DIY Emergency Kit

With regular large scale disasters already common in North America, it’s a good time to talk a bit about disaster preparation and how a 5 gallon bucket can help provide some good physical insurance against a catastrophic situation.

diy bucket emergency disaster kit

Image Credit: SafetyKitStore.com

A well designed emergency kit will contain the best bits of modern technology and healthcare. IT should be designed to secure you in a variety of disaster scenarios, while remaining portable enough to take with you if you need to evacuate.

Since this is a website about buckets, we are designing a sample kit that fits neatly in a 5 gallon bucket. You could also use a backpack, but you won’t get the benefit of an airtight, waterproof seal. Continue reading

Water Boiler

Count how often in a day you use hot water out of the tap. I can think of several – washing hands, taking a shower, cleaning clothes or as a shortcut to boiling water for pasta.

hot-water-5-gallon-bucket

Hot tap water is the ultimate modern luxury, but you can’t always count on it being there. Your hot water might vanish during a water boiler breakdown, plumbing trouble, a natural disaster, or even something as mundane as going camping.

With an efficient 5 gallon hot water system in place, you’ll never have to go without. Continue reading

Bucket Carrier

If you’re an experienced bucket wrangler you’ve probably at some point become dissatisfied with the stock carrying mechanism that comes with most buckets – its handle.

Fortunately you’ve got options when considering bucket transport. In this bucket carrier guide, I’ll run through just a few of the ways I’ve found to carry 5 gallons of fun around.

Bucket Backpacks

Bucket backpack

Ever noticed that you can squat three times as much weight as you can bench? That’s the same principle behind the bucket backpacks, a rare breed of bucket accessory frequently used by gold prospectors. Continue reading

Bucket Seat

Need a chair? Easy. Just flip a 5 gallon bucket upside down and park yourself on top.

It’ll support your weight, but it won’t feel nice. Buckets in the raw weren’t designed to be sat on comfortably, they were designed to be practically indestructible. Buckets have a lot of plastic ridges and seams which like to dig into your butt. It’s fine if you’re just sitting down for a few minutes, but increasingly painful the longer you sit on one.

Continue reading

Camping Ideas

The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy states that you should always know where your towel is. Well if there were a Camper’s Guide to the Galaxy, surely the #1 piece of advice it would give would be to always know where your bucket is!

5 gallon bucket camping ideas

A 5 gallon bucket – or three – is the most versatile of any camping gear, whether you’re a barebones backpack camper, a car camper, or prefer to bring a motorized RV to the campsite.

Continue reading