Sardiyon Mein Ghar Garam Rakhna: Gas Heater and Angeethi Safety
Every January the papers carry the same short report: a family in a closed room, a gas heater or an angeethi left on overnight, and nobody woke up. Sardiyon mein ghar garam rakhna (keeping the house warm in winter) is a solved problem in most homes; the part that isn’t solved is doing it without carbon monoxide, and that is where this Season Shift starts.
Before you light anything
- The rule: nothing that burns fuel runs in a closed room while people sleep. Gas heater, angeethi, coal, wood, geyser. Ever.
- The gap: a window open 5 to 8 cm while a gas heater is on, however cold it is
- The flame: blue is normal; yellow or orange means it needs a service and should be off
- The symptoms: headache, dizziness, nausea, sleepiness, several people at once. Out into fresh air, then hospital.
- The cheap fix: a battery carbon monoxide alarm, a few thousand rupees, on the wall of any room with a heater
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What carbon monoxide is, and why it kills quietly
Anything that burns, gas, coal, wood, kerosene, charcoal, makes carbon monoxide when it doesn’t get enough air. You can’t see it, smell it or taste it. Breathed in, it takes the place of oxygen in the blood, and the first effects feel like ordinary tiredness on a cold evening: a dull headache, a bit sick, a bit drowsy. In a closed room with the windows sealed against the cold and the heater running for hours, the level climbs while everyone falls asleep. That’s the whole mechanism. It isn’t the gas “leaking”. It’s a working heater in a room with no air.
The three household sources that cause most deaths in Pakistani winters are the gas room heater with the doors and windows shut, the angeethi (a coal or charcoal brazier) brought indoors and left to smoulder, and the gas geyser fitted inside a small bathroom. The geyser one catches people who never thought of it: a long hot shower, door shut, the flame eating the oxygen in a room the size of a cupboard. Of the three, the angeethi indoors is the deadliest: a bed of embers with no flame looks harmless and pours out carbon monoxide for hours, and a whole family can be gone by morning.
Sardiyon mein ghar garam rakhna, safely: the swaps
| Stop | Start | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Gas heater on all night | Heater on for 30 to 45 minutes before bed, then off; warm bedding does the night | Sleeping people don’t notice symptoms. Most deaths happen in sleep. |
| Windows sealed tight with the heater on | One window open 5 to 8 cm the whole time it runs | Fresh air keeps the burn clean and dilutes any carbon monoxide. |
| Angeethi in the bedroom | Angeethi outdoors or in an open veranda only; a hot water bottle indoors | Smouldering coal produces large amounts of CO for hours after the flames are gone. |
| Gas geyser inside the bathroom | Geyser moved outside the bathroom, or an electric one, and a door left ajar | A small closed room with a burning flame is the most dangerous space in the house. |
| Heating the whole house | Heating one room the family uses, and heating bodies not air | Cheaper, and fewer burners running at once. |
| Trusting a heater with a yellow flame | Service it, or stop using it | A yellow, lazy flame is incomplete burning, which is where CO comes from. |
| Hot water bottle straight on skin | Wrapped in a towel, and out of the bed before sleep for children, the elderly and anyone with diabetes | Numb or fragile skin burns without the person noticing. |
Warm without a flame: what actually keeps the heat in
Most Pakistani houses are built for summer. Concrete, single glazing, gaps under every door, a tiled floor that pulls heat out of the feet. Winter comfort is mostly about stopping heat leaving, and a lot of it costs less than a month’s gas bill.
- Seal the door gaps. A rolled towel or a stuffed cloth “snake” along the bottom of the door, and foam strip (a roll is cheap at any hardware shop) around the frame. A 1 cm gap under a door lets in as much cold as a small open window.
- Curtains, heavy, closed at sunset. Open them when the sun is on that wall in the morning, close them the moment it goes. A thick cotton or a doubled curtain over glass cuts the heat loss through the window a great deal, and a plastic sheet taped over the frame of a rarely used window does the same for a few rupees.
- Cover the floor. A dari or rug under where people sit and beside the bed. Bare tiles at 10°C draw heat out through the feet all evening.
- Heat the people. Socks, a shawl, a cap indoors at night for old people and babies (a great deal of heat goes from a bare head), and layers rather than one thick sweater. A hot water bottle, filled from a kettle that has gone off the boil and wrapped in a towel, warms a bed better than a heater warms a room.
- Warm the bed, not the air. Ten minutes with a hot water bottle under the razai before getting in, then take it out. A cotton sheet under a razai traps more warmth than the razai alone.
- If you use an electric heater, choose one with tip-over cut-off, keep it 1 metre from bedding, curtains and clothes, never dry clothes on it, and switch it off before sleep. Electric heaters make no carbon monoxide; they start fires instead, which is the other winter headline.
- Warm food and drink on a schedule. A bowl of daal or thin yakhni at dinner, a hot drink at 9 pm, does more for how warm you feel at 11 than the heater does.
Older homes handled winter with bodies rather than rooms: quilts filled with fresh cotton every few years, a shared razai, a kangri or a clay pot of embers carried under a shawl in the north, chuhara milk, panjiri and til at night to “warm the blood” in the Unani sense of a hot, dry season needing hot, moist foods. The angeethi was used, but in courtyard houses with open skylights and doors that never fully sealed. Those houses breathed. A modern flat with aluminium windows and a gas heater doesn’t, and that’s the change the old habit didn’t survive.
