Survivalist Forum banner
15K views 37 replies 24 participants last post by  fishingjeff 
#1 · (Edited)
Over the past few weeks I have been working on a project to better organize my gear. This is still a work in progress.

A few weeks ago an article was posted about Storing SHTF Survival Gear, this is a follow up to that article.

The concept revolves around grouping similar items together. Such as the canned goods being grouped together, the fishing gear on the same shelf, or close to each other, cold weather items stored in a box, which is close to other clothing or ALICE gear.

To keep the grandkids safe, glass jars are stored in the closet. We do not want small children picking up jars of pickles and then dropping the jars on the floor. Not only would we be wasting food, but the broken glass poses a risk to the grandkids.

The shelves have been secured to the wall with 2 1/2 inch long wood screws. A 1/8 pilot hole was drilled into the stud in the wall, and then a screw was ran into the pilot hole.

Mountain house #10 cans and 7 year pouches are stored in a location close to each other.

One shelf is dedicated to fishing gear – lures, trotline string, hooks, extra spools of monofilament fishing line,,, stuff like that. The fishing gear is stored in a closet to keep it away from small children.



To make first aid supplies easy to find, a first aid kit for Red Flare Kits and other loose items are kept in an easy to access wire basket. The idea of keeping the first aid supplies in a wire basket is to make them easy to grab and go. In case someone gets injured, someone in a rush does not have to look for gauze or other first aid items.

Heavy items go on the bottom shelf – tubs full of mylar bags, water and Homemade Superpails.

Water bottles and canteens are giving me the most problems. I like to keep a stock of canteens and 32 ounce water bottles for hiking and camping trips. The problem with canteens and water bottles – they take up a lot of room for their relative size. I think I might a plastic tub and store the water bottles and canteens on the top shelf.

MREs are some of my most least used items, but when you need to grab and go, a MRE is perfect. Because the MREs are not used very often, the cases of MREs are kept in the closet.

The plans for the MREs are individual meals during a SHTF situation. The family will hopefully be cooking and eating together, but for plans to be flexible, I plan on each person to have “snacks”. Even though the unit may cook as a unit, not everyone (especially small children) may not be hungry at the same time. As a result, a lot of food might be wasted.



Miscellaneous gear – over the years (like most people) miscellaneous gear just seems to build up. Whether its tent stakes, hammocks, rope, cord,,,, things just seem to build over.

Ammunition is stored out of reach of children, but since its heavy it has to stay on the floor.

Can rotation system




One of the problems with stockpiling food for SHTF, the food needs to be rotated. You can either build your own rotation system, or buy one. A buddy of mine built a can rotation system in his pantry out of peg board. I do not have a pantry large enough to build a system like my buddies, so I am using wire racks on a shelving unit.

The wire racks are marketed as dispensers for 12 ounce soft drinks, but the racks work well for most canned products. Depending on can size, I am able to fit either 11 or 12 cans per rack.

I am hoping to dedicate 2 shelves for can gods – one shelf for meat or protein based products, and another shelf for fruits or vegetables.

To load the racks, up the new can in the top, the cans roll down the wire rack, and are dispensed out of the bottom.

Water Filters

One water filter is at the Bug Out Location, one filter is out on loan to a buddy of mine, and we have 3 hand held water filters at home.

The BBC posted an article about how people turned violent 24 hours after the water was shut off.

There are 2 things that define modern society – electricity and availability of drinking water. We can live without electricity, we can not live without safe drinking water. As water goes, so goes society.

There is a river about 4 – 5 miles from my house, but the water has to be made safe to drink. In a worse case situation, we could use a bicycle to reach the river, use a hand-held filter to filter the water into the water bottles, and then carry the water home in backpacks.

At the bug out location we would filter creek water through a Royal Berkey.

I need to figure out a way to keep my water filters and water bottles organized together, because on hiking and camping trips, the filters and bottles are used together.
 
