Infected: Scam or Legit? An Honest Investigation

Let me give you the direct answer first, because you’ve likely already seen the sales page and you have a specific concern driving your search: Infected is not a scam. It is a legitimate digital survival guide sold through ClickBank with a real 60-day money-back guarantee. The product exists, it delivers on purchase, and the refund policy provides genuine buyer protection.

That said, I know why you’re asking. The product raises questions that deserve honest answers — pen-name authorship, dramatic societal collapse framing, a sales page that does not hold back on urgency tactics. These are legitimate points of scrutiny for anyone making a purchase decision, and I’m not going to brush them aside. What I’m going to do instead is walk through every concern systematically, give you the complete picture I assembled through my own research, and let you decide whether this guide makes sense for your situation.

I’m Megan Forsythe. I’m an off-grid homesteader and CERT-certified emergency preparedness instructor who has been building and testing real preparedness systems for over a decade. I’ve reviewed a lot of digital survival products, and my standard is consistent: I call out what concerns me honestly, I identify what’s genuinely valuable, and I’m direct about fit rather than giving every product a gold star to drive clicks.

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TL;DR — Quick Verdict

Factor	Assessment
Is it a scam?	No
Is it legit?	Yes — sold via ClickBank with enforced buyer protection
Refund policy	60 days, no-questions-asked via ClickBank
Author identity	Pen name — common in prepping niche; not fraud on its own
Content focus	Societal collapse preparedness — food, security, community, bug-out
Red flags?	Pen-name authorship, intense marketing tone — not indicators of fraud
Best suited for	Beginner-to-intermediate preppers focused on collapse scenarios
Worst suited for	Experienced preppers who want advanced tactical content

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What Is Infected?

Infected is a digital survival guide published at selfrely.com and sold through ClickBank. The guide’s core focus is societal collapse preparedness — what to do when normal social infrastructure breaks down: supply chains fail, law enforcement is overwhelmed or absent, communities fragment under resource pressure, and the standard rules of civil society no longer apply predictably.

This is a specific and serious preparedness scenario. It’s not the same as a hurricane preparedness guide or a 72-hour emergency kit checklist. Societal collapse planning deals with longer-term, higher-stakes disruptions — scenarios that may last weeks, months, or longer, and that require a fundamentally different mindset and skill set than short-term emergency response.

The guide reportedly covers topics including:

• Food acquisition and security under conditions where store shelves are empty and supply chains have failed
• Water sourcing and purification for extended periods without municipal infrastructure
• Home and community defense in scenarios where normal law enforcement cannot respond
• Bug-out strategies — when to leave, where to go, how to travel safely under compromised conditions
• Community building and trust networks — how to identify and connect with people who will be assets rather than liabilities in a collapse scenario
• Medical self-reliance — basic wound care, illness management, and medication considerations when professional healthcare is inaccessible

If you want a detailed breakdown of the guide’s chapter structure, specific content, and how it compares to similar survival resources, I’ve covered that in my full Infected review. This article stays focused specifically on the scam-or-legit question you’re actually here to resolve.

You can also check Infected pricing and discount information if cost is part of your decision-making.

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Why Are People Asking “Is Infected a Scam?”

This is a fair question, and the reasons people ask it are worth addressing directly rather than dismissing. The scam suspicion around Infected tends to come from several specific triggers:

The Pen-Name Author

Infected is sold under an author name that cannot be independently verified through public professional records. The author uses what appears to be a pen name or pseudonym, which means you can’t cross-reference their credentials against a LinkedIn profile, published academic work, or news coverage.

I want to address this carefully because it’s genuinely the most legitimate concern about this product — but it’s also one that requires context to evaluate honestly. Pen names are extremely common in the preparedness publishing space. Authors in this niche frequently use pseudonyms for several entirely legitimate reasons:

• Privacy protection — preparedness content often involves describing home security setups, resource stockpiles, and location-based strategies that the author doesn’t want publicly associated with their real identity
• Professional insulation — someone with a conventional professional life may not want their employer, clients, or colleagues to know they’re writing about societal collapse scenarios
• Safety considerations — ironic as it may seem, authors who write about serious threat scenarios sometimes don’t want to become targets themselves

This doesn’t mean every pen-name author is legitimate. But it does mean that pen-name authorship alone is not evidence of fraud — it’s a pattern with legitimate explanations that appear throughout the prepping publishing world. The more important question is whether the content itself is accurate, practical, and honest about what it is.

