No. Never use a gas oven or stove to heat your home. It can fill the house with carbon monoxide, a gas you can't see or smell.
It can kill. The CDC and the CPSC both warn against it.
If you've been warming the house with the oven, do this now:
- The oven or burners are on to heat the house: Turn them off. Use them only to cook.
- Anyone has a headache, feels dizzy, sick to the stomach, very tired or short of breath: Get everyone out into fresh air now. Call 911 once you're out.
- A carbon monoxide alarm is going off: Get everyone out into fresh air. Call 911.
- You smell rotten eggs: That's leaking gas. Leave, then call your gas company from outside.
- Your heat is off because you can't pay the gas bill (Citizens customers): Call the Citizens Crisis Hotline at 317-927-4798. Citizens says help may be available.
Carbon monoxide is called CO for short. If you think someone breathed in CO, the CPSC says to get them to a doctor right away. Tell the medical staff you think it's CO. Ask the fire department when it's safe to go back in.
If you smell gas, here's who to call once you're outside. In Indianapolis, call Citizens at 317-924-3311. In Westfield, call 911 and the leak number on your gas bill. In Carmel, Fishers and Noblesville, call CenterPoint at 800-227-1376 and 911. The full steps are in what to do if you smell gas near your stove.
Can I heat my house with my gas oven?
No, not even for an hour on the coldest night of the year. Three safety sources agree. None of them leaves any wiggle room.
The CDC, the federal health agency, made it a public warning. Heating your home with a gas oven puts you and your family at risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, so don't.
Read the exact wording
"Using a gas oven to heat your home puts you and your family at risk for carbon monoxide poisoning." / "Don't heat your home with a gas oven."
The CPSC, the federal product safety agency, puts it on its list of "never" rules. Never heat with a gas range, oven or dryer.
Read the exact wording
"Never use a gas range, oven, or dryer for heating."
And Citizens Energy, the gas company for Indianapolis, warns that it can hurt or even kill you.
Read the exact wording
"Long-term, continuous use of a natural gas oven can create a buildup of carbon monoxide in your home that can be harmful or even fatal."
A gas oven that works right makes only a little CO while you cook, the CPSC says. The trouble starts when the oven runs for hours to warm the house, because the CO can build up while you're busy with other things and you'd have no idea. You can't see it. You can't smell it.
We get why people do it. The furnace quits in January. The oven is right there, and it's warm. But it's the one heater in the house that the CDC, the CPSC and your own gas company all tell you never to use.
If the heat is off because of the gas bill
If you're a Citizens customer and the gas is off because of a bill you can't pay, call the Crisis Hotline at 317-927-4798. Citizens says help may be available, and a call to that line is a far safer way through a cold night than turning on the oven.
What are the downsides of using a gas oven?
The biggest one is CO. And it isn't only an oven problem, because anything in your home that burns gas can make it, the CPSC says. A faulty one can make enough to kill.
Read the exact wording
"Carbon monoxide is produced by burning fuel. Therefore, any fuel-burning appliance in your home is a potential CO source." … "Improperly operating appliances can produce fatal CO concentrations in your home."
The warning signs
A gas oven that isn't burning right is a bigger risk. The CPSC lists these clues to a CO problem:
- A range that isn't working right.
- Soot on an appliance or a vent. A hood over the stove helps clear the air, though Indiana's code doesn't require a range hood.
- Water drops on the inside of windows.
- Foil on the bottom of a gas oven. The CPSC says never do this, because it gets in the way of the flame burning right.
- An odd or burning smell.
- You feel sick at home, and better when you're away.
That last clue is easy to miss. If the whole family's headaches lift at a friend's house and come back the night you get home, take it seriously.
What CO sickness feels like
CO sickness feels like the flu, but with no fever. The CPSC lists headache, feeling tired, short breath, an upset stomach and feeling dizzy.
Citizens says many people know they're sick, but get too mixed up to save themselves. That's why the steps at the top of this page say to get out first and call 911 from outside.
Who's most at risk
Citizens says pregnant women, small kids, older people and people with heart or lung problems are at the most risk. If someone in your home fits that list, don't wait for them to feel better on their own.
Getting the oven checked
More than 200 people in the United States die each year from CO tied to consumer products, the CPSC says. It also says only a trained tech can find hidden problems in an appliance, so if your oven shows any of the clues above, have it checked. Here is how repair calls from this site work.
