You Are Here Because Survival Means Something to You. Let's Dive In...

When we give a property our Survival Badge, it’s about more than just its location. However, that location can either be your savior or your trap. Let's dive in.

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What takes more effort to get to now will be even more inaccessible when it counts. We list all kinds of homes, but the ones we give the Survival Badge to are unique. They're the ones that don't show up on a normal map and are "off the radar," so to speak. If a property is on a main road, it will have a very long driveway, but more often than not, we prioritize off-the-beaten-path locations.

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For a listing to receive the badge, we take the trip out, see the property and neighborhood, and assess the neighborhood culture to determine if the property meets our standards for a Bug Out home. We have a whole page dedicated to private listings, but the properties listed in this section are truly standouts deserving of the Survival Badge.

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Who owns the location is an important consideration during your building process. For example, Joe and Ann, new to town, receiving the amount of orders it would take to build out your Bug-Out location is very different from a Trucking LLC owning the property. A more discreet option takes more time to complete but evades even the most watchful eyes.

 

Consider temporarily renting a staging delivery location nearby that collects all the smaller orders and decreases the number of deliveries being made to your property. It’s much less noticeable if all the deliveries are made in one day. First, the flatbed drops all the building materials and then returns with an enclosed trailer that is left onsite to serve as a storage facility until the build-out is finished.

 

Preparedness Tip

 

Signs are a dangerous way of revealing that you have what others need. "No trespassing" signs now create legal privacy and protection, but if things get weird and laws become secondary to survival, take them down. They scream, "Come take what I have prepared." Instead, make the property unassuming: two simple posts and a trail gate. A rusty chain and lock will become unattractive within weeks of overgrowth to those going house to house.

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Another trick is to make the driveway wrap around the entire property or zigzag toward the house. This will give you ample time to see what's coming and decide how to handle it.

What is a great long-term shelter? What makes one too small or too big? Let's dive in.

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When we talk about second-home bug-out spots in Northern New England, you have to think about winter, because if you can survive the winter months, summer will be easy. With that in mind, a metal roof and a well-insulated structure are critical. The less wood you have to chop to feed a woodstove to stay warm, the fewer calories you will need to expend. At a minimum, consider these two shelter qualities.

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Your home should be set back from the tree line by a distance at least equal to the height of the tallest tree in the surrounding woods. This serves two important purposes. First, it eliminates the risk of a tree hitting your shelter and destroying what you rely on. Second, it gives you a 360-degree line of sight around your property. Blackout curtains and one-way reflective glass film provide a competitive advantage for home security. Glass film also makes smashing through windows to get in much more challenging.

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Preparedness Tip

 

If you live on a hill or an open farm, test the most common wind direction on your property. Instead of just stacking your wood in rows, position your pile in a V-shape to block that wind from reaching your home. Place the point of the V to the left or right of your house, ideally on the side you use less in the winter.

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Build up multiple layers to create stability against strong winds. This will also dry your firewood faster during the late summer and early fall. Once winter rolls around, burn the wood from the V last, and once it's gone, the cool wind will direct itself toward the house. This can act as a natural way to keep your home cool in the warmer months.

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Alternatively, you could build your wood walls around the exterior of your house about 3–4 feet from the exterior walls. In this case, stack the wood tightly to prevent wind, which will increase the home's thermal insulation for the cold months.

You can live a few days without food, but you must have clean water to survive. I like 3 layers of preparedness. Let's dive in. 

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Water Stored - As a first line of preparedness we always reference of stored water. Whether it is a few cases of bottled water in the case of the well pump stops pumping or a 2000 gallon water tank in the basement or a 20000 gallon rain water collection tank in the back yard. Let's explore your needs to prepare your options.  

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Water Filtered - The second line of our water preparedness is the ability to source water that needs to be cleared for drinking and having the tools to do so. Everyone since 2005 has called me a weird over dramatic prepper, in my daily driver there is always a case of bottled water and a life straw. Matter a fact there is a life straw in every bag that I own, at the house, in the car and I am known to give them as birthday and holiday gifts. However, life straw represents just one type of water filtration, another brand I am in love with is the Aquasana Rhino Max flow whole home system with UV. Your access to clean water is the make it or break it factor when your survival is in question. Notice the placement on this list is before food. 

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Water Collected - Here is where we talk about how you are going to place what you use. This gets tricky to prepare for because there is no one system perfect for all survival uses. The most satisfactory option would be to have a artesian well drilled deep from within the earth that isn't exposed to preparedness risk such as fallout or chemical contamination. Other options include a glass solar still or rain gutter collection.  

