos than peace even with good intentions.

Have you ever seen a co-op grocery group, you always have one or two, that will take more than they should.
In a co-op community there will always be the ones that take more and produce the least.

I find this an interesting topic but in many cases, strangers pooling their resources can create more chaos than peace even with good intentions.

Have you ever seen a co-op grocery group, you always have one or two, that will take more than they should.
In a co-op community there will always be the ones that take more and produce the least.

So very true Ranger... that said it is still in the best interest of the group to HAVE the group and pool resources and skills. To do otherwise leaves you on a limb that will be none too secure. As well one thing we have seen disappear with our society is group pressure and expectations. It has become politically incorrect to have and express expectations as well as to reward excellence and not reward mediocrity. ( I hesitate to use the term "punish")... thoughts?

Yeah, very true. A co-op (or any organization) always has one or two that fail to contribute their fair share. Sometimes those people are unable to contribute their fair share. In our case, a 'shelter building co-operative', that may be because of illness, injury or infirmity. It may also be due to lack of knowledge in one particular area. If that were the case, I am sure they would find a way to contribute in a meaningful manner at some point. If, however, the failure to contribute was a result of being bone-lazy, well, the rest of the co-operative would have no choice but deal with it in accordance with the guidelines and 'colony-code-of-conduct', the agreement to which would be a prerequisite to joining said cooperative. I think though, that in this case, we are all quite motivated to chip in and do our bit. I, for example, am ready to contribute money, all of my time and my extensive experience and knowledge. I have a background in emergency medicine, electronics and computer systems, construction and fabricating, military skills such as combat leadership and survival, math, physics and nutrition. I can bring a lot to the table as I am sure many of you can. Together we would pool our skills and resources resulting in the whole becoming much more than the sum of it's parts. With enough talented people, anyone's shortcomings can easily be absorbed and adapted to.

I have received a few private messages regarding interest in forming a co-op. If you are interested and have not yet let me know, please do so by private message. I would like to arrange some kind of meeting in the next week or two. Thanks.

I have been giving this some thought ever since Dangphool's comments about building a community for survival. Even now I am still struggling with how to word my thoughts on "paper" or computer screen as it happens and really wish I could be at the meeting this weekend to meet with you folks. The question I have been asking myself is, "if a total societal break down happens what does TRUE Survival mean?" Does it mean taking my family and living in a underground bunker or hidden secret retreat never having contact with others and using "any means necessary" to make sure of this? Well in the long run is this really surviving? We might be alive longer than others but let’s face it, it is not really living. For necessity we need to band together with others and work together, but even on a larger scale with more folks involved and developing a large bunker type scenario is this still truly surviving and living? I think there is more.

To truly survive I think the group needs to more of a "village" with the long term goals of helping others and working towards re-establishing civilization. I want to belong to something more than simply an armed camp defending or taking from others in some type of weird mad max type world. I want to help others truly survive instead of sitting warm and cozy inside an armed camp or bunker with civilization left to crumble around me. Do not get me wrong there might be a time and place to lay low and/or defend your family and friends, but again I ask "What does surviving and living truly mean?"

I travel for work sometimes and heaven forbid the SHTF while I was a thousand miles from home. I would really appreciate and be so thankful for those along my path home who did not simply bury their heads in the sand but who were there to help me along my long trek home.

I mean no judgement to anyone in the topic, just Dangphool really got me thinking about why I decided to start prepping and even why I joined this forum. It was to learn from others and perhaps even pass along some of my knowledge to others. It was about community. It was about truly surviving and truly living afterwards.

Crashed, I totally agree with you. We would like to survive but to emerge from an underground bunker at some point down the road and find "nothing" left might make me wish that we had got out the lawn chairs and watched the fireworks. For those who have the emotional strength to re-emerge and re-build their communities and civilization I have nothing but admiration.

Survival in an economic collapse, civil unrest and those types of scenarios where some distance and self-reliance would allow us to continue is more in my realm of possibility and that is what we are prepping for. Everyone prepares for what they think is the biggest threat and that is where our efforts are going. Wish we could join the meeting this weekend but other commitments will keep us away. Sometimes typing in front of a screen makes it harder to get input back and forth and face to face would be great. Maybe a meeting a little further North will come together?

Thanks to everyone for their information and input and for making me focus more clearly on my survival beliefs. Much appreciated.

Even when I was in the military, I have always said "There are two places I want to be if a NBC war ever happened, at ground zero, or far enough away that I could help rebuild”.

I like how this topic and I guess how this Forum has matured and grown from the survival and continuance of ME to the survival and continuance of US. In three months the thinking has evolved from self to community. That is a huge leap in a very short time.

Yes, a community from Coast-to-Coast-to-Coast. Where, if you are left high and dry at zero hour on D-Day, thousands of miles from your home a network of like-minded folks will help see you from their A.O. to the next friendly A.O. So, you can make it home, to your family, to your supplies, to your shelter. Of course, this would require a moral commitment to members and from members of the community to take care of each other in their time of need. So, to be able to receive a helping hand you must be already willing to lend a hand.

These are deep thoughts and I like the direction this is going. Whether you see this as a virtual community or as a real community, the members who are here, communicating thoughts, ideas, plans, concerns with one another; a community is developing here.

Of course, if helping one another is not on your priority list........maybe lawn chairs, a beer, snackies and big fireworks show is the way to go!

Just some random thoughts,

Mountainman.