Heating
What works without electricity, what is safe indoors, and the warning only two of three countries bother to print.
Your oil or gas central heating stops when the power does. The burner, the pump and the controls all run on mains electricity. The fuel in the tank is irrelevant. This single fact surprises more households than anything else in preparedness, and it is why heating belongs in any plan that already covers power.
It is also the category with the widest gap between the three countries. Germany and Austria both publish guidance on alternative heaters and both carry explicit carbon monoxide warnings. Switzerland publishes neither — no heating guidance and no CO warning for households at all. We checked the federal office, the civil protection agency and the public alerting service. Treat the Swiss silence as a gap in the guidance, not as permission.
Carbon monoxide, before anything else
Every alternative heat source burns something, and burning in an enclosed space with insufficient oxygen produces carbon monoxide. Austria's description is the one to remember, because it explains why people do not save themselves:
Carbon monoxide is a dangerous respiratory poison that cannot be seen, smelled or tasted, and people generally do not notice they are breathing it, because the typical warning signs — coughing, shortness of breath — do not occur.
Austria applies that warning to cooking appliances, generators and heaters together, which is the broadest and most useful framing of the three. Germany's version is more procedural: use only devices approved for indoor use, because too little oxygen in the air produces carbon monoxide during combustion, and CO poisoning is life-threatening. It then gives the instruction that matters most — install tested and approved carbon monoxide detectors.
A CO detector costs €25 to €50. If you intend to run any combustion heater indoors, it is not optional equipment, it is the condition for doing so at all. Smoke alarms are a separate device and Germany recommends one in every room where an open flame or gas heat source is used.
What Germany actually permits indoors
Germany is the most permissive of the three, and the qualifier in its sentence is doing all of the work. Its guidance is that gas heaters, ethanol fires and paraffin stoves approved for indoor use work without electricity and can be used safely indoors.
Read that as written. "Approved for indoor use" is a product category, not a judgement you make about a heater you already own. A patio heater, a workshop blower and a camping heater are not in it. If you are buying a gas heater for indoor use, Germany specifies two safety features to check for: an oxygen-depletion cut-off and an ignition safeguard.
Austria names the same options — paraffin and LPG heaters, tiled stoves, fireplaces — and adds the practical instruction that is easy to skip at the point of purchase: think about ventilation and the flue before you buy, not afterwards. Its regional offices add that these devices need constant supervision.
Fuel, and where it may be kept
If you have a wood or coal stove, the German advice is simply to stock fuel for it — and to have a professional assess any alternative heat source before you rely on it.
For liquid and gas fuels, Germany publishes limits that apply as much to heating as to generators: roughly 10 kg of petrol or 20 kg of diesel in suitable containers in a cellar, and gas may not be stored in cellars at all. Paraffin and gas cylinders belong in a ventilated space at ground level or outside, never below ground.
Keeping heat without burning anything
The cheapest measures involve no equipment and no risk, and for a short outage they are usually enough.
Pick one room and close the doors to it. Germany is specific about this: keep windows and doors shut to stop the heat escaping, but ventilate properly all the same — windows fully open for a few minutes rather than tilted for hours. That burst ventilation exchanges the air without cooling the walls, and it matters a great deal more once anything is burning in the room.
Then clothing, blankets and sleeping bags. Both Germany and Austria list these first for short interruptions, and a four-season sleeping bag rated to 0 °C is the most underrated item in household preparedness: it costs €60 to €120, it removes the night-time problem entirely, and it has no failure mode.
What it costs
| Item | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| Carbon monoxide detector (mandatory if you burn anything indoors) | €25–50 |
| Sleeping bags rated to 0 °C, per person | €60–120 |
| Gas heater approved for indoor use, with oxygen cut-off | €120–300 |
| Paraffin stove plus fuel | €150–400 |
| Power supply for a heating circulation pump (see the power guide) | €400–900 |
For a flat, the honest answer is usually the first two lines and nothing else. For a house with its own boiler, powering the circulation pump from a battery station is both cheaper and far safer than burning anything indoors — it keeps the heating system you already have, and it produces no exhaust.
Three things to do this week
1. Find out whether your heating runs without mains electricity. For almost all oil and gas systems the answer is no, and that reframes the whole question.
2. If you own or intend to buy any combustion heater, buy a carbon monoxide detector in the same order. Not later.
3. Check what each person in the household would sleep in at 12 °C indoors. If the answer is a summer duvet, that is the cheapest gap on this page to close.
Sources. Germany: BBK, Stromausfall and Vorsorgen für Krisen und Katastrophen, 2025. Austria: oesterreich.gv.at, Verhalten bei Blackout and the Zivilschutzverband guide. Switzerland publishes no household heating or carbon monoxide guidance; checked at BWL and Alertswiss. Checked 31 October 2026.