5 Appliances You Can Make After The Apocalypse
The end of days ... we all know it’s coming. Humanity itself will collapse, people will turn on each other, and we’ll be forced to succumb to our most primal human instincts. But still, we’ve grown a little reliant on our modern conveniences, which is why when the feces hits the whirring blade apparatus of air-pushing terror, it might help to know how to build makeshift conveniences on the fly. For instance ...
A Refrigerator Made From Styrofoam And Spare Computer Parts
Keeping things cold enough to avoid poisoning ourselves when we try to eat them later is one of the hallmarks of humanity. Probably? We don’t know the picture that history books will paint. What we do know is that leaving edibles out in the open for bacteria to take hold and kill us by way of diarrhea is the worst.
You’ll need a refrigeration unit for the leftover meat from that moose you killed, because you’re in Canada, presumably. Regardless, with some easily accessible materials, this device can help spare you from starvation and a slow, poopy, vomity death.
Hackaday.com
Screw the apocalypse. This needs to be on every computer desk.
How Do I make it?
It might require a little pre-planning, because you’re going to need a thermostat and something called a Peltier plate to make it happen. Those are two things you aren’t likely to find randomly discarded on the side of the road, so maybe hop on eBay right now and add them to the contents of your bug out bag.
A Peltier plate is a device that, when powered, gets really hot on one side and really cold on the other. The thermostat obviously controls the temperature. The rest of what you’ll need is just a styrofoam box and some spare computer parts (a couple of heat sinks, fans, a power supply) which we’re pretty sure will be plentiful in a post-2018 apocalyptic wasteland.
Attach the heat sinks and fans to either side of the Peltier plate, blowing the cold inside of the box and moving the heat away. All of it runs on a simple computer power supply, powered by a battery or even the cigarette jack in your recently “acquired” car.
But how do you reheat those leftovers, or even cook that freshly-killed muskrat to begin with? If you’re on the move, a simple fire would likely do. However, if you’ve established a stronghold, Walking Dead prison style, it might help to have ...
An Oven Made Out Of Bricks
Cooking over an open fire is amazing. The convenience, the natural wood-fired, smoky flavor, the feeling like a badass. But if Mother Nature decides that she wants to rain on your stew-making parade, an actual oven might prove useful.
“An oven?” you might rightly ask, having no knowledge of or access to things like complicated circuitry or gas lines. Fortunately, the answer is much simpler: bricks.
Makezine.com
Granted, ours would be built in the shape of a middle finger.
How Do I make it?
OK, so there’s a little more to it than just bricks. You’ll want to start with a super solid base to work on -- probably a hefty plate of metal or concrete blocks, because bricks are heavy. Also, you’ll need to use some sort of fire bricks instead of whatever’s just lying around. Your regular, everyday brick has a tendency to … well, violently explode when it gets too hot, and horrible injuries might put a damper on dinner time.
From there it’s pretty much what you would expect: build the floor and the walls, but be prepared to have a brick-cutting method to make the walls uniform, like a hammer and chisel, masonry saw or kickass karate chop. The roof is a little trickier, as it requires an arch shape. Prepare a simple wood-based jig to help guide this process.
Makezine.com
Finish it up by installing a flue, leave an opening in the front, then cover any open gaps in the bricks with clay to prevent as much heat from escaping as possible. In no time, you’ll be enjoying whatever casserole can be imagined using the assorted canned goods you’ve managed to collect.
As we all know, ovens get hot. It might be nice to cool down after a day of building ovens and baking cakes. And you can, with your very own ...
Air Conditioner Made From Tubes, Ice And A Fan
Grabbing weather by the balls and forcing it to do our bidding is one of the cooler things humanity has done. We can’t exactly create rain when we need to or whip up a hurricane whenever we like (unless you’re a fan of the HAARP conspiracy theory), but we can at least control the temperature in our humble abodes.
For years we’ve been able to stave off the discomfort of excessive heat via central air or window units that blow sweet, glorious breezes into our homes. But when the power grid is down, how do you battle summer’s fury?
How Do I Make it?
Fortunately, there are many ways to cool down your living space. They pretty much all require ice, though, so you’ll probably need to work that part out first.
One method involves attaching some copper tubing to the front of a fan and running ice cold water through it. Just grab some zip ties, attach the tubing to the front of the fan cage, then throw a water pump into your ice and water-filled cooler and run the water through the tube for face-blasting, cold air goodness.
Another involves a simple plastic container, a computer fan, some PVC elbows and a 9V battery. It’s pretty basic, but it works.
If you want to ramp that concept up, you could upgrade to a styrofoam box, a bigger fan and bigger PVC parts. It’s the same thing, basically, but more robust.
Basically, if you have ice, you have access to A/C. Of course, there’s a flip side to this coin: nights can get cold, which is why you need ...
A Space Heater Made Out Of Candles And Flower Pots
Blankets only do so much. They can’t replace the warm, loving embrace of a heat source. And you’re going to need one, because winter is coming.
No, literally, winter is coming. You need to stay warm, and short of needing a degree in electrical engineering, how can you keep your substitute home nice and toasty?
How Do I Make it?
This isn’t a legitimate source of heat for some huge structure, but in a pinch you could snuggle up next to it to take the frigid edge off. You’d also have to endure the scent, so there’s that.
We’re still talking about the end of the world here, so maybe being picky isn’t the way to go. But with a couple of flower pots and candles, you can totally create a space less likely to freeze you to death.
It’s pretty basic, and with some really rudimentary components, you might just survive winter’s assholery. You just bolt 2 different sized clay flower pots together (with a nut in between to create a gap between the two). Then light a couple of candles, and with a platform of bricks around them for ventilation, place the flower pots upside down over the whole thing. That’s it. Inhabitat.com claims, “This little oven heater will reach about 160°F within 20 minutes or so, and after 30-40 minutes, it’ll be too hot to touch.”
Still, because it's the apocalypse and all, you’re probably going to stink. Like, a lot. You might be able to find a way to bathe, but your clothes are going to be stank. So it might be helpful to have ...
A Washing Machine Made From A Bucket And A Drill
Life in the apocalypse will be complicated. You might be constantly on the move, in search of food, and smelling like butthole. The latter has a potential solution, though.
Washing your clothes might be an in to making friends or developing a relationship, because having the odor of a survivor of the end times ... we’re assuming that just isn’t sexy.
How Do I Make it?
A crate, a couple of buckets, and a power drill. That’s it.
Drill out the buckets to let the water flow. Cut out the side of the bucket so you can put your laundry in there. Put a pole through the side of the crate, powered by a handheld drill to spin it. Its simplicity is beautiful.
Of course it might be easier to just find a Wal-Mart that isn’t destroyed and set up camp in there until supplies run out. Then just move on to the next one. But then again, we’re assuming an awful lot about what the world will look like when it finally collapses. We are, however, pretty sure that it’ll be our fault. Sorry, our bad.
