the Handbook for Primitive Living

in the Twenty-First Century.

Imagine if tomorrow you had no hydro, no running water, no fuel, no phone. How could you survive? This site is a thought experiment designed to answer that question.

noted on Tue, 10 Feb 2004

Watercone Water Still

Back a couple of months I became motivated to design a cheap solar water still that could be econoically provided to refugees, natural disaster victims, and the like. During my information gathering phase, someone sent me a link to a product that was astoundingly similar to exactly what I was hoping to produce.

Watercone is a super-simple solar water still. It’s a two-piece plastic design that uses nothing but the sun’s energy to produce over a litre of distilled water per day (depending on location, season, etc.) from any source water. Simply fill the dish with source water, float the cone on top, and at the end of the day take off the cap, invert the cone, and collect the distilled water.

Please see the HPL Water section for more information on water.

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Tidbits Volume 1

Researching primitive living aspects forces one to do a lot of reading and sorting. In this process a lot of information is read, and lots of good information is not retained. Instead of letting these pearls of knowledge scatter in favour of finding only the motherlode, I’m introducing the Tidbits section. Tidbits will be full of random, singular, unordered, but potentially useful pieces of information that don’t have a home otherwise. Tidbits will be updated as information is found, and new volumes added as needed.

See more …

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