What can we store in heat?
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Tools, paper products. Clothes. Tents, books. Empty canning jars.
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Thats where I hid my penthouse mags:thumb:
Would love to be able to store mylar bagged rice in homer buckets & lids up there.
Thanks! Sending up toilet paper, paper towels, and tents would indeed be helpful. Tarps in plastic and in bins should be good then.
Should I bin the paper products vs just stacking then in their original packaging?
If there is any chance of mice, insects or water damage...and bins are nice even if just to keep the dust off, but not required.
So would we all but high temps or freeze thaw cycles are universally bad for shelf life for anything with chemical reactions, and that applies to all food products.
If you are short on space, a crawlspace under your house would be a better place for rice in buckets. Should have cool and stable temps down there if you have one.
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No crawl space, the attic is nearly as hot as outside and the garage is insanely hot (no basement). The SU is climate controlled so I figure better than nothing.
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How many times have you been in your attic when its hot outside? I have been in several hundred attics in my life and they are always hotter than it is outside in hot outside weather.
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It wouldn't hurt to have them in something rodent proof.
AGREED!! I was thinking the same thing. I have a remote sensor thermometer in mine and on cool sunny days (60 degrees) it is over 100 before 11 AM. Highest I have recorded was 143.
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That's exactly what I store in my attic. Toilet paper, clothes, extra books, various bits of camping gear and kit, spare parts and tools, etc. Things I don't need immediate access to and won't be harmed by heat. I think my attic gets more insulation from all the TP than from the actual insulation.
Different if they used the spray foam insulation which attaches to the underside of the roof as opposed to the attic floor maybe?
I did 5 gallon buckets with a mylar bag of salt, heat seled, put the lid on the bucket, out in garage. I also did that with some sugar. They are fine but not much else can handle heat.
We run temps here in the tropics of 110 with humidity, winter never gets below 50, unless something is in the refrigerator, its usually in heat a 270 days a year. That said I am not sure how hot an attic is, we dont have them in our houses as they are more flatroofed. If attics are directly under non insulated roof iron(?) that may get a lot hotter than what I am referring to..
Just talking general storage areas, like a barn or non AC room or garage, we store our preps for cyclones(hurricanes) and floods each year. Not for any sort of major destruction, just for the 1-2 weeks major highways can get cut off by water and we have to be semi reliant.
Generally all foodstuffs I find last their expected lifetime in the heat . I have 2 year old rice in an old army trunk and a range of other products like lentils, chickpeas, powdered milk, pasta etc. I seal things very well but dont go as far as mylar, just plastic bags inside cliplock lunchboxes. It does fine.
Mould growing on items is the biggest concern here, and to be honest textiles, camping equipment, leather goods, etc tend to fair less well than foodstuffs. The idea is to make sure its dry getting packed (I often pack my stores in AC to get the humidity down before it goes into the storage area) I pack items separately from other items in bags as much as possible(so if one item developes the dreaded green fuzz it does not contaminate everything else next to it) add dessicant/absorbent material( I usually order this directly from a chemical company, the real stuff works a lot better than rice, kitty litter and other home ideas. I put a small amount in a ladies footstocking in each bag) and then I carry out inspections every few months, and air stuff out. Not the food, it stays sealed, just the equipment.
I am not sure if you would need to be that pedantic, as well as the heat being that its rainforest here we have much higher spore loads of the more aggressive mold species, its often already on gear just from normal use, which is why we have to be overkill with inspections.
Interestingly I had been rotating my white rice out every two years, as per the packet life(and my understanding of when rice goes 'rancid' ) but had not been tasting it. A friend of mine produced a stockpile of white rice he had stored in the intense heat here in well sealed boxes for 9 years and it was still edible! So no more throwing rice out for me . I'll taste a packet and if its good the rest can stay
Just talking general storage areas, like a barn or non AC room or garage, we store our preps for cyclones(hurricanes) and floods each year. Not for any sort of major destruction, just for the 1-2 weeks major highways can get cut off by water and we have to be semi reliant.
Generally all foodstuffs I find last their expected lifetime in the heat . I have 2 year old rice in an old army trunk and a range of other products like lentils, chickpeas, powdered milk, pasta etc. I seal things very well but dont go as far as mylar, just plastic bags inside cliplock lunchboxes. It does fine.
Mould growing on items is the biggest concern here, and to be honest textiles, camping equipment, leather goods, etc tend to fair less well than foodstuffs. The idea is to make sure its dry getting packed (I often pack my stores in AC to get the humidity down before it goes into the storage area) I pack items separately from other items in bags as much as possible(so if one item developes the dreaded green fuzz it does not contaminate everything else next to it) add dessicant/absorbent material( I usually order this directly from a chemical company, the real stuff works a lot better than rice, kitty litter and other home ideas. I put a small amount in a ladies footstocking in each bag) and then I carry out inspections every few months, and air stuff out. Not the food, it stays sealed, just the equipment.
I am not sure if you would need to be that pedantic, as well as the heat being that its rainforest here we have much higher spore loads of the more aggressive mold species, its often already on gear just from normal use, which is why we have to be overkill with inspections.
Interestingly I had been rotating my white rice out every two years, as per the packet life(and my understanding of when rice goes 'rancid' ) but had not been tasting it. A friend of mine produced a stockpile of white rice he had stored in the intense heat here in well sealed boxes for 9 years and it was still edible! So no more throwing rice out for me . I'll taste a packet and if its good the rest can stay
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3,213 times. I have a radiant barrier and two solar attic fans - it's normally not as hot as is is outside during the summer and it's cooler in there now compared to outside.
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