The book · hardcover · first edition 2026
Prepper's Chemical Survival Guide
The self-reliance handbook of cheap, shelf-stable compounds and the exact recipes that turn them into survival essentials.
Thirty-three compounds you can buy today for a few dollars, store for years, and turn into disinfectant, wound care, safe water, preserved food, soap, garden and livestock treatments, fuel and fire. Each one gets its own chapter: what it is, what it does, how to handle it, and the recipes with exact amounts, steps, warnings and shelf life. It is printed on paper on purpose, so it works when the power and the internet do not.
What's inside
One chapter per compound, in the order you'd stock them
Chapters 5 to 37 are the compounds. Every chapter follows the same layout, so you can open the book to any page and know where the number you need will be.
- What it is and what it doesThe plain description, the forms it comes in, and the jobs it covers.
- What to buy and how to store itThe grade that matters, what to read on the label, the container, and the real shelf life.
- Handling and safetyWhat it must never touch, what to wear, and what to do if it gets on you or in you.
- The recipesExact amounts, the steps in order, the warnings, and how long the finished batch keeps.
The 33 compounds
Chapter by chapter
Each one has a free page on this site with the same what-it-is, what-it-does and handling information. Tap any of them.
The 138 recipes
What the recipes cover
Counted by the job they do. The full list, grouped by need, is the recipe index.
The back of the book
10 appendices, all of them on this site
The charts and lookups at the back of the book are rebuilt here for the screen, and they print.
- Degrease, Descale, DisinfectReference: Cleaning by Job, page 197
- All 33 Compounds at a Glance (Quick Reference Table)Appendix B, page 198
- Conversions and DosingAppendix C, page 200
- Emergency ScenariosAppendix D, page 202
- Sourcing ChecklistAppendix E, page 205
- Find a Recipe by What You Need to Do (Cross-Reference Index)Appendix F, page 206
- Storage, Shelf Life and InventoryAppendix G, page 210
- Tools and EquipmentAppendix H, page 214
- Tincture HerbsAppendix I, page 216
- Garden UsesAppendix J, page 221
Where the numbers come from
The concentrations, doses, process times and shelf lives in the book come from CDC, EPA, USDA, NIOSH, poison centers, university extension services and the makers' safety sheets. I put the whole list on one page, compound by compound, and checked every link.
Sources behind the bookThe book and this site
Every compound page and every appendix is free here. The recipes with their exact amounts are in the book, and members read all 138 of them on the site, print any one as a clean sheet, and save them into My Manual.
Read every recipe here: join for $49.95 per yearThe book or membership
What each one gives you, and why I keep both
They are built for different moments. The book is for the day the screens are dark. Membership is for every day before that, when you are searching, planning, buying and printing. Here is the whole picture so you can decide.
The book
Paper on the shelf. One price, yours for good.
- All 33 compounds, one chapter each. What it is, what it does, what to buy, how to store it, how to handle it, and its recipes, in the same layout every chapter so you can find the number you need fast.
- All 138 recipes with exact amounts. Every teaspoon, every ratio, every contact time, every shelf life, with the steps in order and the warnings beside them.
- The 10 appendices. Cleaning by job, every compound at a glance, conversions and dosing without tools, the emergency scenario lookup, the sourcing checklist, the recipe index, storage and inventory, tools and equipment, tincture herbs, and garden uses.
- Works with no power, no signal and no account. Nothing to sign in to, nothing to charge, nothing that expires.
- Hardcover, 230 pages. Made to be opened on a workbench with wet hands, passed around, and still be readable in twenty years.
- Fixed at printing. The book cannot change after it ships. When I find a better figure, it goes on the site first and into the next printing.
Membership
The whole site open, kept current, and printable.
- Every recipe from the book, on screen. All 138, with the same exact amounts, searchable by the job in front of you, on the phone in the shop or the laptop in the kitchen.
- Everything the book does not hold. The site keeps growing past the book: every member page in full, new recipes, the master guides on water, food, power, medical, security and shelter, the product picks with current links, and the fixes as they happen.
- All twelve field guides. 291 pages of PDFs: stockpile, survival foods, chemical compounds, spare parts, the audit, the logbook, portable solar, home backup power, the four knots, the bug-out bag, home security, and home canning. Read them here or download them. Bought one at a time they cost $120.
- My Manual. Save any page, recipe, chart or whole guide, put them in your order, and print one binder with your own cover. The paper copy of exactly the pages your household uses.
- Print and Save as PDF on every page. Any recipe prints as a one-page sheet in the field guide layout for the binder, the truck or the wall of the shop.
- The tools that remember you. The walk-around audit and the logbook save to your account, so the phone, the laptop and the shop computer all match.
- No ads, cancel any time. $49.95 per year, one payment, and you keep access to the end of the year you paid for.
| What you get | The book | Membership |
|---|---|---|
| The 33 compound chapters | Yes | Yes, free to everyone on the site |
| The 138 recipes with exact amounts | Yes | Yes, on screen and printable |
| The 10 appendices | Yes | Yes, free to everyone on the site, rebuilt for the screen |
| Works with no power or signal | Yes | Only what you printed or downloaded first |
| Search by the job in front of you | The index at the back | Yes, across every page |
| Corrections and new recipes | Next printing | As they happen |
| The twelve field guides | No | Yes, read and download |
| Member pages beyond the book | No | Yes, every one |
| My Manual, your own printed binder | No | Yes |
| Audit and logbook saved to your account | No | Yes |
| Current product links and prices | No, by design | Yes |
| Price | One payment, no renewal | $49.95 per year, cancel any time |
Why both
I wrote the book so the recipes exist on paper, because the day you need the bleach dilution for a flooded kitchen is the day the router is dead. I built the site so the same recipes are searchable, printable and kept current, with the field guides and the rest of the manual around them. Members who own the book use the site to find the page, print the sheet and check the latest figure, then reach for the book when the lights go out. If you can only do one right now: the book if your worry is a long outage, membership if your worry is getting organized this year. The book is a page away in the shop, and every recipe in it is open to you here the minute you join.
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