See less See more
2 1
#2 ·
Nice! My wife and I are in the process of reorganizing our stuff as well. I had things scattered all over the place but we've decided that we wanted it all closer at hand. I'm just now looking at buying some property deep in the Rocky Mountains where we can set up a BOL. Money will have present itself first.

Here's a lot of our stuff but not all. http://www.survivalistboards.com/album.php?albumid=1497 I still have some things scattered here and there but it's coming together. It seems that you have the same sense of urgency that I have.

I can't see how you could improve much on what you already have. Your setup is very nice and organized. Nice work.
 
#3 ·
There is a river about 4 – 5 miles from my house, but the water has to be made safe to drink. In a worse case situation, we could use a bicycle to reach the river, use a hand-held filter to filter the water into the water bottles, and then carry the water home in backpacks.
Just did a test run today transporting water using a game cart (500 lb limit rating).
Loaded it with at least 20 gallons of water and walked a mile with it.
Worked great, even uphill some, but I should have balanced the load more to the top side of the cart, it would have pulled like a dream then.
Planning to fashion a bicycle trailer hitch for the game cart and make another test run to work out the kinks.
 
#4 ·
Another thing that dawned on me today was the need for better emergency lighting. The last time the power went out I lit a small kerosene lantern and a MagLite flashlight. We could see but it didn't seem sufficient. I have a propane lantern and another kerosene lantern but I'm thinking about getting something with a rechargeable internal battery with a brighter light.
 
#29 ·
Try oil lamps with a mirror behind them, they really throw out the light. And you can pick them up ( and mirrors too ) at yardsales or off craigslist..........
 
#5 ·
Kev, how much did you pay for te shelving units. Looked like a Walmart purchase.

We're really getting ready to invest in some serious amounts of new shelving to hold our stuff. I like the Gorilla Shelves, but they are proud of them. I also like the chrome wired shelves at Sam's Club.

TIA,
Medic73
 
#8 ·
Kev,
sounds like you have a great plan so far. your profile says east texas so i will presume earth quakes are not an issue.
suggestions:
1. ask yourself if mother nature would be able to shake anything off of the shelves. remember hurricane Katrina & Rita? your area got pounded.
2. consider a water cistern at you BOL. rig a gutter to your "shelter" and run the down spout into a Large wooden box lined with plastic sheeting. don't forget to cover it. you can collect a hundred gallons of rain water in a single rainstorm. this would save the trek to the creek.
3. consider collapsible water bags. these take up very little space. if your bottles or canteens are stored empty, consider hanging them from the ceiling on a chord or heavy gauge wire or put four or five canteens and loop the cap retainer over a wire coat hanger and hang then like a shirt. most of my bottles have a clip on the cap for attaching to a backpack. my canteens have a purchased clip and 6" of chord looped around the neck for attachment.
4. pre-stage as much heavy gear at you BOL if possible. you will want to be able to move light and quickly because everyone else will be trying to do the same.
5. venture to walmart and get those plastic racks to put the like items in. remember the old milk-wires from teh grocery stores? get those and load them up. especially for the glass jars.
think creatively and solutions will present themselves

Hope this helps
 
#13 ·
Eggs and baskets

I'm sure Kev's method is better than my own.

I keep my stuff all over the place.

If I grabbed half my bags and boogied there might be a bit of anything in there.

I may or may not have sewing needles or a candle.

It would take me an hour at least just to get basic supplies loaded in the truck.

The weather has been so great lately here I've been running back and forth between the gun range and ammo purchases.

My gas tank is below half full.

I really need to get organized this winter.
 
#16 ·
I have a question kev. What is the shelf life of MREs? I have lots of #10 cans of freeze dried meats, vegetables, fruits, grains, cereals, complete meals, TVP meat substitutes, powdered milk & butter, etc. which can have a shelf life of up to 30 years. And I have a few cases of store bought canned goods which don't have a very long shelf life. But I've never tried MREs. I hear they're pretty tasty. If they have a long shelf life I may buy a few cases.
 
