A home protects people as a system, not as a pile of purchases, and this list is ordered the way the system actually works: detection first, then light, then warmth, then the repairs and moisture control that keep small damage small. The alarms lead because they lead everywhere on this site. Detection before combustion is the rule the entire First 100 was built around, and a shelter list that opened anywhere else would be arguing with its own foundation.
Seventeen of the twenty entries carry First 100 positions, the sequence being, at bottom, a plan for staying home safely. The three additions are the ones a sequence of purchases could not hold, because they are improvements to the building rather than objects that arrive in a box: the thermometer and hygrometer that put numbers on the indoor environment, the weekend of weatherstripping that makes every heating and cooling item work better, and the gas wrench that waits at the meter for the day nothing else will do.
The count is twenty because that is where the justified entries ended. The shelter checklist turns this page into a room-by-room walk of your own house, which is where most households discover they are further along than they thought.
How to read this list
A position badge on an entry means the item also holds a place on The First 100, our sequenced acquisition list; the badge links to its full entry there, with the reasoning and the objections. Cost bands are for a household of four: free, under $25, $25 to $100, over $100. Conditional entries apply only to some households, and skipping the ones that do not apply to yours is the correct outcome.
This page prints clean: the print button keeps the list and drops everything else.
The first purchase in home protection, because fire is the fastest hazard a house produces and the one that gives the least warning. The fire that matters most starts while everyone is asleep, and the alarm is what converts smoke into time. Cover every level and every sleeping area, and consider sealed ten-year battery models that end the battery argument entirely. The alarm on the counter with its battery removed is the most common failure, and it is a choice, not an accident.
The one hazard in a house that no human sense can detect. Outages are exactly when it appears, because outages are when stoves, heaters, and generators get used in ways they were not built for. Battery or battery-backup units belong on every sleeping level, bought before any fuel-burning item enters the house. Assuming the smoke alarm covers it is the mistake; they are different sensors for different killers, and combination units exist for a reason.
The tool that keeps a small fire from becoming the house fire. Cooking is where most home fires start, and the first minute is when an extinguisher settles it. One ABC-rated unit mounted where you cook, on the path out rather than behind where the flames would be, covers the scenario that actually happens. The extinguisher buried under the sink with a gauge nobody has looked at in five years is equipment in name only.
Light with both hands free, which is the only kind that lets you carry a child, hold a railing, and work on a problem at the same time. The first minutes of a night outage are stairs, corners, and checking on people, all two-handed work. One per person in common battery sizes, kept where each person sleeps. The single shared flashlight is the mistake, and the phone light is worse, burning the battery you will want for news and contact.
Room-scale light, which is a different job from the headlamp's beam. An evening outage becomes manageable when the kitchen table is lit and the household can gather, eat, and think in one bright place. A battery LED lantern gives hours of area light with no flame and no heat. Candles are the alternative people reach for, and candles during outages are how fire departments spend those nights.
The second way out when the first one is blocked. A fire between the bedrooms and the stairwell is the scenario, and it allows no time for figuring anything out. Buy a ladder rated for your window height, store it in the room that needs it, and unbox it now to learn the latch and the sill fit. The one still in shrink wrap in the garage answers a different question than the one being asked at two in the morning.
Warmth that needs no power, no fuel, and no working furnace. When heat fails in winter, the household consolidates into one room and layers, and blankets are the layer that covers everyone at once. Wool or synthetic specifically, because cotton loses its warmth the moment it gets damp. The mistake is having exactly as many blankets as beds, which assumes the furnace never stops.
The deep-cold answer: each person carries their own warm microclimate regardless of what the room does. A multi-day winter outage is where blankets stop being enough and rated bags keep sleep possible. Buy to your actual local winter, one per person, and store them where they can be found in the dark. The summer bags left over from camping are the false comfort here; a rating is a number, and the number is the point.
Windows are where heat leaves in winter and pours in during summer, and this is the cheap, fast way to close that door. In an outage the play is one shelter room, insulated hard, rather than a whole house managed poorly. Reflective panels cut to fit go up in minutes and store flat between uses. Whole-house thinking is the mistake; insulate the one room the household will actually live in.
