Every rate checked against its source on October 21, 2026
MyPlann turns what is on your shelves into one number: how many days your household could manage at home. This page lists every rate behind that number and where it comes from. When a source changes, we change the number and the date above.
MyPlann counts days separately for water, food, cooking fuel, heating fuel and medicine. Your household's number is the smallest of the ones that apply to you, and that one is what runs out first. A household with a month of food and four days of water has a four-day number, because nobody lasts a month on food alone.
Each part is the same simple division: what you have, divided by what your household uses in a day.
Every major US source starts here. The CDC says to “store at least 1 gallon of water per person, per day for 3 days” and to “try to store a 2-week supply if possible”. The American Red Cross uses the same gallon, with a “2-week supply for home”.
| Who | Water per day | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Adult | 1 gallon | CDC, Red Cross |
| Child | 1 gallon | Same as an adult: the CDC's gallon is per person, and Ready.gov says “children, nursing mothers and sick people may need more water” |
| Toddler (1 to 3) | ½ gallon | More than the drinks the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends for a toddler each day |
| Baby (under 1) | ¼ gallon | Water to mix formula; the formula itself is counted separately |
| Pet | ¼ gallon | MyPlann's planning figure for an average-size pet. No US agency publishes one; a big dog drinks more and a cat less (University of Guelph) |
Hot weather: Ready.gov notes that “in very hot temperatures, water needs can double.” MyPlann does not double it for you yet, so if you live somewhere hot, store more than your number says.
MyPlann plans 2,000 calories per adult per day. The FDA calls it “a general guide for nutrition advice”, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' home storage guidance plans on 2,000–2,400 calories per day.
We count the calories in each package, never its “servings”. Emergency food is often sold by servings that are small, so a kit sold as a month can feed one adult for far less. That is not just our opinion:
| Who | Calories per day | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Adult | 2,000 | FDA |
| Child | 1,500 | MyPlann’s planning figure for a child. Real needs run from about 1,000 calories for a young child to more than an adult’s for a teenager (Dietary Guidelines), so if you have a teenager, plan for more |
| Toddler (1 to 3) | 1,000 | The Dietary Guidelines' estimate for a 2-year-old |
| Baby (under 1) | Formula: up to 32 oz a day | American Academy of Pediatrics (about 2½ oz per pound of body weight, up to about 32 oz) |
| Pet | 500 | MyPlann's planning figure for an average-size pet; a big dog needs more and a cat less (Pet Nutrition Alliance) |
Every fuel holds a known amount of energy, measured in BTU. MyPlann adds up the energy in your fuel and divides it by what your household cooks with in a day. We plan 7,000 BTU per person per day: 28,000 for a family of four, about an hour and a half on a two-burner camp stove.
That is high on purpose. The average US home cooking with propane uses about 5,700 BTU a day (US Energy Information Administration), but that is a kitchen range on a normal day. In an outage you boil water, cook from scratch and use a camp stove outdoors, so we would rather your fuel count come up short on paper than in the pantry.
| Fuel | Energy we count | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| 20-lb propane tank | 323,000 BTU when full: we count 15 lb of propane, what an exchange tank holds | Exchange tanks such as AmeriGas hold 15 lb, and propane holds 21,548 BTU per pound (Propane Education & Research Council). If you refill your own tank at a station, it holds about 20 lb; you can set your tanks that way in Supplies. |
| 1-lb propane cylinder | 21,500 BTU | Same source, rounded down; the same figure for cooking and heating |
| 8-oz butane canister | 10,000 BTU | Half a pound of butane holds about 10,700 BTU (US Energy Information Administration, 4.35 million BTU per barrel), rounded down |
| 8-lb bag of charcoal | About 45,000 usable BTU | MyPlann’s planning figure: roughly half the energy in the bag, because much of a grill’s heat goes into the air rather than the pot |
Heating days are the energy in your fuel divided by what your heater burns in a day. A day of heat is the number of hours you told us you run it, or 8 hours if you have not said.
| Fuel | What we count | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Kerosene | 135,000 BTU per gallon; heater burns 22,500 BTU an hour, so a gallon lasts about 6 hours | Fuel energy: US Energy Information Administration (5.67 million BTU per barrel). Burn rate: our own 23,000 BTU convection heater runs about 6 hours on a gallon, and makers' run-time claims agree; a Dyna-Glo 23,800 BTU heater works out to about 21,000 BTU an hour |
| Propane heater | Burns 9,000 BTU an hour | A Mr. Heater Big Buddy on its middle setting (its settings are 4,000, 9,000 and 18,000 BTU an hour) |
| Firewood | About 20 million BTU per full cord; stove burns 40,000 BTU an hour | Stove: MyPlann’s planning figure for a mid-size wood stove, which makes a full cord last about 8 weeks at 8 hours a day. Cord: US Energy Information Administration |
Heating safely: never heat with a gas oven or burn charcoal indoors, run a generator at least 20 feet from windows and doors, and keep a battery-powered carbon monoxide alarm near where people sleep. Those are the CDC's rules, and they matter more than any number on this page.
For each medicine someone in your household cannot safely go without, MyPlann divides the doses you have by the doses taken each day. Your medicine days are the medicine that runs out first.
There is no single official target. The Red Cross lists “Medications (7-day supply)”, and Florida's hurricane checklist asks for a “two week minimum supply of medication”. Your doctor or pharmacist can tell you how early you can refill.
That is about 14 rolls per person per month. It comes from a measurement in our own home: 80 rolls lasted five adults five weeks. Online calculators plan for normal days, when people are out at work and school; Omni Calculator, for example, has one person using a roll every three to four days. When everyone stays home, use goes up: Georgia-Pacific, which makes Angel Soft and Quilted Northern, estimated about a 40 percent increase in use at home during the 2020 shutdowns.
We count rolls the way you buy them and never ask how many sheets are on a roll. A bidet halves the rate. Bidet sellers claim more than that, but we found no study behind their numbers, so we stay at half.
MyPlann plans 12 diapers a day for a baby and 8 for a toddler, at or above Pampers' pediatrician-reviewed counts (8–12 a day in the first month, 6–8 by the end of the first year). Formula is counted in fluid ounces against up to 32 oz a day, the most the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests.
FEMA's standard is a list, not a number of days, so MyPlann checks it the same way: you either have every item on Ready.gov's basic disaster supplies kit or you do not. That list has 14 lines; MyPlann checks 15, because it counts moist towelettes and garbage bags with plastic ties as two separate items. Water and food count when you have at least 3 days of each at the rates above, the minimum the CDC and the Red Cross give. The radio counts only if it is a NOAA weather radio, because an ordinary radio will not sound an alert.
Three days is the floor, not the goal. The Red Cross recommends a two-week supply at home, and the CDC says to store two weeks of water if you can. Ready.gov now says “several days”. Oregon, Washington and Hawaii all run “2 Weeks Ready” campaigns.
These are planning rates for a household, not medical, nutrition or veterinary advice. Your doctor, pharmacist and vet know your family better than any table. If you know your household uses more of something, store more of it.
If a source has changed, or you have a better one, email us at info@myplann.com. When we change a rate, we change it here too.