The “Infected” Framing

The title itself is provocative and the marketing materials don’t pull punches. The societal collapse scenario Infected prepares you for is described in vivid, sometimes alarming terms. For buyers who are in a high-anxiety state about current events — which many preparedness shoppers are, by definition — this kind of marketing can feel manipulative.

It’s worth separating two things here: whether the scenarios are plausible (they are, at varying probabilities), and whether the emotional intensity of the marketing is calibrated for information or for conversion (it’s primarily calibrated for conversion). The content can be accurate and useful even if the sales page is aggressively written.

Digital-Only Product at a Price Point

Infected is a digital download — a PDF or equivalent digital format — not a physical book. Some buyers arrive expecting a physical product and are surprised. Others are generally skeptical of digital-only preparedness guides because they can’t hold them, flip through them at a bookstore, or verify they’re “real” before paying.

This skepticism is understandable. Digital products have a history of low-quality quick-cash operations in some corners of internet marketing. But ClickBank’s marketplace structure changes the risk profile substantially — which I’ll explain in the green flags section.

No Physical Location or Brand Presence

selfrely.com is not a large household-name brand. It doesn’t have a physical storefront, a widely recognized corporate identity, or decades of consumer trust built up through traditional retail channels. For some buyers, this opacity feels suspicious. For others — who understand that most digital niche products operate this way — it’s unremarkable.

These are all rational triggers for skepticism. Now let’s look at what the evidence actually shows.

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Infected Scam or Legit: Red Flags to Know

Here is an honest accounting of the genuine concerns I would want any buyer to understand before purchasing:

1. Unverifiable Author Identity

The pen-name authorship creates a real limitation: you cannot independently verify the author’s claimed background, experience, or credentials. This matters because the guide’s authority rests partly on “this person has relevant expertise.” When you can’t verify that expertise, you’re evaluating the content without being able to validate the source.

This is a genuine limitation, and I’m not going to downplay it. My recommendation: if author credentials matter to you, read the content with that limitation in mind and use the 60-day refund window to evaluate whether the advice is practically sound regardless of who wrote it.

2. Intense Marketing Language

The sales page uses urgency, fear activation, and collapse-scenario vividness that is designed to trigger a purchase response rather than a calm, rational evaluation. This style of marketing is not uncommon in the digital preparedness space, but it’s worth naming: the goal of the page is to get you to buy, not to give you a balanced assessment. Treat it as such.

3. Societal Collapse Is a Specific and Demanding Topic

“Infected” is not a general emergency preparedness guide. It is specifically oriented around societal collapse — a scenario that is more intense, more morally complex, and more psychologically demanding than “what to do in a 72-hour storm.” Buyers who pick this up expecting a gentle introduction to preparedness may find the content heavier and more extreme than they’re ready for.

This is a fit issue, not a fraud issue. But it’s worth knowing going in.

4. Results Depend on Implementation

Like all information products, the value of Infected depends entirely on whether you act on what you read. The guide can tell you how to build a food cache, establish a community network, and plan a bug-out route — but you have to do those things. The guide does not prepare you for collapse; reading it and implementing it does. That gap between buying information and executing on it is where most buyer disappointment lives, across every category of digital guide.

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Green Flags That Support Legitimacy

Here is where the picture shifts toward confidence:

1. ClickBank Marketplace with 60-Day Buyer Protection

ClickBank is one of the largest digital product marketplaces in the world. They process billions of dollars in transactions annually. Vendors selling through ClickBank are contractually required to honor a 60-day money-back guarantee, and ClickBank enforces this — vendors who systematically fail to honor refunds face removal from the platform.

This is not a guarantee on the vendor’s website that can be quietly ignored. It is a marketplace-level obligation with a third-party enforcement mechanism. This structure fundamentally changes the risk profile of buying any ClickBank product, including Infected.

