Home Power, Surviving an EMP

Anyone who thinks about survival considers various means of providing your own power. Having your own power supply is great for getting through lots of survival scenarios, but how well would having an off or grid-tied home be in an EMP attack? I don't know a thing about electronics, nor do I know much about EMPs. Somehow I think that it would be affected. If that is so, is there any way to harden such a set up to survive an EMP?

I have considered making a trunk sized Farday cage to store necessary electronics such as radios, medical electronics etc. Anyone else do this?

I just read something about TEMPEST security against EMP, but can this be applied to the room housing all the solar power conversion or would it be pointless with all the wires leading to the room as an effective antennae?

I'm not to sure why you would be interested in shielding your power from an EMP. why would anyone come and EMP your off the grid house? I suppose you live far away from civilization? That doesn't sound very strategic or plausable. The only other thing I can think of that would render your off the grid power ineffective would be an atmospheric nuclear/atomic blast. In witch case you should probably be underground, or in a cave or something.

But if you really want a quick and cheap way to shield your power from an EMP first consolidate all of your electric components to one place (outside) close to the house. Your master switch, panel control, transformer, inverter, batteries what ever. I'm going to guess it's all together anyway, except for your solar panel, and what ever other power source you have like a windmill or water power. No go buy a large gun safe. The thicker the better and have someone cut a hole through the back or on the bottom so that you can rewire everything inside the safe. (make sure you get a large enough safe to fit everything comfortably. And you are all ready to go. maybe put it under an angled tin roof to keep the water off.

Make sure you keep the door to the safe open when you have the batteries charging or have the solar system on. close the safe at night when it's not charging. (or when you get EMP-ed)

Oh make sure you buy extra resistors and an extra readout panel. both will have to be replaced if there is an EMP (I forget the exact name of what that resistor is it right now... It keeps the solar panel from overcharging and destroying your batteries.

Originally posted by Wolf321
I have considered making a trunk sized Farday cage to store necessary electronics such as radios, medical electronics etc. Anyone else do this?

I've got an old chest of drawers in my basement that I'm wanting to convert for the same purposes to store spare laptop/printer/scanner/digital multimeters/PCBs/fuses/etc...whilst some survival-purists on the board may deride me for hoarding electrical stuff rather than going all-out ray mears and honing hunting and other physical skills, i'll leave that to others...my house is intended to be a primary base of operations for my neighbourhood in a mass-x with the facilities to scan, print, and produce construction plans and drawings for shelters and defensive constructions/resource and cartographic maps/and a whole host of engineering/medical/practical survival information

I aint bugging out anywhere when it hits the fan, so I'm preparing a comms bunker instead

Originally posted by Wolf321
I just read something about TEMPEST security against EMP, but can this be applied to the room housing all the solar power conversion or would it be pointless with all the wires leading to the room as an effective antennae?

Read about how the telephone companies protected their switching stations. Basically, anything over 30 inches is enough of an antenna for a damaging strike. See the problems with miles of telephone wires.

There are work-a-rounds, but they are somewhat technical.

And to answer your question; yes, I have.

reply to post by Wolf321


The one item you would ideally have in duplicate if you are wanting to build an off-grid solar/wind system is a charge-controller...as these are generally PCB-based, you may lose the one thats out in the open regulating the flow of charge to your battery bank during an EMP event, but at least you'll have a back-up to plug in after the dust has cleared

reply to post by Wolf321


What you would have to do is to shield you house with metallic material and ground the shield.

I guess you could you could have your generator withing the shield. You can buy power filters to protect your basic power panels and circuits, but they ain't cheap.

The deal with an EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) is that any wire exposed to it will generate a voltage across it by the interaction with the huge magnetic field. It's like every single conductor becomes an electromagnet and then a transformer when the magnetism drains away. This basically fries any components in the system and turns that nice little piece of equipment into a paper-weight.

The only sure way to keep something from an EMP is to store it in a solid iron or steel box. The magnetic pulse will travel through the box instead of through it (as long as it is thick enough for the magnitude of the EMP). Lower level EMPs can be deflected by wire Faraday Cages, which work like the iron box.

It all really depends on how large a pulse you get and which direction it is moving compared to your electronics location. Think of it like a tornado: you can get through an F1 without much more damage than a few lawn chairs missing, but an F5 is going to leave a nice long bare stretch where your property used to be.