Carbon monoxide symptoms, and what to do
Learn these as a household, the way you’d learn a fire drill. Early: headache, most often dull and across the forehead; dizziness; feeling sick; tiredness out of proportion to the hour. Then: confusion, clumsiness, chest pain, a fast heartbeat, drowsiness that’s hard to fight. The give-away is that more than one person in the room feels it at the same time, and that it eases when they go outside. A baby or an old person, and a pet, will be affected first. Feeling better outdoors and worse back in the room is carbon monoxide until proven otherwise.
Open the doors and windows, turn off the heater, angeethi or geyser if you can do it in seconds, and get everyone out of the room into fresh air, carrying anyone who is drowsy. Do not go back in to fetch anything. Do not let anyone “sleep it off”. Take everyone who had symptoms to a hospital emergency department and say the words “carbon monoxide” at the desk; the treatment is oxygen and it works best early. Pregnant women need to be seen even if they feel better, because the baby is affected more than the mother. Do not use the appliance again until it has been checked. Then, before the next cold night, buy a battery carbon monoxide alarm, fit it at head height in every room with a fuel-burning appliance, and press the test button monthly. Anyone with a heart or lung condition, anaemia, or who is elderly is at higher risk and should never be left asleep in a room with a burning heater.
The rest of winter’s damage, and where to read about it
The heater that doesn’t poison you still dries you out. Cracked heels, tight skin, static hair and a scratchy throat by morning are the usual bill, and the winter heater and cracked heels post explains why the heater, not the cold, is the culprit and what to do about it. The winter dry skin remedies cover oils and a better bath. And keeping the windows shut against the heater is also keeping in the December smog, which the smog season guide deals with room by room.
Two smaller winter hazards belong here too. Kapoor tablets and camphor balms come out with the woollens, and the camphor safety post explains why they stay out of a child’s reach. And a winter cold in a closed, heated room is what most families are treating with a cup of joshanda; the post says who should skip the mulethi.
Tonight, in five minutes
Walk into the room with the heater. Check the flame colour. Open a window 5 cm and leave it. Roll a towel along the door gap. Set a phone alarm for 30 minutes as the heater’s off time. Then put the kettle on for the hot water bottles.
More seasonal swaps live in the Season Shift series.
Winter heating questions
Is it safe to sleep with a gas heater on?
No. Not with the window open, not on low, not for one night. Warm the room before bed, switch the heater off, and let the bedding do the night. Most carbon monoxide deaths happen in sleep.
What are the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning?
A dull headache, dizziness, nausea and tiredness out of proportion to the hour, then confusion, a fast heartbeat and drowsiness. The giveaway is several people feeling it at once, better outside and worse back in the room. Get everyone into fresh air, switch off the appliance, and go to hospital saying the words carbon monoxide. Pregnant women must be seen even if they feel better.
How much should the window be open with a gas heater?
About 5 to 8 cm, the whole time the heater runs, in the same room. A gap in another room doesn’t count.
Can an angeethi be used indoors?
Not in a room. Use it outdoors or in an open veranda only, and never where anyone sleeps. Smouldering coal keeps giving off carbon monoxide for hours after the flames have gone, so an open door isn’t enough protection; a hot water bottle is the safe way to warm a bed.
What does a yellow flame on a gas heater mean?
Incomplete burning, usually from a dirty burner or poor gas pressure, and it makes more carbon monoxide. Switch it off and get it serviced before using it again. A healthy flame is blue.
Why do I wake up with a headache in winter?
If a gas heater or geyser ran in a closed room, treat it as carbon monoxide until proven otherwise: fresh air, and a doctor, especially if anyone else feels the same. Dry heated air and not drinking enough can also cause morning headaches, which the window gap and a glass of water at night help with.
Is a gas geyser in the bathroom dangerous?
It can be deadly if it’s fitted inside a small, closed bathroom. A geyser needs to be outside the bathroom or properly flued to the open air. If yours is inside, don’t shower with the door and window shut, and get it moved.
Does a gas smell mean carbon monoxide?
No, and that’s the danger. Carbon monoxide has no smell at all. A gas smell means a leak: don’t touch light switches or strike a match, open doors and windows, turn off the supply at the cylinder or meter, and call the gas company from outside.
Are electric heaters safer than gas?
They make no carbon monoxide, so in that sense yes. Their risk is fire and burns: keep them 1 metre from bedding and clothes, choose a model with tip-over cut-off, and switch off before sleep.
Is it safe to use a heater in a room with a baby?
Never a gas heater or angeethi where a baby sleeps; babies breathe faster and are affected sooner. Warm the room beforehand, then dress the baby in layers and lay them flat on their back in a bare cot, with no heavy razai, pillows or hot water bottle.
Is a hot water bottle safe for a baby’s cot?
No. Warm the cot with it before the baby goes in, then take it out. Babies, the elderly and anyone with numb feet burn easily and can’t move away from the heat.
Where do I buy a carbon monoxide alarm in Pakistan?
Hardware markets, electrical shops and the big online stores stock battery models from a few thousand rupees. Fit one at head height in each room with a gas heater or geyser, and test it monthly.
How can I keep warm at night without a heater?
Heat bodies, not air. Seal door gaps with a rolled towel, close heavy curtains at sunset, put a rug down, and wear socks, layers and a cap at night. A hot water bottle filled from a kettle that’s gone off the boil, wrapped in a towel, warms the bed; take it out before children, older people or anyone with diabetes sleeps.