Plan to stay warm when the heat is off

A winter power outage turns a house cold fast. The plan isn't to keep the whole house warm — it's to keep one room warm, keep the people in it warm, and avoid the two things that kill people in cold outages: hypothermia and carbon-monoxide poisoning from misused heaters. The prep is cheap; the safety rules are the part that matters. This page covers how to choose a shelter room, how to insulate it, how to heat it safely, and how to plan for the people who are most vulnerable to cold.

Pick a room and insulate it

Choose one small, interior room — a bedroom or a living room — as your shelter room. It's easier to keep a small space warm than a whole house. Close doors and hang blankets or heavy plastic over windows and hallways to reduce drafts. The goal is to trap the heat from your bodies and any safe heat source in one space. A room you can close off and seal against drafts is the foundation of the plan.

Stock warm bedding: wool or synthetic blankets, sleeping bags rated for cold, and warm clothes. Layers work better than one thick item. A hat, warm socks, and a base layer matter more than people expect — you lose a lot of heat from extremities. Keep slippers by the bed so nobody's barefoot on a cold floor at 3 a.m. The bedding is what keeps you warm; the room is what keeps the heat in.

The whole household can shelter in one room during a cold outage. It sounds crowded, but shared body heat and one heated space is the practical plan. Pets come too — they get cold as well, and a small room with everyone in it is warmer than a big house with people spread out. Plan for the crowding: a book, a game, some patience. A cold outage is mostly waiting.

Seal the drafts you can find. Hold a hand near windows, doors, and electrical outlets on exterior walls — you'll feel the cold air. Weather stripping, rolled towels at the base of doors, and plastic film over windows all help. You're not making the room airtight; you're slowing the heat loss enough that body heat and a small safe source can keep up.

If you live in an apartment, the same principles apply but the room choice may be different. An interior room away from exterior walls is warmer. A south-facing room gets passive solar heat during the day. Know which room is your shelter room before the outage, and have the blankets and supplies staged there or close by.

Heat it safely, or don't heat it

The rule that saves lives: never use an outdoor heater indoors. Camp stoves, charcoal grills, and gas generators produce carbon monoxide — an invisible, odorless gas that kills people in cold outages every year, because someone brought the heat source inside. If you can't use it with the windows open or with a properly installed vent, don't use it inside. Period. The CDC and CPSC are explicit on this.

Safe indoor heat is limited: a properly vented wood or pellet stove, a fireplace with a clean chimney, or a specifically indoor-rated vented heater. A battery-powered electric heater (with a charged power station) or a chemical hand-warmer is a bridge. Know your safe options before the outage — not during. If you don't have a safe indoor heat source, the plan is layers, bedding, and shared body heat, not a camp stove.

A working carbon-monoxide detector with fresh batteries is non-negotiable if you use any combustion heat source. Test it. If it goes off, get outside and call 911 if you can. CO is the real, common killer in cold-weather outages, and it's preventable. The detector is the prep that makes the difference between a cold night and a fatal one.

If you don't have a safe heat source, the plan is to stay warm with what you have: layers, sleeping bags, hats, hot water bottles (if you can heat water safely), and shared body heat. People have survived multi-day cold outages with nothing but good bedding and a small room. The dangerous move is improvising heat; the safe move is using what you have correctly.

For an extended cold outage, know your local warming-shelter options before you need them. If the power is out for days and your home is getting dangerously cold, a warming shelter is the right call — not toughing it out. Check with your city or county emergency management for shelter locations and their policies. The plan includes knowing when to leave.

Plan for the cold that comes with it

Cold outages often come with frozen pipes. Know where your water shutoff is so you can stop a burst pipe, and let a faucet drip if you have water and the pipes are at risk. Insulate exposed pipes before winter if you can. A burst pipe is a much bigger problem than a cold night — it floods the house and can happen after the cold, when the pipe thaws. The tools page covers finding your shutoffs.

If anyone in the household is vulnerable to cold — a senior, an infant, someone on certain medications — the plan to stay warm is more urgent and may include relocating to a warm shelter rather than toughing it out. Some medications affect thermoregulation; ask your clinician if cold is a concern for anyone's prescriptions. Know your local warming-shelter options before you need them.

For the inverse problem, extreme heat during a power outage (no AC), see the dedicated extreme-heat scenario page. Cold and heat outages are different problems with different plans — don't conflate them. The shelter-room plan for cold is about trapping heat; the plan for heat is about avoiding it. Different supplies, different rooms, different rules.

Plan for the cascading effects of cold. A cold house has cold pipes, cold food (the fridge may not be your problem — the pantry is), and cold people. If the outage is long enough, the house itself gets cold enough that things you didn't expect to freeze do. Know where your pipes run, keep cabinet doors open under sinks on exterior walls to let warm air in, and have a plan for if the pipes freeze.

The honest summary: the shelter plan is mostly free. The room choice, the blankets, the layers, the draft-sealing — all of it is stuff you already have or can get for under $50. The part that costs is the safe heat source and the CO detector, and those are the parts that save lives. Don't skip the CO detector because you 'don't use combustion heat' — a neighbor's CO or a misused heater is the threat.

This is planning guidance, not emergency advice. In an emergency, call 911. See a mistake? Report it.

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