Prepare for what
actually happens.
Practical guides, calculators and gear analysis for power outages, water failures, food disruptions and household emergencies. Numbers first, sources cited, nothing sold on fear.
What are you preparing for?
Guides grouped by the thing that actually goes wrong, drawing on whichever subjects it touches. A power outage is a water problem too if you are on a well.
Power Outage
Generators, battery backup, fuel and runtime.
Explore power outageWater Outage
Storage, treatment, rain collection and sanitation.
Explore water failureFood Disruption
Storage, preservation, cooking and calories.
Explore food disruptionSevere Weather
Shelter, alerts and household resilience.
Explore severe weatherHome Security
Hardening, entry points and practical household defense.
Explore home securityCommunication Failure
Alerts, radios and offline information.
Explore communicationsLong-Term Disruption
Slow problems: supply, water rights, self-supply, and claims worth checking.
Explore long-term disruptionStart here
Four foundations. Read them in any order, but read them before spending money on equipment.
Build a 7-Day Home Emergency Plan
A written plan covering power, water, food, heat and communications for one week, sized to your household rather than copied from a generic list.
Cornerstone guide in progress. The pieces it will assemble are already published — start with the two below.
Power Outage Basics
What actually fails when the electricity stops, which loads are worth backing up, and the two numbers that decide what equipment you need.
Read this waterEmergency Water Basics
How much water a household really needs, and the difference between filtering, purifying and distilling it.
Read this foodFood and Cooking During Disruptions
Where the "three days" figure comes from, what keeps without power, and how to compare emergency food honestly.
Read thisTools & calculators
Every figure on this site can be recomputed for your own house. These are the calculators that do it — free, no signup to see results.
Solar Sizing Calculator
Array, battery bank and charge controller for the loads you actually run.
OpenWater Storage Calculator
Gallons, containers, full weight and floor space for your household.
OpenPower Station Runtime Calculator
Inside the guideHow long a given battery will really run a refrigerator or freezer.
OpenGenerator Cord Size Calculator
Inside the guideGauge and length for your load, before you buy the wrong cord.
OpenRainwater Collection Calculator
Inside the guideGallons per inch of rainfall from your actual roof area.
OpenPopular field guides
The guides that answer the questions people actually arrive with, and that show how the arithmetic on this site is done.
What Size Generator Do You Actually Need? Sizing It Without Overbuying
Most people buy too much generator. They add up the nameplate wattage of everything in the house, arrive at a frightening number, and buy a unit that…
Read thisVerified 31 Jul 2026
Watts vs Watt-Hours: Why the Number on the Box Misleads You
A power station named for its watts is sold on its watt-hours, and the two numbers answer completely different questions about whether your backup power will work.
Read thisVerified 18 Aug 2026
"Three Days of Food": Where That Number Comes From and What It Actually Means
You have heard it in every preparedness pitch: grocery stores hold only three days of food. It's usually deployed to imply that the country is three…
Read thisVerified 31 Jul 2026
Filter, Purify, or Distill: What Each One Actually Removes
Water treatment marketing uses filter, purifier, and purification interchangeably. They are not the same thing, they remove different classes of…
Read thisVerified 31 Jul 2026
How Long Does the Power Actually Stay Out Where You Live?
The average American household loses power for somewhere between two hours and thirty-one hours a year, depending entirely on which state it sits in.…
Read thisVerified 29 Jul 2026
What Burglary Data Actually Says About How Homes Get Entered
Most home security advice is built on a picture of a break-in that happens at night, by force, while the household sleeps.
Read thisVerified 29 Jul 2026
The five pillars
The same guides, organised by what they are about rather than by what has gone wrong.
Power
Generators, batteries, fuel and the arithmetic of keeping the essentials running when the grid stops. Sizing first, shopping second — the order matters more here than anywhere else on the site.
What Size Generator Do You Actually Need? Sizing It Without Overbuying
Most people buy too much generator. They add up the nameplate wattage of everything in the house, arrive at a frightening number, and buy a unit that…
Read thisVerified 31 Jul 2026
Appliance Surge and Running Watts: A Reference Table
Typical running and surge wattage for household appliances, with the reasons the numbers vary and instructions for finding your own rather than trusting a chart.
Can You Charge a Power Station and Run the Fridge at the Same Time?
Pass-through charging works on most modern power stations, but net charge rate is solar input minus load draw, and some units handle the simultaneous job badly enough to matter.
How Many Solar Panels Does It Take to Recharge a Power Station in One Day?
Refilling a 1,000Wh power station in a single day takes roughly 300W of panel in summer and 700W or more in winter, and the station's input limit often decides the answer before the panels do.
Water
Storage, treatment, collection and supply. What each treatment method actually removes, how much a household really needs, and which alternative sources survive contact with measurement.