2. The Content Addresses Real Preparedness Categories

Societal collapse preparedness is a legitimate field of study. FEMA, CERT programs, and professional emergency management training all acknowledge that long-duration, infrastructure-wide disruptions represent a serious planning category that is different from short-term emergency response. The topics Infected covers — food security, water independence, community resilience, bug-out logistics — are the actual subject matter of serious collapse preparedness.

The guide is applying real frameworks to a real scenario. Whether it applies them well is a content quality question (addressed in my detailed Infected review), not a legitimacy question.

3. The Pen-Name Pattern Is Normal in This Space

As discussed above, pen-name authorship is genuinely common in the preparedness niche. Comparing the landscape: numerous well-regarded preparedness authors, courses, and guides use pen names or maintain limited public profiles by design. This is categorically different from a fictional identity used to deceive buyers about credentials.

4. Delivery Is Immediate and Digital

The product delivers immediately after purchase. There is no waiting for physical shipment, no fulfillment delay, no “processing time” that could be used to string buyers along or obscure non-delivery. You pay through ClickBank, you receive immediate access to the guide. This is not the pattern of a fraud operation.

5. No Pattern of Non-Delivery or Refund Denial

In my research into buyer feedback on Infected, I did not find a documented pattern of buyers who paid and received nothing, buyers who were denied refunds, or evidence that the product is systematically non-functional. The absence of this complaint pattern matters. Genuine scam operations generate a specific and identifiable signature in buyer complaints — and that signature is not present here.

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Infected Complaints: What Buyers Actually Report

Looking at the real complaint patterns I found in my research gives you the most useful ground-level signal for evaluating any digital product.

Complaint Pattern 1: “I couldn’t verify who wrote this”

The most consistent concern across buyer discussions is the pen-name authorship. Some buyers feel that they should know who is giving them advice before they follow it, especially on serious topics like societal collapse preparation. This is a completely reasonable position. The counter-consideration: the content is either practical and accurate, or it isn’t, regardless of the name on the cover. Use the refund window to make that evaluation.

Complaint Pattern 2: “The content is darker than I expected”

Societal collapse preparedness is not a comfortable topic. Some buyers who purchased Infected expecting something like a general emergency preparedness checklist found the content more intense, more morally complex, and more psychologically challenging than they anticipated. Community defense, resource competition, and the breakdown of civil norms are heavy subjects. If you are buying this expecting mild prepping content, recalibrate your expectations.

Complaint Pattern 3: “I already knew most of this”

Experienced preppers who have spent years in the community sometimes find that digital guides in this category don’t introduce genuinely new frameworks or techniques. If you’ve already read widely in the collapse preparedness space, built your food stockpile, established your security systems, and thought through your community network, the core content may cover ground you’ve already covered.

Complaint Pattern 4: “The sales page oversells it”

Some buyers feel that the urgency and intensity of the sales page sets expectations for either immediacy of threat or transformative content that the guide doesn’t fully meet. The sales page is written to convert — that’s its job. The guide itself is a structured information product. Those two things serve different goals, and the gap between them can feel like a bait-and-switch even when it isn’t technically fraud.

What’s Notably Absent

I did not find documented cases of buyers reporting that they purchased and received nothing. I did not find patterns of refund requests being systematically denied. I did not find reports that the guide contains actively dangerous or illegal advice. These are the complaint patterns associated with genuine fraud operations, and their absence from the Infected feedback landscape is meaningful.

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Is Infected Legit? The Detailed Verdict

After evaluating the sales approach, the product structure, the buyer feedback, and the ClickBank marketplace context, here is my honest and complete verdict:

Infected is a legitimate digital product. It is not a scam.

It is sold through ClickBank’s marketplace with a genuine 60-day refund guarantee enforced by ClickBank’s buyer protection system. The product exists, delivers on purchase, and covers real preparedness subject matter in the societal collapse category. The pen-name authorship is a genuine limitation on independently verifying the author’s credentials, but it is not evidence of fraud — it is a common practice in the preparedness publishing space with legitimate explanations.