#17 ·
I had personal concerns, about keeping all my eggs in one basket .
My house is most unsecure and the profile of the area is becomming very popular right now .
With that in mind, I was thinking of setting up cashes in case the house burns down, or is caved in from earth quake or tornado strike.
Not all of us can afoard a sealed below ground bunker air tight fully self contained .
Saw that on TV at the neighbors house tonite.
It's funny , when the morlocs emerge ,they will be the alien. Living in their steril environment below ,having no immunities to the desease above . The common cold would kill them. And of course the eloi stuck on the serface will have mutated to resist the curent virious and learned how to deal with a hotter sun. Or not.
 
#18 ·
The wife and I were talking about this Sat. night and also agreed that we need to move some of the more temp. stable food out to the garage and into bins in the event we had to bug out of the house in a hurry and were not able to get to the pantry.
I have also started thinking about storing an extra headlamp, keys, etc. in everyone's nightstand, as we overlooked getting to our BOB's and then finding the lights in an event at night.
 
#24 ·
i am pretty sure if u look through some resturant supply stores u can find the rotation racks for #10 cans. that being said, kev i think your plan is mre the sufficient and that you will be ready in case of any emergency. they only extra stuff i have been storing is some extra car maintence concerns. i have an older truck and it does need maintence to run at top performance. when the money is there i will buy and extra oil filter and oil. i always try to keep and extra coolant and other fluids on hand. i also keep an extra set of spark plugs.
 
#25 ·
I have a set of those wire shelves, put them in my crawlspace on both sides of the opening was able to get three shelves on each side. One side the bottom I have full of basic canned goods, next shelf is meals like chili, slippy joes, those knorr just add water. Next is snacky stuff, canned fruit, nuts, crackers, etc. Other side is paper goods and water. Thats the main food storage. Then a couple of each item in the camper. Then the gun safe, bob, extended bob, travel bags in my closet with some additional food and water stored there.

There we go, the crawlspace shelves.

Bottom all canned goods, the soups on the left I've actually moved off the shelves and over by the canned hams as I ran out of space.
Middle is meals, chili, sloppy joe, spaghetti, tacos, top other stuff like drinks and snacky foods.
Those knorr sides can be sides or meals, they have a recipe on the back to make them a meal, usually add a meat and vegetable. I have canned chicken on the bottom shelf so I can throw in a can then a can of carrots or peas or mixed carrots/peas or mixed vegetables. Have noodles and Alfredo sauce there too, some chicken with and a vegetable makes it a meal. I have about 1/2 dozen of each meal there now. About 10 different meals these x 6 each plus sides for all the meat frozen in the freezer outside in the basement.

 
#33 ·
Our main preps are in a closet underneath the stairs going to the main floor, so we are little space challenged. On the high side, we have maybe 7 feet and it drops down to nothing over maybe 10-12 feet. We build some shelves out of wood and concrete blocks, so we can make them fit, but we are redesigning it this fall. We are working on cleaning the garage for some of our more temp stable/resistant preps. Our big issue is water storage for personal use.
 
#37 ·
found this pantry/cabinet at Lowes. i bought an extra set of shelves to go in it.

found this rack on craigslist, or a similar sight.

found this table set up at goodwill.

now you see it now you dont

got this 1200 dollar bedframe/16 drawer storage unit for only 50bucks on a local resale sight


this is just some of my storage solutions
 
#38 ·
Kev: the wire shelves from Lowes/Home Depot/restraunt supply will hold 48-56 #10 cans with NO PROBLEM. I used to do it when I did food storage/stock in the nursing home. Get the clips to join 2 4' shelves together. It will make them stronger and less apt to wiggle. They are more stable without the wheels on them.

Vincent: Be careful with those pressboard shelf units. They don't like a lot of weight in the middle of the shelf. Keep them in a very UNHUMID area. Don't even ask how I know, it wasn't pretty. Check with Lowes/Home Depot for some wire shelf supports to go on the front wall edges of the closet. They look like a tall "U", and will provide additional support in front.


Ya'll have very good procurements and a good system.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top