Technology Vs. Skills and Basic Equipment

Okay, I’ll admit it.  I appreciate my time-saving devices and my stress saving devices!  Who wants to have to build a fire in an old outside oven, let the heat and coals sit in it for hours BEFORE you get to bake your bread?  Sometimes, the five minutes that it takes to heat up my stove can frustrate me, if I forgot to pre-heat it!  And who wants to lug a basket full of wet laundry outside when you could so much more easily slide it into the dryer?

I totally get you!  Our family owns an oven, a refrigerator, a dishwasher, washer and dryer, a furnace and an air conditioner for a reason!  I like a comfortable life.

The question isn’t just how do I like my life now, but how should I prepare?  Let me put it another way, is a house decked out with solar panels (so they can run all their modern conveniences) better off in a long-term situation or one that is low tech?  Let’s explore both!

Technology

Technology is amazing!  It enables us to search through an entire book in seconds to find the one phrase for which we are looking.  It lights our gas oven automatically and heats it up to the perfect temperature!  Having this technology means that our active time for washing and drying laundry is only a fraction of the time it took people 100 years ago.

Technology also complicates our lives.  If your washing machine doesn’t work, It’s a MAJOR problem.  If an oven doesn’t work, what do we do?  Well, fortunately, we can still use a crockpot for some things.  No working vacuum cleaner, a broom just isn’t the same.  Do we just live in a dirty house?

What if we are a prepared family (though no family is completely prepared) and we’ve opted instead of investing our money into grid-down equipment, we chose to invest our money into solar panels so that we always have electricity.  Here are a couple of observations.

(1) You Have Painted a Target on Your Back

Now, I am aware that Tesla has developed a solar roofing shingle which looks pretty stinking like a regular roof shingle, so no one would ever know you had solar power in your house.  Well, unless you told them.  If you have the money for it (approx. $100,000 for a medium sized roof if you take out a conventional 30-year loan on a ROOF?!?), by all means, go ahead with it!

But if you are thinking of putting standard solar panels on your roof, the first thing that less savory types of people will do is to look for houses with more conveniences that they don’t have.  If you use conventional solar panels on your roof, you’re painting a BIG bulls-eye on your back.

(2)  Oops, my washer broke!

If it’s a long-term situation, and one of your appliances breaks, you have a problem.  Unless you are an appliance technician and have an unlimited supply of parts for all your appliances, you won’t be able to call someone to fix your appliance.  If you haven’t invested in grid-down technology, if you lose your washing machine, you may be in a bit of a pickle.

(3) Hail storms don’t happen when there’s a long-term problem.

Of course, they don’t (um….sure).  But if they did, it would be possible that the storm could damage your solar panels.  So if you were fortuitous enough not to have someone steal your house because they can see the solar panels. Then, IF your normal home appliances still worked, you could still be in real trouble if your solar powered system broke down.

Skills and Basic Equipment

Let’s look at the other side of the equation.  If you’re like me, and you’re too poor to afford to put a whole solar system (you must have a huge house to fit one of those……anyway) in your house, there is good news for you!

(1)  Cost Comparison

Basic equipment costs very little, and learning how to use that equipment costs you nothing!  Let’s compare just one item – Laundry.

In order to do laundry the most basic way, you need a washboard and probably a wash basin.  Yes, you could use your tub, but if you don’t have the ability to drain your tub, you’ll need two washtubs – one for washing and one for rinsing.  I purchased a washboard to scrub the clothes.  Then to wring your clothes out sufficiently, you can use a mop bucket with a wringer.

To dry your clothes, you’d need a clothesline and clothespins.  If times were tight, you could just string the line between two trees, but if you chose to put up a set of clothesline poles, you could do that too.

Over the past two years, I’ve purchased all of these.  The sum total for all of them was approximately $280.  That’s almost exactly one month’s payment (for a thirty-year loan) on Tesla’s solar roof in my zip code!  That means for a pittance, you can do laundry for your family forever or until the clothesline collapses with no more investment.

(2)  You Learn Skills That Everyone Needs

In a long-term situation, if you invest in basic equipment and then you gain skills by LEARNING to use that equipment, you are going to be so far above the pack.  If you have practiced and know how to cook in a HERC oven, or to bake over a fire when no one around you does, you’ve just become incredibly valuable.

If you know how to harvest dandelions so that you can cook with them or make wine with them, you’re made useful to everyone around or you have a way to barter for things you need.

Do you know how to clean and stitch a wound?  Wow, people will come to you for help and you’ve just gotten a huge advantage when it comes to bartering!

So, if I decide to go with pursuing skills and basic equipment…..

Does that Mean I Won’t Have ANY Conveniences?

It depends on what you mean by conveniences.  There are pieces of powerless equipment that are much more convenient, but cost more than what I showed you above.  The other thing about these other conveniences is that unless you can repair them, you’ll end up back with your basic equipment.

For instance, I have invested in a WonderWash.   This is a mini-hand crank washing machine.  Will it make life a little easier?  Sure!  But if a seal deteriorates or a gear breaks and I can’t use it anymore, I’ll still have to go back to my washtubs and washboard.

It works the same way with other systems.  Can a carpet be cleaned (at least superficially) by a broom?  Yes!  Would it be easier to use a non-electric vacuum?  Absolutely!  But a broom probably won’t break, unless you hit someone over the head with the handle.  Can you have both?  Yes, but it’s better to start with the one that is the simplest first.  The one that you probably won’t have to fix.

What About You?

What are your opinions on the technology vs. skills debate?  Are there pieces of technology that you’re depending on?  Are there skills you want to learn?  I’d love to hear!  Leave a comment below, or hit reply if you’ve gotten this via e-mail.

Remember, knowledge isn’t knowing something, it’s living it!

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