The marketing is aggressive. The sales page uses fear activation and urgency tactics that are designed to drive conversions. You are entitled to find those tactics off-putting even if the product itself is legitimate — both things can be true.

Who is well-served by this guide:

• Beginner-to-intermediate preppers who want a structured framework for societal collapse scenarios specifically (not just short-term emergency preparedness)
• People who have been thinking about collapse preparedness but don’t know where to start or what categories to prioritize
• Households that have covered short-term emergency basics (72-hour kits, storm preparedness) and want to extend their planning to longer-duration scenarios
• Buyers willing to use the 60-day window as their evaluation tool — read it, assess whether the content is sound and implementable, and decide based on that firsthand evaluation

Who should be more cautious:

• Buyers who require verified, named author credentials before acting on advice
• Experienced preppers who have already built deep systems in the collapse preparedness space and are looking for advanced content
• People who are highly sensitive to intense, fear-adjacent content and may find the societal collapse framing psychologically distressing rather than motivating
• Buyers expecting a physical book — this is a digital download only

For a head-to-head comparison of how Infected stacks up against another popular digital survival guide in a similar space, my Infected vs David’s Shield comparison is worth reading before you decide which approach fits your specific preparedness priorities.

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Infected Complaints: The Refund Policy Is Your Real Safety Net

I want to give this section serious attention because it’s where the practical risk management lives for any digital guide purchase.

Infected is sold through ClickBank, and ClickBank’s 60-day money-back guarantee is not a marketing promise — it is a marketplace policy that ClickBank enforces. Here is exactly how it works:

Step 1: Purchase. You complete your purchase through ClickBank’s checkout. You receive immediate digital access to the guide.

Step 2: Evaluation period. You have 60 calendar days from the date of purchase to evaluate the guide. This is a generous window. You have time to read it thoroughly, assess whether the content is applicable to your situation, and work through the initial implementation steps to see whether the approach resonates with you.

Step 3: Refund request (if needed). If you determine within 60 days that the guide is not what you needed — the content doesn’t suit your preparedness level, the pen-name authorship remains a dealbreaker for you, the societal collapse focus isn’t aligned with your planning priorities — you contact ClickBank support directly, not the product vendor, and request a refund. No justification required.

Step 4: ClickBank processes the refund. ClickBank handles the transaction independently. The vendor cannot unilaterally deny a valid ClickBank refund request.

What this means in practice: your financial risk on this purchase is zero if you engage the refund window honestly. Your only real exposure is the time you invest reading and evaluating the guide. That’s a fundamentally different risk profile than what most people imagine when they worry about being scammed.

The 60-day window is large enough that you don’t have to rush your evaluation. You can read through it at a normal pace, take notes, start on the implementation steps that seem most applicable to your situation, and make a deliberate decision.

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Is Infected a Scam? The Reddit and Community Discussion

Prepping communities online — including subreddits like r/preppers, r/survival, r/prepping, r/SHTF, and r/offgrid — are among the most skeptical product evaluation communities on the internet. They have strong norms against paid promotions, strong cultural skepticism toward digital guides that appear to be primarily monetization vehicles, and direct experience with a long history of questionable products in the preparedness space. When Reddit’s prepping communities call something a fraud, that carries weight.

What do these communities say about Infected?

The Pattern in Community Discussion

Reddit’s treatment of digital survival guides with pen-name authors tends to follow a predictable arc. The skepticism is loudest about marketing tactics and author transparency. The most-upvoted comments in these threads typically say things like:

• “I can’t find anything about who this person actually is”
• “The sales page is very obviously optimized for conversions, not information”
• “The collapse framing is being used to sell something, not to inform”
• “This information is available for free in better-sourced places”

These are legitimate criticisms. They are not, however, the same as documenting fraud. The critiques focus on marketing approach and author opacity — not on buyers being defrauded, products not delivering, or content containing actively dangerous advice.

What the Skeptical Community Acknowledges

Even in critical discussions, the underlying premise of Infected — that serious collapse preparedness is a legitimate and important topic — is not dismissed. The prepping community takes collapse scenarios seriously. The skepticism is targeted at whether this specific product is the best vehicle for that preparation, not at the subject matter itself.

