TL;DR
A printable, 8-page UK household emergency kit checklist covers nine sections, with UK supermarket sourcing notes. Get the PDF via the form below.
Key facts
- UK Government recommends 72 hours of household self-sufficiency (Cabinet Office, Prepare campaign).
- EU Preparedness Union Strategy (March 2025) recommends the same baseline.
- Lithium AA batteries hold usable charge 10+ years vs 5–7 for alkaline.
- Cash backups matter: the 2024 CrowdStrike outage took UK supermarket card terminals offline for hours.
What’s on the checklist
The free PDF covers the same nine sections as the full 72-hour kit guide: water, food, light, power/comms, first aid, documents, cash, warmth, and the family plan. It’s a stripped, printable version designed for actual use — tick the boxes, stick it on a cupboard door.
A taste — the first three lines
Storage rules
- One container. Sealed. Visible.
- Every adult in the household knows where it is.
- Accessible in the dark in under 60 seconds.
- Not in the loft. Not in the car boot. Not “with the camping stuff” in the shed.
Annual rotation date
Pick a date and stick to it. Suggested: the day British Summer Time begins (last Sunday of March). It’s a clock-change weekend you already remember, it falls before storm and flood season, and it gives you spring stock to rotate the winter expiry dates.
Where this fits
This checklist is the “what to have”. The 72-hour kit pillar is the “why and where to source it”. The handbook is the full reference, with the Family Plan templates, the regional UK risk map, and the deep dives on each section.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the checklist really free?
- Yes. Enter your email above and we send the PDF. One short email a week after that — unsubscribe anytime.
- Can I just buy a prepacked kit off Amazon?
- You can. Most are US-spec, rarely opened, and forgotten. Build it yourself using the checklist and you remember where it is.
- What about pets?
- 72 hours of pet food, water proportional to animal size, harness or carrier, vaccination records. The handbook covers it in detail.
- Do I need this if I live in central London?
- Probably more than rural households. Urban density makes infrastructure failures bite faster. The 2024 Heathrow substation fire and seasonal Thames Water boil notices both hit dense urban areas.