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Preparedness Tip - Don't forget the electrical demands of your well pump in your total usage of alternative power sources. It's easy to focus on the surface level refrigerator, washer and dryer type concerns. But if you aren't able to pump water to the washer or ice maker you'll be pretty bummed out that you weren't truly prepared.  

We often hear of preparedness being only about food, but what about the knowledge to grow and prepare it? Let's dive in.

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Yes, 25-year shelf-life freeze-dried food, buckets of rice and beans, and canned goods all have their role. When considering freeze-dried foods, look for individually packaged products for the most convenience for the money you're spending. The meals that are already prepared and just need water are often not as valuable as it would be to mix and match individual ingredients to create your own. This is especially true when buying proteins, butter, milk, and so on. If you do buy prepared meals, our recommendation is to look into Legacy Food Storage, especially if you are gluten-free. While many brands now offer a gluten-free line, none offer the total weight for the dollar spent that Legacy does. Their premium offer is a 6,480-serving bundle package for a current price of $16,500.00, which feeds a family of 6 for one year, a couple for three years, or an individual for six years. With a 25-year shelf life and the other areas of food preparedness that we are going to discuss with you, that is a dollar amount worth spending because it represents security in the form of a safe food supply.

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What about the fast growth and turnaround of white meat birds and rabbits? Everyone thinks about getting cows because of how much meat they create, but the amount of space and energy it takes to raise a cow is insignificant compared to the higher benefit of raising chickens or watching rabbits multiply faster than you can grow the other ingredients for a stew.

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There is a natural fear many have around growing food. Maybe you tried a garden once and had less than satisfactory results, or the summer rained non-stop. These are real concerns, especially when the just-in-time system isn't supplying the stores. We saw a glimpse of this during COVID, when the toilet paper ran out. Panic buying during a crisis is not the time to be "needing" anything. I still talk about what it was like to hand out "trick-or-treat style" shopping bags to the same family members who once mocked me as being a crazy prepper, giving them rolls of toilet paper and bars of soap. Oh, how their faces looked—a mixture of gratitude and embarrassment that I was buying TP by the commercial case years before the pandemic. Does anyone remember how much a 12-pack of toilet paper cost back then? You can now buy a commercial case of 96 rolls for $38.00. The U.S. average is 141 rolls per person per year, so take that into consideration while doing your ordering.

There are many options beyond solar panels. What about wind or hydromills? If your property doesn't have great southern sun exposure but does have a year-round brook running near the house, how many hydro mills would you need to stack up to charge your battery banks?

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There are two ways we can get water to a 10 kW Water Turbine Generator, Excitation Mixed Flow Type. The first is by redirecting all your gray water from sinks and showers to a water filter system that then drops into the turbine before being sent outside to the gardens—the best way to maximize your use of fresh water. The other way is to divert water from upstream directly to the generator, using gravity at the point of the generator to speed up the water flow to the intake or using a solar-powered pump from a pond. No matter which way or all ways, we can link the generator to the battery banks for long-term storage or for use as needed around the property.

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This option doesn't require you to only do domestic chores during the day with sunlight. All your washing machine, electric dryer, and dishwasher activities can be done as long as water is entering the generator. 10 kWh creates enough power to keep the fridge cold and some lights on. We'll have to talk about what this means in the winter if you only choose this form of power.

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Here are some other topics we will discuss:

• Wind Electric Generators to batteries

• Solar Electric Panels to batteries

Yes, cooking over a fire is an option, but there are so many better choices that will save you time and frustration down the road. Let's look at cookstoves.

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A large, modern, wood-fired cookstove in the main living area nearest the kitchen serves two purposes: the ability to heat a 2,300 sq. ft. space while cooking a full chicken and boiling a stew on top. Choosing this option is best paired with smaller woodstoves in rooms further from the main living area. If I were building out my space, I'd put a 300K wood furnace in the basement for direct hot-air transfer. I'd then place a wood cookstove in the main living area and a woodstove on each opposite side of the house, with heat-transfer fans between connecting rooms on the high part of the walls. I'd get the two smaller woodstoves with smaller ovens for breads and desserts while the main meal is cooking in the main space.

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For the summer months, all cooking should be done outside to keep the house as cool as possible.

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A No. 10 can of baked beans on a fire is probably one of the greatest simple pleasures of modern life. Use a can opener to crack open a few pressure-release vents, drop it on the coals, and come back an hour later for a great addition to any meal.

Yes, it's true that the best time of day to use your solar is during the day while it's powering electricity, but what about keeping the lights on at night and the refrigerated food cold? Let's look at the 80% rule and what that means for your battery bank needs.

