Doomsday retailer
Meet Scott Hunt, also known as Engineer775 on his Youtube channel where he gives expert reviews for National Geographic’s reality TV show, Doomsday Preppers.
His religious stance has made him plan accordingly to doomsday, plans which include his and his families 55-acre farm near Pickens being totally sustainable if, oh let’s say out our nation’s electrical grid, shut down its water supply or render its computers useless.
But don’t think of him as gloomy, the creative genius is actually very energetic and he has made a “booming business” out of helping others get prepared for whatever may come.
On the farm, they grow their own food, generate their own electricity, maintain their own water supply and powers their machinery with fuel made from their own wood.
It has elevation change, which can be used to provide a gravity-powered water system. He pumps water from a well low in his topography to a high point on his property and sends it flowing downhill from there to his house with the twist of a faucet.
The tract has ample trees, which he looks on as “solar batteries.” He uses them to fire a 500,000 BTU boiler that provides hot water to his house, and a wood stove for heat and cooking, and for gasification, using a process developed by the Germans during World War II.
With the success of their own off-grid living arrangements, Scott is a consultant and installer of solar-powered water systems and other devices for others who like the idea of being unplugged.
“I feel like that’s what my calling is right now – to help many people as possible,” said Hunt, a former pastor, former Michelin engineer, and upstate New York native.
Tinkering is in Hunt’s genes. He comes from a family of tradesmen. His father was an auto body man. His grandfather was a carpenter and operated a lumber yard. He also went to university to study engineering which is where he found God.
“Some people just want to go off the grid. Some people want something sustainable. Some people are into preparedness big time,” he said. “I just provide solutions that make sense.”
His homestead was ideally suited to become his laboratory for developing self-sufficiency solutions.
If you’re interested in learning some of his tricks, most of his business comes from the Internet. He has a store on his website, www.practicalpreppers.com, from which he sells and drop ships items such as solar water pumps, and his book, “The Practical Preppers Complete Guide to Disaster Preparedness.”