Your Home Emergency Kit: What You Actually Need

The government’s own Prepare campaign recommends a minimum three-day household kit — we agree, and this guide covers exactly that.

Somewhere in most UK homes there’s a drawer — or possibly a cupboard under the stairs — containing a torch that hasn’t worked since 2021, three partially used candles, and a packet of matches from a restaurant that closed down. That’s the nation’s emergency preparedness, right there.

A proper home emergency kit is not complicated, not expensive, and does not require a Pelican case or a degree in logistics. It’s a collection of practical items, kept somewhere accessible, that help your household stay comfortable and functional if something goes wrong for a few days. Power cut, burst pipe, flooding nearby, supply disruption — most UK household emergencies fall into this category. This guide covers what a home emergency kit actually needs, what it costs, and what you can confidently ignore.

What a Home Emergency Kit Is Actually For

The point of a home emergency kit is not to survive the end of civilisation. It’s to handle the scenarios that actually happen in the UK: a 48-hour power cut after a storm, a burst main leaving you without water for a day, a week of heavy snow that makes getting to the shops difficult, or a local flood that means you’re staying put while the roads are closed.

These events are not rare. The UK experiences around 100,000 power cuts each year. Burst mains affect thousands of households every winter. Storm disruption to food supply chains is increasingly common. None of this requires a survival bunker — it requires being a bit more prepared than the average household, which is a low bar to clear.

This is also explicitly a stay-put kit. If you need to leave your home, that’s a different scenario covered by the 72-Hour Grab Bag. This kit is for situations where you’re staying where you are and need to be self-sufficient for a few days.

Your Home Emergency Kit Essentials

Eight categories. Every household needs all eight. Some you might already have. Start with the gaps.

1. Water

Aim for three litres of drinking water per person per day, for at least three days. For a household of two, that’s 18 litres minimum — roughly nine standard 2-litre bottles from any supermarket. Keep them somewhere cool and dark, check them every six months, and replace them when the use-by date approaches.

If you want to think bigger, collapsible water containers that can be filled from the tap before a known emergency (like an incoming storm) are worth having. But the bottles are the starting point — cheap, readily available, and genuinely useful.

2. Light

A head torch is the single most useful piece of kit in a power cut. Not a hand torch — a head torch. You need both hands free to check the fuse box, find the stopcock, calm down a child, or make a cup of tea in the dark. Budget options from Amazon work fine. A decent head torch costs under £20 and will last years.

Put one in the kitchen — not the attic, not the garage. In the kitchen, where someone can find it in the dark without having to navigate the house first.

3. An Emergency Radio

When the internet is down and your phone battery is dying, a battery-powered or hand-crank radio is how you find out what’s happening. BBC local radio broadcasts emergency information during major incidents. A decent emergency radio with solar charging, a USB charging port, and a hand crank costs around £30–£40 and covers every scenario where normal communications fail.

4. Warmth

In winter, heating failure is the most immediately dangerous part of a power cut. Layers work, but a self-heating throw or a good fleece blanket is the practical solution for an evening or two without central heating. If you have elderly relatives in the household, this is not optional — it’s the first thing to sort.

Electric blankets do not belong in an emergency kit. They need mains power. A self-heating throw that generates warmth from body heat alone is what you need.

5. Food

Three days of food that doesn’t need cooking — or can be cooked on a camping stove. Tinned goods, crackers, dried fruit, nut butter, UHT milk, instant oats. Comfortable, familiar food that your household will actually eat, not military rations you’re hoarding in a cupboard for twelve years.

A manual tin opener is not optional. An electric one is useless in a power cut, which is precisely when you’ll need it most.

6. First Aid

A proper first aid kit — not the travel-size one you got free with something in 2018. Plasters in multiple sizes, bandages, antiseptic, tweezers, a digital thermometer, sterile dressings, and nitrile gloves. If anyone in your household takes regular medication, a three-day supply kept alongside the kit is essential. More on this in the medication guide listed in the “Build Your Resilience” links below.

7. Power for Your Devices

Your phone is your connection to everything during an emergency: emergency services, family, local alerts, the power cut reporting line (105 in England, Scotland, and Wales). A fully charged power bank — kept charged — means your phone stays useful even after a day without mains power. A 20,000mAh bank will charge most smartphones four to five times.

8. Documents, Cash, and Key Information

Keep a paper copy of the following somewhere in or near your kit:

• Emergency contact numbers — family, GP, any carers
• The power cut reporting number: 105
• Your insurance policy reference numbers
• A list of any regular medications and dosages
• Copies (or photos on a USB stick) of key documents: passports, birth certificates, insurance documents

Cash in small denominations. Card payments fail in a power cut. ATMs run out during disruptions. £50 in tens and fives covers most immediate practical needs and costs nothing to keep in an envelope.

What Your Home Emergency Kit Should NOT Contain

Skip anything you wouldn’t realistically use, anything that requires specialist knowledge, and anything marketed specifically at “preppers” that exists nowhere in ordinary life. A gas mask is not a home emergency kit item for a UK household. Nor are MREs from a US army surplus store, a hand-powered grain mill, or a waterproof map of your local area laminated to a carabiner.

The test is simple: would you use it if the power went out tonight? If the answer is “probably not in that context,” it doesn’t belong in the kit.

What Does It Cost?

Built from scratch, a solid home emergency kit for a household of two costs between £60 and £90. That’s assuming you buy a head torch, emergency radio, power bank, self-heating throw, and first aid kit. Water and food you’re buying anyway — you’re just buying a bit more and rotating it.

Spread over a few weeks, it’s not a significant outlay. And unlike the Netflix subscription it costs roughly the same as, it works when the power goes out.

Where to Keep It

One accessible location. Not the attic, not the garage, not anywhere that requires navigating the house in the dark. The cupboard under the stairs, a kitchen cupboard, or a large box in a bedroom works well. Everyone in the household needs to know where it is — including children old enough to understand.

Label the box clearly. Keep the head torch on top or somewhere easy to grab in the first thirty seconds of a power cut — before you’ve opened anything else.

Keeping It Ready

Check your kit twice a year — the same dates you test your smoke alarms works well as a prompt. Replace any food or water that’s approaching its use-by date. Charge the power bank. Replace batteries in the head torch. This is fifteen minutes, twice a year. The kit that isn’t maintained is the kit that fails when you need it.

Frequently Asked Questions