# Preloaded BOV/BOT: wet-packed or dry canned food?



## forluvofsmoke (Jan 27, 2012)

While I'm in the process of stocking up for pre-loading a BOT for the upcoming storm season this summer, I began to wonder about which canned goods would be best for this purpose: to be stored at the ready with the vehicle staged away from home in the event our home were destroyed, or we were displaced from it for an indefinite period of time. The food would only be stored in the BOT during the summer (non-freezing temps), but the high daytime temps and temp swings with cooler nights will have an impact on the storage life of both wet and dry packed foods. Which would be effected the least? Or, to put it better, which would be my most cost effective, knowing I would have to rotate these foods out and use them up much sooner, say, every season for wet-packed, and possibly every third season with dry-packed. I'm just guessing here, but think that the shelf life could reasonably be reduced to 20% of normal. I'll still keep dry rice, pancake mixes and such in the BOT, but veggies, fruits, soups, stews and the like are making me wonder the most...wet-packed almost sounds like a better route due to less cost and it is basically ready to eat if need be, but I'm just not so sure anymore.

I'm preparing for the possibility of having all of our kids (5), spouse/significant other (4) and grand-kids (4) come my way as well if it is a larger-scale event, and this complicates things a bit with having the little one's needs covered, but I can handle it. They don't really have the insight nor the financial stability to afford being prepared like I do, so I'm taking all of their needs into consideration...they are my family. Just wondering which food type (wet or dry packed) you would consider to be best for this purpose.

If you're wondering why I would pre-load a BOT, it's because of the sheer volume of goods/supplies (planning for 3 weeks to start out, then build it up more) and a total lack of time to get it loaded in the event of a severe thunderstorm (we get them frequently and are in a hole in the Doppler radar, so don't always get timely warnings). Add to that the fact that I'm usually gone at work when they hit, a few hours or more from home. If our house is at/near ground zero and our emergency stash is there as well, then, all our eggs were in one basket, so to speak...don't want that to happen again...been there once (tornado), don't wanna do it again.

Thanks for your thoughts and advice!!!


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

The wet packed having, in a sense, their own water supply can be a big plus. When weight is not an issue I often recommend wet packed items.


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## GrinnanBarrett (Aug 31, 2012)

We have both a travel trailer and a single axle enclosed trailer for hauling gear back and forth. In our travel trailer we ONLY store dry (Freeze dried and Dehydrated) foods. We have WET food in the house in large Rubber Maid type containers ready to load at a moments notice. The reason is canned foods (wet) do not do well in extreme heat. The food can still be eaten but the nutritional content can be compromised greatly. The same thing applies to MRE meals. MREs will lose all their nutritional value in a matter of days if kept in extreme heat. (Refer to the military life chart of MRE meals). 

Best wishes to you. GB


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

With the size of your crew I would expect that you could rotate that out on an annual basis without any problem.

I might suggest that you look for a place out of direct sun to keep the trailer. Under a tree, in a carport, behind the north side of a house or any other place that will reduce the effect of the direct sun.


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## Geek999 (Jul 9, 2013)

Do you have a location for it? If you can rent a temperature controlled garage bay, you'll have a much longer life for the goods.


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## forluvofsmoke (Jan 27, 2012)

Thanks all!!! You have definitely reaffirmed my thoughts on wet-packed foods and summer heat.

The area I will be parking this trailer is out in the open (no shade) where I park my SUV to get ready for work. That's the best place I can come up with for accessibility in order for me to be able to monitor it when I go to work or before going home in evening. The lot is right next to where a guy I know lives, and he's got a hound he runs in the area every morning and evening to get it's exercise, sniffing out ground squirrels and rabbits just for something to keep him busy and active. He works close-by as well, and he is trust-worthy...the kind of guy that won't stand and watch someone else messing around with property, even if it's not his own...he doesn't ask much questions (one of the few of his kind around here...if he needed to know someone would tell him, and if they don't, he didn't need to know), and just keeps things to himself...so I'm not worried about the security of the BOT.

I may be investing in a solar powered roof ventilator for the cargo trailer, and probably install drip-protected and screened inlet vents on the lower portion of the front wall, and the rear door. That should help to get a good cross-draft from the lower section on the ends towards the center and out the roof...that should help to remove a lot of the day-time heat. Also, the trailer will be either aluminum or painted white to reflect more of the heat off the surface. I might even install a tattle-tail digital thermometer with peak/low temp readings memory like I have in my meat curing/thawing fridge...that should help to determine what kind of shelf-life I can expect to see with the food. I'll just need to keep a small space clear for adequate circulation of air between the inlets and roof vent...not packing it tightly like I'm accustomed to doing will probably be the toughest part...