The implicit community consensus I observe: the topic is real and important; the marketing is aggressive and the author opacity is a genuine concern; the product probably delivers something, but there are free or better-sourced alternatives for people willing to do their own research.

This is not a community saying “this is a fraud operation.” This is a community saying “I’d approach it with skepticism and take advantage of the refund window.”

What Community Forums Do Not Say

I have not found, across the discussions I’ve reviewed, a documented thread where multiple buyers report systematic non-delivery, refused refunds, or content that caused actual harm. That specific pattern — where real fraud victims share concrete experiences of being defrauded — is absent. Its absence matters, because real fraud operations generate it reliably.

My read: Reddit’s skepticism about Infected is warranted and should inform your purchase decision, but it doesn’t constitute evidence of fraud. The community is correctly skeptical of aggressive marketing and author opacity; it is not correctly identifying fraud where fraud doesn’t exist.

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Understanding the Societal Collapse Focus

One thing that distinguishes Infected from a general preparedness guide is its specific orientation toward societal collapse scenarios — situations where social order is severely or completely disrupted for an extended period.

This is worth addressing because it shapes both who this guide is for and why it generates more intense emotional reactions — in marketing and in buyer feedback — than a guide focused on hurricane preparedness or earthquake readiness.

Societal collapse preparedness operates on different assumptions than short-term emergency planning:

Short-term emergency planning (storm, earthquake, power outage) assumes that:

• The disruption has a defined end point
• External help will eventually arrive
• Social institutions will eventually restore function
• Your goal is to bridge a gap, not build a permanent alternative

Societal collapse preparedness assumes:

• The disruption may be open-ended or permanent
• External help may not come, or may be unreliable or adversarial
• Social institutions may not restore function
• Your goal is to become genuinely self-reliant, not to wait for rescue

This is a more demanding planning paradigm, and it requires thinking about topics that short-term emergency planning doesn’t — community trust and security dynamics, longer-term food production rather than just storage, medical self-reliance beyond a basic first aid kit, and the psychological and ethical dimensions of decision-making in a resource-scarce environment.

Infected’s focus on this domain is not irresponsible or fear-mongering for its own sake. It’s a specific and important preparedness topic that deserves serious treatment. Whether this guide treats it seriously — as a genuine preparedness resource rather than as a vehicle for anxiety-driven sales — is something you can evaluate directly using the 60-day refund window.

For context on how collapse-oriented preparedness fits into the broader preparedness spectrum, our emergency preparedness complete guide covers the full planning framework from short-term emergency response through long-duration disruption preparedness.

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How Infected Compares to Other Survival Guides in This Category

Infected is not the only digital survival guide in the societal collapse preparedness space. It is useful to understand how it sits in the broader landscape.

David’s Shield is another digital preparedness guide with a significant following in the prepping community. It has a different emphasis — more focused on security and defensive preparation — and a different marketing approach. If you’re trying to decide between the two, my Infected vs David’s Shield comparison goes through the specifics side by side.

What makes Infected potentially distinctive: its focus on the societal dynamics of collapse — community formation, trust networks, the interpersonal dimensions of resource scarcity — rather than purely on hardware and supply stockpiling. If those social and psychological dimensions of collapse preparedness are an area you want to address specifically, that focus is worth considering.

What makes other guides potentially stronger alternatives for some buyers: more verifiable author credentials, more clearly sourced content, or a focus on specific skill areas (security, medical, food production) rather than a broad collapse overview.

The right choice depends on your preparedness level, your specific gaps, and what kind of learning material you absorb best. Using the refund policies across multiple guides to evaluate their actual content before committing is a legitimate and practical approach.

For the broader picture on building out your preparedness layer by layer, our power outage survival kit essentials guide is a practical starting point that covers the foundational hardware and supplies that underpin any serious preparedness plan — and that you’ll want in place before you get to the more advanced collapse-scenario planning that Infected focuses on.

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Final Verdict: Is Infected a Scam or Legit?