Moving air on stored power, sized to run all night from a power bank. Summer outage nights are when a fan is the difference between sleep and none, and sleep is a readiness item. Buy a USB-rechargeable model that sips from the same batteries and stations everything else already uses. Know its limit, though: in genuinely extreme heat, moving hot air is not protection, and the right move becomes a cooler location rather than a better fan.
Numbers for the indoor environment, which is the environment that actually determines household safety. Heat builds indoors past what people notice, and dampness lingers after any water event, and both creep rather than announce. A basic digital combination unit for the main living space, and a second for the basement, costs less than dinner. Judging by comfort is the mistake, and it fails worst for the older adults who are most at risk from the heat they feel least.
Weatherproofing · 12
12
Weatherstripping, caulk, and door sweeps
$$
The cheapest heating and cooling upgrade a house can get, and the one that makes every other item in this section work better. A sealed house holds warmth through a winter outage and holds its cool through a heat wave, and it earns its keep on every ordinary utility bill in between. One weekend and a modest kit from the hardware store covers the doors and worst windows of most homes. Buying heat before sealing leaks is the classic backwards purchase; the sealed room is what makes the heat worth anything.
The temporary roof, the covered window, and the dry woodpile, all in one folded package. After wind or hail, the job is covering the breach before the next rain doubles the damage. Buy heavy-duty tarps with grommets, sized larger than the damage you imagine, because damage does not consult your imagination. The bargain-bin blue tarp is the mistake; it shreds on the first windy night and leaves you on the roof twice.
What holds the tarp down when the weather that tore the roof is still blowing. A cover that flaps is a cover that fails, and tension is what separates the two. Rated ratchet straps in a few lengths hold a tarp over a roofline, pin a cover across a broken fence, and secure what wind wants to take. Rope does the same job only in hands that know knots; straps hold tension without asking for skill.
The seal for openings tarps cannot handle: the broken window, the damaged interior wall, the doorway to a room being dried out. It closes a house wound weathertight and keeps dust and moisture out of the rooms still being lived in. Reinforced sheeting in a heavy grade, paired with the repair tape from the tools list, handles all of it. Painter's plastic is the false economy; it tears at every staple and fails at the first gust.
The heavy bag for the heavy week: debris, soaked carpet, spoiled food, and everything cleanup produces in volume. They also moonlight as ground cover, temporary window blocking, and dry storage for what must stay dry. Three-mil contractor grade is the specification that matters; the number is on the box. Kitchen bags for demolition waste is the mistake, discovered one sharp edge and one stairway at a time.
The early warning for the failure that happens quietly. Water heaters, washer hoses, and the plumbing under sinks fail out of sight, and the slow leak does its damage in the dark before the ceiling stain announces it. Small battery sensors that alarm loudly, placed at the half-dozen usual suspects, cost less than one deductible. Monitoring only what is visible is the mistake; visible leaks were never the expensive ones.
The tool that says whether wet has actually become dry. After a leak or a flood repair, materials feel dry to the hand days before they are dry inside, and damp that stays damp becomes mold. A basic pin-type meter settles the question before a wall gets closed or a repair gets called finished. Trusting touch is the mistake, and it is the one that gets rediscovered when the wall comes back open a season later.
The acting half of the moisture-control plan the leak sensors begin. Sensors alert whoever is home; the burst supply line at two in the afternoon on a workday, or during a week away in winter, answers to nobody unless the main can close itself. A monitored valve at the main detects abnormal flow and shuts the house down to a drip, and many insurers discount the premium for exactly that reason. It is the most expensive line on this list and it competes with the least expensive claim category there is, which is how tier ten of the sequence justified it first.
Home shutoff · 20
20
Gas shutoff wrench
$conditional
Last on the list because it may never be used, and on the day it is needed nothing else substitutes. The smell of gas or visible damage to a line is the trigger, and the action is a quarter turn of the valve at the meter until it sits crosswise to the pipe. A dedicated shutoff wrench or a twelve-inch adjustable lives in a bag at the meter itself, because the toolbox is too far away on that day. The rule that matters most comes after: once the gas is off, only the utility or a qualified professional turns it back on, never you.
Work the checklist
From owned to tracked.
This page decides what to get. The checklist tracks what you have.