Speaking of solar, I planned on mounting (2) 100-watt panels on the roof and a couple golf cart batteries in series for a 12VDC system, just for LED flood lights, recharging flashlight batteries, phones, etc. If I see a real need for refrigeration (ice cold drinks and even being able to store fresh meat in 100*F weather while tent camping after a storm would be a welcomed thought), I may add one of those 12VDC portable Whynter 65 qt units (can operate as fridge or freezer)...they run on 5 amps, and 200 watts of polycrystaline solar panels should be about enough to keep the battery bank happy, in all but complete overcast weather. I might even go for a MPPT controller to get every drop of juice the panels can pump out, even when it's overcast.

A few nights ago I was considering mostly wet-packed foods for fruits, veggies and meats, but now I'm really thinking that may be a waste. With dry, it should at least still be salvageable after one season in the heat, along with some form of climate control (ventilation)...the initial cost of dried vs wet-packed will be high, but I can justify the cost if wet will be useless after several weeks in the heat. It all comes down to taking care of the family if mother nature tries to open a can o whoop a$$ on us again in the future (or whatever else that might get thrown at us).

Thanks again, everyone!!!


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

If you are going to paint your trailer then a high gloss white will reflect the most energy.

If you are setting up a solar fan anyway, have you considered working in a swamp cooler. That could drop the temp by 20*. You could place it under the trailer and fill it each morning or as necessary.

A layer of space bag and/or rigid foam on the inside of your box trailer should help also. 

My cousin put a swamp cooler in his home and dropped 20*F. A later white metal roof and added insulation dropped inside temps by an additional10*F.


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## forluvofsmoke (Jan 27, 2012)

Caribou said:


> If you are going to paint your trailer then a high gloss white will reflect the most energy.
> 
> If you are setting up a solar fan anyway, have you considered working in a swamp cooler. That could drop the temp by 20*. You could place it under the trailer and fill it each morning or as necessary.
> 
> ...


I've been cooling homes with evaporative water coolers for 20 years, and they do work quite well, as long as you have a low-humidity environment. We tried them on the farm in some older equipment and found that they only help to filter out the dust in operators cab, but didn't do any good for cooling...high humidity was the issue. In all the places we've live for the last 20+ years, it's been around 20% during the heat of the day...a bit higher in the evenings and early morning.

I had a thermometer on my first swamp cooler when it was new and it would drop the temp almost 45*F below ambient temp, with an output of 52* when it 96-98* outside. It got so cold in our kitchen we had to eat in the living room, or turn it off. I found an inline thermostat to control it and that really worked well...it operated just like central A/C. The only difference is that with swamp coolers you need to have some windows cracked open a bit in the rooms you want to cool that are any distance from the unit so the cool air can flow through that area, otherwise it's a dead-space and won't cool.

I digressed, but yes, there are plenty of options...just a matter of finding the right balance. The idea of all dried foods isn't too appealing due to the cost, but even with just a roof vent and insulation, that may not be enough to keep temps reasonable. The thought of rotati g-out some of this stuff to eat it up is kinda spooky because of the sodium content...the soup and chili mixes are wicked-high. Guess I'll have to look into getting just the whole dried ingredients from here on out. That way we can make our own recipes with the rotated foods which won't be so high in sodium...would be better overall for the SHTF scenario as well.

More pondering to come for me before I come up with an acceptable plan, but I'm close.

Thanks for all the tips and advice, folks!!! Much appreciated!!!


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

I once worked as a lab technician for Carnation's can division. They considered storing food at 100º for two years to have the same effect as storing it at 72º for three years. So I wouldn't worry about daily temperature fluctuations but I would park it in the shade if I could.


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## forluvofsmoke (Jan 27, 2012)

BillS said:


> I once worked as a lab technician for Carnation's can division. They considered storing food at 100º for two years to have the same effect as storing it at 72º for three years. So I wouldn't worry about daily temperature fluctuations but I would park it in the shade if I could.


Thanks for that tid-bit, Bill. That's quite interesting...and gives me more to consider.

