When the shops close,
you still eat, drink and stay warm
A pocket manual for long-term survival and self-sufficiency. Water, fire, shelter, first aid, wild food, farming, preserving, animals, electricity, salvage and repair, with animated step-by-step diagrams. It lives on your phone and works with no signal.
! Emergency
Something just happened: do this in order
Priorities follow the rule of threes. Fix the thing that kills you fastest first, then move down the list.
Stop the bleeding, clear the airway
Minutes matter. Firm direct pressure, tourniquet for a limb that spurts. Not breathing: CPR. Bleeding · CPR
Get out of immediate danger
Fire, gas smell, flood water, damaged building, downed power line. Move people, then think.
Stay warm and dry
Cold and wet kills in hours. Insulate from the ground, block wind, change out of wet clothes. Emergency shelter
Secure water
Fill bathtub, pots and bottles while the taps still run. Treat anything that is not sealed bottled water. Make water safe
Inventory food and fuel
Eat perishables first (fridge, then freezer), then dry stores. Ration fuel for cooking and boiling water.
Communicate and plan
Battery radio for news. Agree on a meeting point and a check-in time with family and neighbours. Radios
1 Phase 1
First 72 hours: lock in the basics
Tick them off. The list is saved on this device.
Water and food
Warmth, light, power
Health and safety
2 Long game
From 72 hours to indefinite
Stored supplies buy time. Time is what you need to get the renewable systems working before the stores run out.
| Phase | Goal | Main work |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · 0–3 days | Nobody dies | First aid, warmth, water storage, food inventory, toilet, communication. |
| 2 · 3–30 days | Stable routine | Water treatment every day, one heated room, cooking on wood or gas outdoors, rationing, salvage while it is still available, first seeds started. |
| 3 · 1–12 months | Produce, don't just consume | Garden with calorie crops, rainwater and filters, 12 V solar, preserving, chickens, workshop, firewood for next winter. |
| 4 · 1–3 years | Close the loops | Grain and legume fields, orchard and nuts planted, compost and manure for fertility, seed saving, breeding animals, root cellar, repair skills. |
| 5 · 3+ years | Indefinite | Everything regenerates: seed, soil, animals, wood, water. Power reduced to what you can repair. Knowledge written down and taught to others. |
Two is one, one is none. Every critical system needs a backup that works differently: well and rainwater, solar and wood, stored food and garden, power tools and hand tools, this app and printed books.
| Need | Primary | Backup | Last resort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water | Well / spring + filter | Rainwater + boiling | Stream + SODIS / chemical |
| Heat | Wood stove, insulated house | One room with small stove | Layers, shared body heat, hot water bottles |
| Cooking | Wood stove / rocket stove | Gas or electric from solar | Open fire, haybox cooker |
| Power | Solar + battery | Car alternator / generator | No power: plan life without it |
| Food | Garden + fields + animals | Preserved harvest, stores | Foraging, fishing, trapping |
| Knowledge | This manual offline | Printed books | People who know, taught skills |
3 Contents
The chapters
Roughly in order of urgency. Search any word with the magnifier in the top bar, or press / on a keyboard.
Water
Finding, rain collection, filters, boiling, chlorine, SODIS, wells, storage.
Fire & heat
Fire without matches, fire lays, rocket stove, heating, charcoal, cooking.
Shelter
Debris hut, tarp, insulation, one warm room, passive solar.
Medical
Bleeding, CPR, wounds, burns, fractures, rehydration, supplies.
Foraging
Safe wild plants, nuts, berries, deadly look-alikes, mushroom rules.
Farming
Calorie crops, calendar, land per person, compost, rotation, seed saving.
Preserving
Drying, salting, smoking, sauerkraut, safe canning, root cellar.
Animals
Chickens, rabbits, goats, bees, fishing, trapping, processing.
Electricity
Basics, wiring, 12 V solar, batteries, fuses, inverters, generators.
Salvage
What to take from cars, appliances, electronics, shops and buildings.
Workshop
Hand tools, sharpening, fasteners, metalwork, small engines, spares.
Sanitation
Latrines, composting toilet, hand washing, soap, waste.
Comms
Radios and channels, antennas, Morse, signals, navigation.
Calculators
Water, food, land, solar, battery and firewood for your household.
Library
Which books, manuals and maps to keep offline and on paper.
4 Install
Keep this manual on your phone
Do it now, while you have signal. After that it opens with no network at all.
Checking offline copy…
Android (Chrome, Edge, Samsung)
- Open this page and wait for Offline ✓ in the top bar.
- Browser menu ⋮ → Install app or Add to Home screen.
- Open it once from the home screen icon.
iPhone / iPad (Safari)
- Open this page in Safari and wait for Offline ✓.
- Share button → Add to Home Screen.
- Open it from the icon; iOS may clear it if unused for weeks, so open it now and then.
Test it
- Switch on flight mode.
- Open the app, visit three chapters.
- Everything should load. If not, go online, open each chapter once, retry.
Phones break, batteries die, screens crack. Print the chapters you would need most (browser → Print works, the layout is print friendly) and keep them in a waterproof bag. Keep a small solar charger or a power bank with the phone.
5 Honesty
What this manual cannot do
It gives you the working basics and the numbers. It does not replace practice. Every skill here (fire by friction, butchering, canning, wiring) goes wrong the first few times. Practise now, while mistakes are cheap.
- Mains electricity (230 V), large battery banks and generators: shock, fire, back-feeding lines that kill line workers.
- Drinking water: bacteria and parasites are removed by boiling; chemicals and heavy metals are not.
- Canning low-acid food without a pressure canner: botulism.
- Wild plants and mushrooms: some lethal species look like common edible ones.
- Medicine: doses, allergies, infections. Get real training (a first-aid course costs a day).