Filter, Purify, or Distill: What Each One Actually Removes
Water treatment marketing uses filter, purifier, and purification interchangeably. They are not the same thing, they remove different classes of…
Read thisVerified 31 Jul 2026
Does Stored Water Go Bad? Rotation, Treatment, and Shelf Life
Water itself does not expire. What degrades is the container, the seal, and anything that got in when you filled it, which is why the six-month rotation rule is about your filling technique rather than about chemistry.
How Much Bleach Per Gallon: The Number Changed and Most Charts Didn't
Household bleach got stronger and most dosing charts did not change. The familiar per-gallon figure is keyed to the old formulation, and a government page is still publishing it.
The Water Already in Your House: Heater, Pipes, and Tank
A water heater holds 40 to 80 gallons of potable water most people never count. The procedure to get it out has three steps that matter, and doing them in the wrong order damages the heater.
Food
Shelf life, calories per dollar, preservation without power, and what a plot of ground actually produces. Priced per calorie, because that is the only comparison that survives marketing.
"Three Days of Food": Where That Number Comes From and What It Actually Means
You have heard it in every preparedness pitch: grocery stores hold only three days of food. It's usually deployed to imply that the country is three…
Read thisVerified 31 Jul 2026
Food-Grade Buckets, Gamma Lids, and What Actually Seals
A bucket is a rodent and impact barrier, not an oxygen barrier. Which plastics are food safe, what a gamma lid is for, and why sealing food directly in a bucket is the wrong architecture.
Killing Insect Eggs Before Storage: Freezing, Dry Ice, and Diatomaceous Earth
Grain arrives with insect eggs already in it. Oxygen absorbers kill every life stage on their own, which makes most pretreatment redundant, and the exceptions are specific.
Mylar Thickness: What 3.5 Mil vs 7 Mil Actually Changes
Thicker mylar buys puncture resistance, not a better oxygen barrier. The barrier comes from the aluminum layer, and the failure mode that matters is the seal, not the film.
Defense
Home hardening, shelter and the law. Evidence about how homes are actually entered, and the unglamorous measures that work. Nothing here is about confrontation.
What Burglary Data Actually Says About How Homes Get Entered
Most home security advice is built on a picture of a break-in that happens at night, by force, while the household sleeps.
Read thisVerified 29 Jul 2026
Carrying Less-Lethal Where You Actually Go: Federal Buildings, Schools, and Interstate Travel
A device legal in your state is still restricted in federal facilities, on school grounds, in airports, and the moment you cross a state line. State-by-state tables cannot show you this layer.
Pepper Gel, Spray, Foam, and Stream: Where Each Delivery Format Fails
The active ingredient is the same across formats. What changes is range, wind behavior, blowback risk, and how much of it ends up on you instead of on them.
What a Stun Gun Actually Does, and What a TASER Does Differently
A contact stun device causes pain. A probe deployment causes loss of muscle control. These are different physiological effects, and the marketing for the cheaper category depends on the confusion.
Skills
Communication, offline knowledge, food preservation, and the judgement to tell a real claim from a sales pitch. The things that keep working when the equipment does not.
Preserving Food Without Power: What Actually Works
Every method of preserving food does one of three things: removes the water, changes the pH, or drops the temperature below what bacteria tolerate.…
Read thisVerified 31 Jul 2026
A Household Communication Plan for When the Network Is Down
An out-of-area contact, a meeting point, a check-in time and a written card. The part of emergency communication that costs nothing and gets skipped anyway.
FRS, GMRS, or Ham: Which Radio Licence Do You Actually Need?
FRS needs no licence and is capped low. GMRS needs one licence that covers your whole family. Ham needs an exam per person. Which one fits a household.
GMRS Repeaters: How a Handheld Reaches Further Than Its Power Suggests
A repeater swaps your handheld's horizon for one on a hill. What repeater channels are, how to use one, and why this is the real reason to hold a GMRS licence.
Latest from Held in Reserve
Recently published, for readers who have been here before.
A Household Communication Plan for When the Network Is Down
An out-of-area contact, a meeting point, a check-in time and a written card. The part of emergency communication that costs nothing and gets skipped anyway.
skillsFRS, GMRS, or Ham: Which Radio Licence Do You Actually Need?
FRS needs no licence and is capped low. GMRS needs one licence that covers your whole family. Ham needs an exam per person. Which one fits a household.
skillsGMRS Repeaters: How a Handheld Reaches Further Than Its Power Suggests
A repeater swaps your handheld's horizon for one on a hill. What repeater channels are, how to use one, and why this is the real reason to hold a GMRS licence.
skillsSatellite Messengers, PLBs, and When a Phone Genuinely Cannot Help
A PLB signals government search and rescue and does nothing else. A satellite messenger sends text and needs a subscription. The difference matters most on the worst day.
skillsTwo-Way Radio Range: Why 35 Miles Is Never 35 Miles
Blister packs claim 35 miles. The regulation caps a handheld low and the signal travels line of sight. Here is what a two-way radio actually does.
powerAppliance Surge and Running Watts: A Reference Table
Typical running and surge wattage for household appliances, with the reasons the numbers vary and instructions for finding your own rather than trusting a chart.