Here's a update on where I'm at with this project to date:
After piecing together an equipment and materials list (just finding out what's available and making a rough plan, shooting from the hip) for a thermostat-controlled, solar-powered (with back-up batteries), R-13.1 Thermashield rigid foam insulated 35.85 cu ft capacity cabinet with evaporative cooler (4'H x 4'W x3'D outside measurements)...at a whooping ~$700.00 for the bulk of the materials, hardware, and components, not including 2 batteries, wiring and a utility trailer that I already have...I'm thinking long and hard about any angles I may have overlooked. For the finished project, I figured on setting the thermostat to 72-75*F, and if I designed it properly for this purpose, and after several days to reach a stable temp of the cabinet and it's contents, it should maintain that temp, even @ 100* ambient, and still be able to cycle on and off with cooling capacity to spare (approx 60-65% duty-cycle during hot, sunny days)...that's my goal. I haven't found info to calculate the approx BTU's required for this system based on insulation R-value, ambient temp, wind convection, etc, or, how to calculate the BTU output of evaporative cooling, based on evap-media type, size, depth (pad size and thickness), or, air flow rates (cfm), either. So, for now, I'll just go with dimensions and rated sq ft for my first and largest home swamp cooler...but that's still somewhat vague...so I'll be wingin' it, for the most part (unless someone has knowledge of the info I seek). If not, it will be an experiment, which I have no problem doing, either.

I've been working out the details on this for what seems like a week or more, and it's turning into something of a nightmare to find the best prices on what I need, or making compromises with certain items just to keep the cost down. I don't have a budget for this, as it's untested waters for me...no idea what it would take to pull it off, but wanted to find out. The construction, assembly and testing would be a fun project, but I'm still on the fence. I have to remind myself that it is a large amount of temperature-controlled storage, and for near-zero operating cost, that's portable/go (almost) anywhere...at a large cost. The only real down-side to using an evap cooler is the humidity...to compensate, I decided that wrapping cases of goods in large trash bags and sealing the rolled/folded ends with duct tape would suffice, just for protection against condensation, and hopefully it would also prevent water-vapor intrusion into the cardboard cases. Being this cabinet will not be self-draining, it will require periodic removal of condensation via wet-dry vac or mopping it off the interior surfaces with towels, just to reduce the risk of mold/mildew. I will also use a fine mesh screen on the fan inlet (not HEPA) to reduce particulates which can carry spores, as well as the evap media catching much of this.

The flip-side is that this system is not designed for multi-purpose use...at least I haven't thought of what else I could store in it during winter months, yet...storage for things that would not cause damage to the interior or cause any risk of contamination of a food-storage area. So, I would be committing these resources (and dollars/time) to just summer emergency food/water/first aid supply storage...it's a lot to swallow...especially for a prototype which may need multiple modifications if I don't design the cooling system with high enough capacity. I think this is where a modular evap-cooler would be a wise choice, instead of building the cooler as a permanent fixture on the insulated cabinet...this would be much easier to expand on cooling capacity. The solar/battery system can be expanded at any time, and the charge controller I have chosen will handle almost double the output of the 105 watt panel that I want, considering the planned load of 13 watts (12VDC) and an expected max of 130 Whrs/day. I'd just need to find another panel with close to the same open-circuit volts and rated output volts, but with about 1 amp lower output power (~60-70 watt), and that would be a good candidate for solar expansion if I needed to add additional fans/water pumps for a larger evaporative cooler pad and the existing panel was not enough to maintain a regular full battery SOC.

Anyway, I figure I have only about 10-14 days to decide if this is the route I'll go with or not...order the components for the home-brew solar-powered evap cooler (on-line), and pick-up the cabinet materials (OSB, 2x2, primer/paint), insulation, etc at a local building supply outlet. I decided on wood construction due to it's ease of use and insulative properties, as the interior insulation will be taped/sealed with radiant barrier to make it air/water-tight, other than the louvered exhaust vents and (possibly) louvered outlet of the cooler evap pad...so condensed water or vapor intrusion with the wood should be minimal. I figure it's about a 4-5 day project to complete (days off work), so, from the time I order everything it will be almost a month until it's up and running. Our severe thunderstorm season normally starts in about 5-6 weeks...and the clock's ticking.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

Caribou said:


> If you are going to paint your trailer then a high gloss white will reflect the most energy.
> 
> If you are setting up a solar fan anyway, have you considered working in a swamp cooler. That could drop the temp by 20*. You could place it under the trailer and fill it each morning or as necessary.
> 
> ...


swamp coolers work by introducing moisture/humidity into the air instead of removing it like A/C does, if I remember right? my concern would be rust, on guns and tools. be sure to have plenty of desiccant and bake it often to recharge it.


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

Dakine said:


> swamp coolers work by introducing moisture/humidity into the air instead of removing it like A/C does, if I remember right? my concern would be rust, on guns and tools. be sure to have plenty of desiccant and bake it often to recharge it.


Correct. It takes 960 BTU's/LB to evaporate water. That heat comes from the air so you are pushing cooler air into your conditioned space.

My cousin uses and my grandparents used swamp coolers for years. I have no memory of any rusty cans. I have a revolver that was Grandpa's and it has no rust, though I would keep any guns well oiled.

