Side walls.

I decided to use clinker as the finish of my side walls. Why is that ? It is not cheap - for sure. But it has many advantages from prepper point of view. This is the only material I found that it can be said : once done - forever done. I need to insulate walls - and it could be easily done with usage of expanded polystyrene. But in the country you need something strong just because children playing ball in the garden. I could cover it with double layer of reinforcement net but always I would finish in the point that I have to renew paintings every five years and plaster every 10-15 years (depends on condition). So from the long term point of view it occurs to be more expensive than once made clinker wall insulated with glass fiber wool.

That is exact usage of rule no. 1. Buy best available material in terms of technology and quality. I am not going to pay for modern colors or design - it is not a class A bureau in the very downtown. I need just red bricks. :) I will buy ordinary clinker and I even put a reservation on second quality. But not second in parameters - they are 2nd quality just because of their look. I will buy not so perfectly shaped bricks. And to be sincere - this is another advantage for me because renewing old countryside house with perfectly shaped bricks would look odd. Kind of plastic with no soul. So what is disadvantage for one is good for me. I will get this clinker in the price of the ordinary bricks ! 

I will use glass fiber wool to insulate instead of polystyrene according to its total incombustibility. Much safer ! 

So I will have an old style reinforced and safely insulated side walls in the price of much worse solutions. And the only thing I will do in the future is to clean them - personally I hope that with a little dirt they will look even better, old-stylish ;)

One thing you have to remember is to use special kind of mortar for clinker.

Rule no. 1.

I abandoned my first idea about building a new house just because I didn't want to break this rule. What is so important that could change my plans ? The rule no. 1 is...

When you are not a rich man buy everything the best possible in terms of technology and materials used , choosing the recognized manufacturer. 

In the very beginning I did not find it well. But being experienced through life and problems I would strongly recommend this rule as the most important one. Especially for preppers ! I will try in a few words convince you that it works.

Have you ever bought a thing that was repaired plenty of times during their lifetime ? It is not about the money but possibility to use owned equipment.

Have you ever bought a thing that has much worse working parameters than it was stated in the advertising ?

Have you ever found that when you wants to service an equipment spare parts are not available any more ? Or even worse - the manufacturer is unknown - probably small firm in Guangzhou...

Have you ever been surprised looking at the bill given you by the serviceman ? According to his costs and costs of the parts used to repair (imported from luckily found small firm in Guangzhou).

Have you ever found that this cheap license you bought suddenly is blocked by manufacturer ?

From preppers point of view this question is the most accurate : What happens when it will stop working in a "bad-time" ? Murphy's law says - for sure it will happen ! And in the middle of the ice storm, when electricity will fail, your generator would stop working ...

I am not telling about paying for luxuries,  solid gold cover or best design. Just focus on taking what you are paying for and do all you can to pay only once. Now if its affordable buy the most advanced one build of best materials. You can spend lets say - $100. You can buy from unknown manufacturer or build not with best materials for $50. Now you have $50 but surely you would spend it on something else. You will not keep any part of these money for future maintenance or repair costs. So one day it can happen that it will break and you will have to pay this $50. What if in that time you would not have this $50 for repairing this ? Who can predict future ? And maybe you will have to spend $10 but 10 times for exchanging filters which are self-cleaning in this $100 machine ? Someones say - ou its only $100. OK. Put $50k in that place. Can you see the difference? And do you perceive the problem now ?

And I hope now you understand my "rule no. 1". Please consider it seriously.