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Camping stoves and barbecues are outdoor equipment. They produce carbon monoxide, which you can’t see or smell and which kills people in the UK every year. Use them outside, on a flat surface, away from the door. A barbecue stays dangerous for hours after it looks dead, so never bring one in to keep warm. The longer answer is in can you use a camping stove indoors?
In a hurry? The one I'd buy from each shelf.
- StovesCampingaz Camp Bistro DLXUnder £35
- FlasksThermos Stainless King 1.2 litre£25–40
Stoves
Campingaz Camp Bistro DLX
Hot meals on the patio
A single burner that takes the cheap long gas cartridges. It has a safety cut-out, a carry case, and it will boil a pan of water about as quickly as your hob.
Trangia 27 stove set
A kit that will outlive you
Swedish, burns methylated spirit, and has no moving parts to fail. Pans and windshield pack into themselves. Meths keeps indefinitely, which is more than can be said for most of us.
Cadac Safari Chef 30
Feeding the whole family properly
A small gas barbecue, hob and griddle in one. If the cut runs to days and the freezer is defrosting, this is how you turn a crisis into a quite decent mixed grill.
Fuel. The Bistro runs on 227g butane cartridges, sold in fours and eights. One lasts roughly an hour and a half of cooking. Butane sulks below about 5°C, so keep cartridges indoors until you need them.
What to skip. Disposable barbecues as an emergency plan. They take an age to light and produce one lukewarm sausage per hour.
Flasks
The cheapest trick on this site: boil a full kettle before a planned cut, or once on the stove outside, and decant it. That’s hot drinks for the day from one boil.
Thermos Thermocafé 1 litre
Hot drinks until bedtime
Does the job for an evening. Pre-warm it with hot tap water first, like your nan did.
Thermos Stainless King 1.2 litre
Still hot tomorrow morning
Keeps water properly hot overnight. The one I’d buy.
Stanley Classic 1.4 litre
Passing on to your children
Heavy, green, and built like a small boiler. Lifetime warranty.
Carbon monoxide alarm
Not optional if you own any stove, gas fire, boiler or wood burner.
FireAngel 10-year sealed CO alarm
Every home with anything that burns
Sealed battery, lasts ten years, no excuses. Put one in the room with the boiler and one wherever you sleep.