I wonder how long some of us will be able to survive if... (mineral rights, buy)

[naturesdreams]

Originally Posted by 1stimestar

LOL you mean like this? That beer was nice and cold.

Thanks 1stimestar... I love it. Does it stay a consistant temperture no matter what time of year?... the earth is a great insulator for sure...

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by 1stimestar

LOL you mean like this? That beer was nice and cold.

Exactly, but yours is even better as it comes with a pretty woman

[MissingAll4Seasons]

Alas, our cabin is over a crawlspace so no kitchen floor trap doors into cold cubbies for us. But we are planning to dig out a root cellar under the food storage shed in the yard... well, after we melt the permafrost first so we can dig it out a foot at a time. Digging through permafrost is like digging through bedrock and it takes a week in full sun to thaw enough not to bend (or break!) your shovel (rinse, lather, repeat). At that rate, I'd be lucky to get it dug down before the end of summer unless I lit a bonfire on it every night or hired a backhoe

Our neighbor's root cellar stays between 35 & 40 all year round, but the floor is 10' down, ceiling is at 6', they have 4" of foamboard all around it and 8" on top, with 3' of soil on top of that... just to keep everything from freezing in the winter. It would stay plenty of cold in the summer, its freezing up in the winter you have to worry about

[SityData]

Originally Posted by MissingAll4Seasons

Digging through permafrost is like digging through bedrock and it takes a week in full sun to thaw enough not to bend (or break!) your shovel (rinse, lather, repeat). At that rate, I'd be lucky to get it dug down before the end of summer unless I lit a bonfire on it every night or hired a backhoe

There is a very easy way & manner to use to melt huge areas of frozen ground. Working in Prudhoe bay we had to develop a way to dig up frozen ground with electrical cables buried without harming the cables. This is what we did. Spread out a large sheet of visqueen. Use large blocks of wood or ply wood to keep the edges firmly held down in place. Insert a huge 14" blower hose under the visqueen. In this manner we could safely scrape the surface to remove loose dirt without injuring any of the electrical cables which were direct burial (not encased in pipe).

I dunno what it would cost to rent one of those units for a weekend but you could move a ton of dirt using that method!!

[MissingAll4Seasons]

One of those heater blowers would probably work, but wonder how much fuel we'd suck down in the generator to power it for a few days. These days we definitely have more time than money... so two years to dig a big pit is fine by us as long as we can keep our food edible. We've pretty much gotten used to eating a lot of fresh-that-day and dry/canned food in the summer and everything frozen in the winter

We can normally get down about a foot a day if we build a bonfire on top of the permafrost every night during the summer, but have to be careful with that during fire season. If we're really quick, we can do the bonfire thing and get maybe a 4 foot square dug out in the morning before it starts freezing up again. Otherwise, putting visqueen over the top and letting the sun cook it in the summer usually melts down an inch or two a day/foot a week. Some folks say melting faster is better and others say its worse, I just say that I don't want my cabin to start sinking ROFL.

[SityData]

Good luck !

Get a few old microwave ovens, take the door off, tip them facing down and turn them suckers on... ROFLMAO- you will melt that soil in short order!!

[Barkingowl]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

...but most people aren't.

And they are the people to watch out for since they will show up on your doorstep & demand that you take care of them or simply try to take what they want.

[AlaskaNana]

Have to say this popped as a "similar threads".... thing. I found it good reading and since it was a year ago wonder what people are thinking now. Any changes, add ons, or new posts.

[okieplumber]

without medications on a daily basis i'm dead so I wouldn't do very good at all.
and neither would my wife or daughter.

[dcbrewmeister]

I wonder how long some of us will be able to survive if...?

Giving most peoples reliance on the store and the government? Days. Most will be victims of someone else wanting what they have.