Does Indiana require carbon monoxide alarms?
The state asks only in new homes and in some remodels. Marion County asks for more: since June 2024, its health code covers older homes and rentals with non-electric appliances and fireplaces too.
New homes
Indiana's home building code is 675 IAC 14-4.4, the 2020 Indiana Residential Code. It uses the 2018 International Residential Code. That code says a new home needs CO alarms if it has anything that burns gas or another fuel, or an attached garage with a door or other opening into the house.
Read the exact wording
"For new construction, carbon monoxide alarms shall be provided in dwelling units where either or both of the following conditions exist. 1. The dwelling unit contains a fuel-fired appliance. 2. The dwelling unit has an attached garage with an opening that communicates with the dwelling unit."
Remodels, additions and rewiring
Indiana went a step further. It added its own rule for bigger jobs on an existing home, and you'll find it in the final rule for the 2020 code. If a remodel, an addition or all new wiring needs a permit, the home may have to get CO alarms. Some jobs are left out. Outside work is one, like a new roof, siding, windows, doors, a porch or a deck. So is plumbing or furnace work. Wiring in rooms you already have is left out too, unless it's a new or moved bedroom. So is a new or moved breaker panel or meter base. Ask your building department. The alarms go where they would in a new home.
Read the exact wording
"Where alterations, additions, or complete replacement of the electrical system requiring a permit occurs, the individual dwelling unit shall be equipped with carbon monoxide alarms located as required for new dwellings."
"Exceptions: 1. Work involving the exterior surfaces of dwellings, such as the replacement of roofing or siding, or the addition or replacement of windows or doors, or the addition of a porch or deck. 2. Installation, alteration or repairs of plumbing or mechanical systems. 3. Electrical installations or alterations for existing rooms other than newly constructed or relocated bedrooms. 4. Electrical work, which is limited to the replacement, relocation, or upgrade of an existing service panel or meter base."
Put together, the rules sort out like this:
| Your home | Does Indiana require CO alarms? |
|---|---|
| A new house with a gas appliance or an attached garage | Yes |
| A remodel or addition that needs a permit | Often yes; some jobs are left out |
| All new wiring that needs a permit | Often yes; some jobs are left out |
| An older house with no permit work | We found no state rule that does |
| A Marion County home with "non-electric appliances and fireplaces" (the county's words) | The county says yes (see below) |
| An apartment building | We found no state rule. Indiana struck the CO alarm section out of its building code and its fire code. In Marion County, the county rule covers each apartment |
Older homes and rentals
Indiana's smoke alarm law for homes, IC 22-11-18-3.5, asks for working smoke detectors outside each sleeping area and on every floor.
It says nothing about CO alarms. Indiana's list of what a landlord must keep working, IC 32-31-8-5, doesn't name alarms either. It does make landlords follow local health and housing codes.
Read the exact wording
"A dwelling must have at least one (1) functional smoke detector installed as follows: … (2) Outside of each sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms. … (4) On each additional story of the dwelling, including basements, cellars, and habitable attics."
From IC 22-11-18-3.5
Indianapolis and the rest of Marion County
Here the county fills the gap. The Marion County housing code has told owners to fit a CO alarm since June 1, 2024, in homes with "non-electric appliances and fireplaces." The rule covers old and new homes, rented or owned. The rule doesn't say if a home needs both a gas appliance and a fireplace, or just one. If you rent in Indianapolis and have a gas stove or furnace but no alarm, ask your landlord for one in writing anyway.
Read the exact wording
"An owner shall equip a dwelling with a properly installed and maintained carbon monoxide alarm in accordance with manufacturer's instructions in homes with non-electric appliances and fireplaces."
Outside Marion County, we haven't checked the local rules in Carmel, Fishers or Greenwood. Ask your city's building office.
Where to put them, even if the law doesn't ask
Safety groups say to have CO alarms whether the law asks or not. Here's what the CPSC and Citizens say:
- Every level of the home: both the CPSC and Citizens say so.
- Outside the rooms where people sleep: the CPSC's advice, and Citizens says near bedrooms.
- Test them often: the CPSC also says to swap dead batteries.
Pick a day you'll remember, like when the clocks change, and press the test button on each one, then put fresh batteries in any that stay quiet. An alarm helps, but it can't take the place of an oven that works right.