12-Volt Appliances for Hurricane Survival & Recovery
by John Laumer, Philadelphia 
on 08.10.05
As promised in an earlier post, we've found more "Level-I" hurricane survival and recovery tools. Our focus here is on 12-volt appliances that will help both renters and owners and which have recreational potential as well. Caveats: keeping the exra "stuff' to a minimum is a guiding principle for us, so buy only what you really will use. As a general rule, some 12V DC appliances are sold out by this time of year. TreeHugger recommends you look first at the marine and RV supply houses such as this one.
Beginning with the bedroom, we have some good news for those who want to handle the hot, miserable weeks that follow major storm-caused outages. Reasonably priced 12-Volt and 24-Volt DC powered ceiling fans are available. Before you order one though, do some strategizing.
Think about which bedroom would be most likely left intact following a major storm. Could everyone sleep and eat in the single room, under a single fan, if needed? Can you also get some cross ventilation (or potentially too much of it)? Next, you should look into whether there's a convenient place for an electrician to hook up a fan with wall surface wiring.
You'll need a south-facing porch or window on which you can temporarily, following the storm, mount a solar panel and place nearby a battery or two. When the storm has passed, and you have returned home, pull the portable solar panel(s) out of the closet, orient them, and use some duct tape or other framing means to hold them at the best angle for mid-day sun. You might want to make a collapsable wooden or metal setup frame in advance and have that in the closet as well.
Assume you purchased a 12V DC ceiling fan, which offers the most compatibility with other 12V appliances in a simple circuit. You'll also want one or more solar-photovoltaic (SPV) panel(s) and one or two 12-volt high capacity truck or car battery(s)....parallel wired batteries if more than one... which preferably sit in plastic marine battery cases. If your power useage will be high, get higher wattage SPV panels and an extra battery; conversely, if you'll be in and out a lot, and running few 12V appliances, you can lean more toward the small, low wattage, trickle-charger type SPV panel and maybe a sealed motorcycle battery for storage.
Anyhow, once the panel(s) and battery(s) are set up, run an extension cord from the battery terminals to the plug or junction box that powers the DC ceiling fan. Good to keep the cord as fat and short as possible to reduce DC current line losses.
Ask the fan and/or SPV panel vendor to suggest the needed battery clips and connectors as well as a "blocking diode" to put in the SPV to battery circuit. The diode is a simple cheap little dodad that prevents the solar panels from shorting the batteries when the sun is not shining. You must have one.
Note that no voltage transformer or power conditioning equipment of any sort is needed in this simple, temporary setup. If you need simpler still, skip the ceiing fan, and go with one of the clamp-on fans of the type shown below.
Radio Shack sells "cig lighter" gang plugs that you could use to power several small electronic devices. These make it easy to run the other 12V goodies.
Because 12V appliances can be useful in your vehicle or boat as well as at home, you might keep them in a hurricane "evacuation kit" that you take with you when the storm is predicted to arrive. Then, on your return, you can take them into your home to work on the solar charged batteries. Here are some pics of common 12V powered appliances.
There are many more available, including 12V DC televisions and radios.
Finally, anticipating the hurricane season, keep those lead acid batteries topped up with a trickle charger for your arrival home. When the power grid is down, the solar panels will help keep the batteries charged.
Now keep cool and safe TreeHuggers.
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Green Demolitions Recycles Your Junk, Helps You Find New, Energy-Efficient Appliances
- Focus on Focus Earth: Hurricane Forecast
- Yes, There is Such a Thing as an Optimistic, Green American: Be One!
- Green Glossary: Low-Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW)
- Focus Earth: June 13, 2009: Everglades Nevermore and Snake Invaders
- Focus on Focus Earth: Snake Invaders
Okay, so my alternatives for these items:
Coffee/hot water pot: Small metal pot and a camping stove (probably the Garlington Wood-Gas stove).
Electric shaver: Straight razor and leather strop
Cooking pot: The hot water pot above.
Fan: Wife and kids with palm branches. :)
======= author's reponse ======
You've got good alternatives that would work for many people. I've found, however, that there are a whole lot of folks who have no camping or hiking experience at all and are not comfortable with gas powered stuff. Also, and I think this is very odd but am certain its true, is that a great many apartment buildings ban any kind of open flame outdoor cooking stuff like grilles. Fire code is sometimes the excuse but its also a clutter prevention device for porches.
The key problems for hurricane recovery are living without refrigeration and air conditioning in a home or apartment that was designed for it. For that reason I featured the ceiling fans and clip on fans as primary items. All the other stuff is gravy. Incidentally, I counted almost two dozen 12V plug in appliances that look like they're marketed mainly to the RV and marine interests. Just amazing how much there really is.
Seriously, though: A plain ol' car engine, with just a little bit of gas, will run the 12V system in the car and charge the battery back up in short order. Run the car to charge the battery, run the battery to run appliances. Why buy an expensive solar panel and hide it in a box?
For more portable power, grab some NiMH AA batteries and a 1-hour charger and a cheap 12v->120v inverter. Use the car battery to charge the AA batteries. Run the car a few minutes to charge the car battery back up.
Lots of 12v appliances are cool, but here's an idea: Do more alternative wiring in your house and slowly get everything changed over to (or backed-up with) 12v systems. Then you'll be ready to go off-grid or power your house with your car in a pinch.
===author's response====
ALthough the car-charge works, putting too much of a load on the car battery, especially and older one, will drain it down past the point where the alternator can keep up. You'll onbly get a partial charge. I've had this problem trying to run a PC and car cooler at the same time. Second, if you're idyling for recharge and you'll need to do so for weeks on end, like happened in Florida and Alabama recently, its not only expensive, its an environmental burden. RIght after the hurricane getting gasolline can be problematic as well. Finally, many people live in apartments and condoes where running wires from their vehicle is not an option. Same for carrying batteries up and down stairs.
"Second, if you're idyling for recharge and you'll need to do so for weeks on end, like happened in Florida and Alabama recently, its not only expensive, its an environmental burden."
Not to mention the gasoline shortage that inevitably happens! At least around here in Palm Beach county, last fall the gas would run out a day or two before the storm hit, because people were stocking up for their generators. For each storm the gas stations wouldn't get back on track until after a couple of days, and even then the lines to fillup were long for a few days more. I have come to learn that if a storm should hit my area it's best to plan for ultra-conservation of gasoline.
Sounds like JBB has never been in a hurricane zone when one arrived before. The first thing to disappear is gasoline, followed shortly by bottled water and D-cell batteries.
Also: Lead-acid car batteries are not the right choice for this use. If you're going to be keeping a spare battery around for this kind of thing, you want a deep cycle battery that is designed for deep discharge followed by being fully charged. You can get some from http://www.evparts.com - you can also get other parts to build electric vehicles there.
I agree with the gas camp stove idea above, though; but this may be because I grew up around people who always cooked on gas stoves.
One final note: Test this stuff out *before* you need it. If your plan doesn't work out, you're going to have to adjust it on the fly, in the middle of a disaster, without access to everything you could normally get easily.
====author's reponse ====
Excellent advice. Thanks very much for the help.
this is a great thread! the only thing i could think of adding is the coffee/stove replacement... sure there will be ordinances and bylaws about using this solution on premises... but outside or on the lawn, this thing really rocks! simple technology with EASY TO FIND parts... (that solar granma mentioned a few weeks ago can cook breakfast for 4 with one of these and a bundle of twigs... and you can easily do coffee off a couple of pieces of rolled-up newspapers.... Rocket Stoves kick serious butt!