Build your 3-day home emergency kit

The official UK advice on what to keep at home if services stop for three days, all in one list.

Check your cupboards first, because you probably own some of this already. Then pick up an item or two on normal shopping trips, and check it all every six months. In a small home, a bag or a cupboard can be enough for the essentials.

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A printed 3-day kit checklist from The Stay Safe Guide on a kitchen table, with a torch, a wind-up radio and a bottle of water.

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Water

Be Ready asks for 3 litres of bottled drinking water per person per day, with more for cooking and washing.

Read the guide

Food

Choose things with a long shelf life that need neither a fridge nor a cooker, and that your household normally eats.

Read the guide

Light and warmth

Be Ready and the Red Cross both say torches are safer than candles, and a home can get cold very quickly once the heating stops.

Read the guide

News and phones

Read the guide

Money, paper and phone numbers

Card payments and cash machines may not work, and your phone may die.

Health and hygiene

Leave time for repeat prescriptions: the advice is to request them up to 5 working days before you need the medicine.

Read the guide

Babies, pets and everyone else

Not in the bag, but in the house

These aren't part of the three-day list, but the guides explain why they matter.

Read the guide

Worth a look, depending on your home

These aren't on the official lists. Our guides cover when they might help.

Read the guide

This is general information. Official instructions for your area always come first.

What we read

  1. GOV.UK, Be Ready: Be ready for emergencies
  2. British Red Cross: Prepare an emergency kit
  3. British Red Cross: Prepare your household for 72 hours during an emergency
  4. Ready Scotland: Make an emergency kit
  5. nidirect: Household emergency kit
  6. GOV.WALES: How to prepare for emergencies
  7. NHS: Carbon monoxide poisoning