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Over the last few years since portable solar battery generators became popular, one brand has stood above the novelty of a battery to bring camping: EcoFlow. As they self-proclaim, they are the "working class" of solar batteries. We would bring these portable batteries into the field to charge the tools needed to build our fences and fix up the homestead.

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Beyond the ability to work the land and charge our Landmaster electric utility side-by-side or the Solectrac 25hp E-Tractor, pulling a trailer of solar panels out to our work sites keeps the battery charging while we are drawing power from it. Our design model accounts for when the world changes.

 

The most versatile preparedness is the ability to exist when no one is showing up to work at the electric company. We spend a lot of time focusing on this area because there is so much to learn. Yes, you could learn yourself and spend years figuring out best practices, or you can contract with us to get you the most applicable information built into your Bug-Out home. Anyone who tells you to invest in gas-powered preparedness is not truly preparing you for independent success. The less reliance you have on services that may not be available, the more secure your investment will be.

 

Remember, the most important factor is that you never want to charge above 80% or drain below 20% but need enough power within the system to run all your electrical devices. So, let's get started before a time comes where all this free knowledge is a dream you should have acted on when you had the chance. Let's start the math equation to determine if you need 6 kWh or if you need 90 kWh of battery storage. There is a wide variety of prices, from basic charging to multiple days of charge-free storage, nearing $50,000.

 

Your needs and budget for the overall project will determine how much we have to invest in this department while still being able to balance other aspects of the project.

Security is important not just during survival but also to protect your investment beforehand. Let’s talk about cameras, fencing, perimeter sensors, and lighting.

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Cameras

 

Most people don't want cameras inside their home or on their property that are attached to a service that can be hacked. We recommend a closed-network camera system that makes up the majority of your cameras and can only be accessed on-site. As a secondary network, solar-powered cellular cameras can be staged at key points around the property to send you text alerts if triggered. This minimizes what can be potentially exposed if hacked while maximizing key points being observed.

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Solar Lighting

 

With the development of these lights in all kinds of designs, they represent the ability to put light anywhere there's sunlight. Installing a solar light post cap along the fence and in other ways around the property only costs you the initial investment of the solar lights, rather than an ongoing electric bill.

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IR Lighting

 

One thing solar lights can’t offer is enough light to cover every spot. However, a few LED IR spotlights tied into the home's battery-powered system will make nighttime look like daytime on your camera system. These lights make sneaking in at night impossible without being seen. If our team detects a break-in, and after law enforcement clears the home, our team will review the cameras and provide the police with the latest information to help them catch the intruders as quickly as possible. See more below...

Remember how we mentioned a limited service? After the realty process is completed, consider hiring us as your general consultant to oversee the build-out and completion of any additional add-ons you wish to make to your survival property.

 

We will help turn it into the long-term preparedness location for you and your family. From the completion of signing to the completion of your build-out, we oversee it all. We even background-check the contractors and have them sign non-disclosure agreements. You can put your trust in us.

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Time is precious, and that's why we save you time. Contracting with us offers the peace of mind that when your project is done right, you'll get a full walkthrough to teach you how your Bug-Out spot is set up to operate with our verified professionals.

 

No one else is offering this service because so few believe it has a market, which is represented by a very small number of people ready to make this kind of investment. As a general rule in life, we desire to help as many people as possible; however, with this service, we are only looking for those who are prepared to buy in completely.

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Let's start by picking out a listing that works best for you. We will advocate for the best deal we can. After that is signed, we can explore what you and your family will need to make the property an effective Bug-Out home.

As New Hampshire's leading bug-out management company, we offer continued care. After the build-out is complete, consider keeping us on for the long haul.

 

Our trained team will check in on your property while you are away, testing water storage, checking battery banks, and making sure your property hasn't been tampered with. We'll provide you with updates as we go. This service will be much less than the personalized cost of your site planning because we are able to train a scalable amount of professionals to perform this task. By hiring locally to your property, our team is able to respond and check as soon as law enforcement confirms the property is safe to enter.

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Beyond normal safety checks, our team can review the dates on your canned goods, ensuring that what's nearing expiration is put to the front for your use. They can also coordinate and supervise lawn care and winter plowing, ensuring that your Bug-Out spot is always accessible. When you decide it's time to move into your prepared spot, the last thing you need to worry about is arriving and not being able to get in due to built-up snow.

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Take the guesswork out of preparedness with Luminant Realty Advocates LLC.

Traditionally, a real estate office is an expense. Our plan is to make our office a part of the business plan, not just an accessory to it.

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Stop by and shop for all things survival and long-term food. While you're there, check out our homemade freeze-dried food section and step into one of our virtual home tours. With examples from across the preparedness industry, we're sure our office will change the way you look at buying and preparing for a home.

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