I would be more worried about trapping moisture inside a trash bag than a just having cardboard boxes stacked. You are counting on airflow to cool the unit. The cool moist air is coming in and the warm moist air is venting out the top. I have lived in a high moisture environment and things with good ventilation always fared better for rust and mold than something in a plastic bag. Now, if you put everything in sealed mylar with a desiccant inside that is a different story.


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## forluvofsmoke (Jan 27, 2012)

Caribou said:


> Correct. It takes 960 BTU's/LB to evaporate water. That heat comes from the air so you are pushing cooler air into your conditioned space.
> 
> *My cousin uses and my grandparents used swamp coolers for years. I have no memory of any rusty cans.* I have a revolver that was Grandpa's and it has no rust, though I would keep any guns well oiled.
> 
> I would be more worried about trapping moisture inside a trash bag than a just having cardboard boxes stacked. _*You are counting on airflow to cool the unit.*_ The cool moist air is coming in and the warm moist air is venting out the top. I have lived in a high moisture environment and _*things with good ventilation always fared better for rust and mold*_ than something in a plastic bag. Now, if you put everything in sealed mylar with a desiccant inside that is a different story.


I hadn't thought about that aspect, but that seems to be the case. A closed space, with little to no natural ventilation, such as an old abandoned building, always seems to have a very musty odor, especially in a humid location. If the same building had a compromised structure with large areas of natural air flow, that musty odor does not seem as prominent, and generally is not noticeable at all, in my past experiences. Also, once moisture gets inside a bag, either ambient water vapor or condensed, it's trapped if the bag is sealed. My location is quite dry, but sealing a bag without enough desiccant, or at the least, vacuum sealing, could eventually lead to condensation, resulting in mold.

That said, if I felt the need, and right now I do, I could incorporate a fan-only function, based on a timer, to provide fresh air ventilation of the closed space during late evening hours, but before the ambient dew-point began to rise. By allowing just enough run-time to evacuate/displace the space two to three times, then shut-down and return to temp sensor operation, it would remove much of the excess water vapor in the space as well, before the system automatically went dormant through the night...this should reduce the risk of condensation on interior surfaces by increasing the interior dew-point. Then, as interior temps rise again in the mid-morning hours, the evap cooler would begin it's cycle to keep the space cool via adding water vapor with air flow. A simple timer switch wired directly from the batteries to the fan circuit would handle the venting without back-feeding current to the water pump if I used a separate thermostat switch for the fan and pump circuits.

As I stated earlier, I would want this system to be autonomous, meaning it takes care of itself, from environment control to power...and, other than manually filling the water tank for the evap cooler system, which cannot be avoided due to it being a transportable unit, it can be accomplished. There will be times when cooler weather will prevent the evap cooler from operating at all. If the thermostat is set for 72*F and ambient is below 72*F with cloudy skies, the evap system won't need to operate, thus no ventilation. This could occur possibly for several days, be it just overcast, or rainy days. The vent-only timer function could be set-up to to run the ventilation mode in early morning and late evening, just for a minute or two per cycle, to prevent stagnant air, which would be a target-rich environment for mold/mildew.

If I really wanted the most from this system, based on sound environmental control, I could use am interior humistat on the vent fans to remove excess humidity when the evap cooler is dormant, but that may require additional circuitry with a by-pass, possibly an outside ambient temp sensor switch (for heating), to prevent ventilation-only during hot weather while the space has been cooled to the desired temp and the evap has cycled off, as hot dry air would otherwise begin to reheat the space.

Thanks for response, Caribou!!! It got my wheels turning on yet another angle (or three) to best protect my investment. I just have to do some digging for resources, and then decide if I can justify the time and expense to make it happen.

@ Dakine: A/C and refrigeration systems are often misunderstood. I had it explained to me by an educated and experienced refrigeration tech a while back. It doesn't actually cool the air in a way which most folks think it does. It does remove the thermal energy, felt as heat, from the air, and transfers it elsewhere (outside the cooled space). This is the same principle as how a heat pump works when used with an HVAC unit...only it can be reversed for heating the space by removing thermal energy from the outside air and transferring it inside. It does not matter that the principle of operation is different from what many of us would think, it accomplishes what we want it to do.

The condensed water vapor which is removed from the air with A/C which causes the steady drip from the condenser unit in our cars leaving a small water puddle underneath is just a by-product of the process, and is caused by nothing more than the air temp in the condenser dropping below the dew-point, based on ambient relative humidity. In a arid desert environment, you will notice far less condensation from an A/C unit than you would see in a humid location.


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