TheRedneck

reply to post by Wolf321


MUCH APPRECIATE this thread. Been wondering about such for a long time.

I would guess that aluminum would also work? Such as wrapping transistor radios in aluminum foil--several layers?

Pretending Albuquerque . . . a likely target . . . is 300 miles away . . .

Wouldn't aluminum mobile homes be better protected than the average frame house--except for the wiring going into the home? But if there were adequate breakers/surge protectors on ALL wires going into the home . . . How'd that be?

Seems to me that in terms of solar, one would have to have that shielded underground or inside some significant metal???

What about the expanded steel sheet metal kinds of sheets. Pretty thick--maybe what nearly 1/4" thick ??? Would an adequate Faraday Cage be possible out of that?

Seems to me that in this day and age, anything which runs on electricity is going to need to be buried underground in a cellar or in a steel container.

I wonder about the underground thing. How far underground with how much of what material about would be adequate?

Then I recall reading a claim once about certain folks with certain types of genetic components being trained to communicate with ET's by telepathy because the government knew there was coming a time when ALL electrical based communications were going to be utterly kaput.

Carrier pigeons anyone?

Seems to me Ham radio folks would have to have backup everythings standing buy sheilded as well.

Sounds like interesting times ahead.

reply to post by BO XIAN


EMP shielding can be made from aluminum foil.

They say you want multiple alternating layers of aluminum foil
and cardboard, and to crinkle the aluminum foil.

Air Force One use a variation on a material called Mu metal:

en.wikipedia.org...

I made a roll around suitcase into a multi-layered EMP shield box.

I keep my essential survival electronics in it.

The plan to EMP the whole country using the power stored
in the upper atmosphere is detailed below, and as they say
will most likely be deployed via a multi-role satellite(s).

Expect little or no warning of this event.

en.wikipedia.org...



[edit on 28-7-2008 by Ex_MislTech]

[edit on 28-7-2008 by Ex_MislTech]

reply to post by BO XIAN

I would guess that aluminum would also work? Such as wrapping transistor radios in aluminum foil--several layers?

Aluminum will not make a good EMP shield; it is non-magnetic. The purpose of a Faraday Cage is to divert electrical and magnetic fields away from the contents, primarily the magnetic pulse. Aluminum does do a little as it is somewhat of a shield against magnetism, but that effect is pretty much negligible when confronted with an EMP of any real size.

Mu-Metal has been mentioned; it is very expensive and only sold wholesale as far as I know (if someone knows where I can pick up small quantities I would love to 'play' with some). It saturates at a low flux, but has a tremendous permeability rating. It was specifically designed for use in magnetic shielding and is probably the best material choice known at this time.

The thing is that pure iron (99.99%) has almost as good characteristics as mu-metal, and a much lower cost. I can't seem to find any pure iron though. I have considered making my own using the thermite reaction; let's just hope I don't start a fire I can't put out.

TheRedneck

You can totally shield all your communication gear but it is worthless unless the "other guy" shields his. The best defense would be an older 60's/70's motorcycle or auto with standard ignition system. At least you could get around. In an actual EMP situation the grid and everything that relies on it would be toast....

reply to post by Wolf321
The only true way to protect your house and electronics is to completely cover them with lead or aluminum. Steel will focus the magnetics.

Thanks for all the replies.

What about ICF (concrete) homes? They are basically a rebar cage. Not accounting for the doors and windows, would that provide any protection from EMP as sort of a large scale Faraday cage?

It would help some. Rebar is steel, conductive and magnetic. The effectiveness would be determined by the amount of rebar (spacing) in the concrete, and also by the electrical connection between the individual rebars. Unfortunately, steel tends to 'grow' a protective oxide layer inside concrete. This helps keep it from rusting completely away, but also isolates the bers from each other electrically.

If you are considering buiklding one yourself, I would suggest using a MIG welder on every cross-connection in the rebar before pouring the concrete. More expensive and time consuming than 'wiring' it together, but also makes for a single-piece framework.

TheRedneck

You cannot protect your off-grid solar power system from an EMP. The most expensive part of the system are the panels and they would be ruined. Possibly bury a spare set but the EMP will fry the active panels.

Candles are nice