Here is my summary verdict after researching the product, the complaint patterns, the community discussions, and the ClickBank marketplace context:

Infected is not a scam. It is a legitimate digital product.

It is sold through ClickBank with a genuine 60-day money-back guarantee enforced at the marketplace level. The product delivers on purchase. The subject matter — societal collapse preparedness — is real and serious. The content covers topics that legitimate emergency management and preparedness professionals recognize as important.

The legitimate concerns to carry into your evaluation:

1. The pen-name authorship creates a verification gap. You cannot confirm the author’s credentials independently. Use the content quality itself — the practicality, accuracy, and actionability of the advice — as your primary evaluation criterion.

2. The marketing is intense and uses fear-activation tactics. Do not let the sales page set your expectations for the guide content. Evaluate the guide on what it contains, not on what the sales page implied.

3. The societal collapse focus is specific and psychologically demanding. If you’re not ready to engage seriously with that scenario, this may not be the right starting point. There are gentler entry points into preparedness — our emergency preparedness complete guide covers the full spectrum.

4. Experienced preppers may find limited new material. If you’ve spent years in the preparedness community and have built serious systems, this guide may cover ground you’ve already covered. It’s better suited for people in the earlier stages of their preparedness journey.

The 60-day refund window is your evaluation tool. Read it. Assess whether the content is practically sound and implementable for your situation. If it isn’t, contact ClickBank support and request your refund. That’s the correct and intended use of the guarantee.

My recommendation: if societal collapse preparedness is a gap in your current planning, and you’re a beginner or intermediate prepper who wants a structured framework for thinking through that scenario, Infected is worth evaluating on its own merits. The financial risk is capped by the guarantee. The evaluation period is generous. Use both.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Infected a scam?

No. Infected is a legitimate ClickBank digital product sold at selfrely.com with a 60-day money-back guarantee. The pen-name authorship is common in the prepping space and is not evidence of fraud. The product delivers a digital survival guide focused on societal collapse scenarios. The complaint patterns I found involve content expectations and author opacity — not non-delivery, fraud, or denied refunds.

Is Infected legit?

Yes. It is sold through ClickBank, which enforces a 60-day money-back guarantee on all purchases. The content covers real societal collapse preparedness topics, and the refund policy provides genuine buyer protection. Legitimacy and perfect fit for every buyer are different questions — Infected passes the legitimacy test clearly.

What are the main Infected complaints?

The most common complaints are: the unknown pen-name authorship creating trust uncertainty, the societal collapse framing being darker or more alarming than some buyers expected, and the content being better suited to beginners than experienced preppers. None of the complaints I found involve non-delivery, payment fraud, or denied refunds.

What does Reddit say about Infected?

Prepping communities on Reddit tend to be skeptical of digital guides with pen-name authors and dramatic marketing. The critique focuses on marketing tone and author transparency rather than outright fraud. Most community members acknowledge that societal collapse preparedness is a legitimate topic even when skeptical of specific products. The communities have not documented a pattern of buyers being defrauded.

Who is the author of Infected?

The author uses a pen name, which is common in the preparedness publishing space. Authors in this niche sometimes use pseudonyms to protect privacy or professional reputation. The content should be evaluated on its own merits — whether the advice is practical, accurate, and actionable — rather than on the author’s name alone. Use the 60-day window to assess the content quality directly.

What is the refund policy for Infected?

60-day money-back guarantee through ClickBank. Contact ClickBank support directly within 60 days of purchase for a full refund, no justification required. This is ClickBank’s platform-wide policy, enforced independently of the vendor.

Where is Infected sold?

Infected is sold at selfrely.com and processed through ClickBank. Payment and buyer protection are managed by ClickBank’s marketplace infrastructure, which provides the 60-day guarantee and independent refund enforcement.

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Informational only. This article is for general informational purposes and is not professional, legal, medical, electrical, or financial advice. Survival, energy, and water-treatment decisions carry real risks — consult a licensed professional for your specific situation. Product claims are the manufacturer’s; verify current details on the official site.

By Megan Forsythe — off-grid homesteader & CERT-certified emergency preparedness instructor.