How do I prepare my business for a heatwave? A plan to finish before summer

Floods and bushfires get the headlines. Heat does its damage quietly: a compressor that gives up on the third 40-degree afternoon, a cool room that creeps above 5°C overnight, a staff member who goes pale on the loading dock, a power cut at 4pm when the grid is straining.

None of that needs a declared disaster, so there’s usually no grant waiting at the end of it. That’s why a heatwave is one crisis where the preparation does nearly all the work. Set aside two hours this month and work through the plan below.

When should I start preparing?

Now. The Bureau of Meteorology says its heatwave forecasts and warnings are generally issued from October to the end of March, so the season has already started in parts of the country.

It helps to know what you’re watching for. The Bureau describes a heatwave as three days or more when both the maximum and the minimum temperatures are unusually hot for your area. The overnight minimum matters: buildings, fridges and people don’t get a chance to recover. Heatwaves are rated three ways:

Rating	What the Bureau says it means	What it means for your business
Low-intensity	Frequent in summer; most people cope	Normal summer routine; check fridges daily
Severe	Less frequent; harder for vulnerable people	Switch on your heat plan: hours, breaks, stock checks
Extreme	Rare; a problem even for healthy people	Consider changed hours, closing early, or moving stock

Warnings cover severe and extreme heatwaves forecast within the next four days. That’s your lead time. Action: bookmark the Bureau’s heatwave service on the phone of whoever opens up each day.

Step 1: Set the heat rules for your people

Heat isn’t only an outdoor problem. Kitchens, bakeries, warehouses, workshops and shopfronts with west-facing glass can be hotter than the street.

Safe Work Australia’s guidance on working in heat says businesses must eliminate heat risks where they can and otherwise minimise them as far as is reasonably practicable. In practice, write down a one-page heat routine and talk it through with staff before the first hot week:

1. Move the hardest work to the coolest hours. Deliveries, stock rotation and outdoor jobs before 10am where possible.
2. Add rest breaks in a cool spot. Shade or air conditioning, not the car.
3. Put water where people work. Cold, free and easy to reach.
4. No one works alone in extreme heat. Use a buddy system or regular check-in calls for drivers and field staff.
5. Teach the warning signs. Dizziness, headache, nausea, confusion and stopping sweating are reasons to stop work. Know who calls Triple Zero (000) and when.
6. Check uniforms and PPE. Lighter fabrics, hats and sunscreen for outdoor crews.
7. Ask your team. You’re expected to consult workers on health and safety, and they’ll know which corner of the building cooks first.

Your state or territory WHS regulator has industry-specific guidance if you run a crew on roofs, roads or farms.

Step 2: Service the equipment that keeps things cold

This is the cheap check most owners skip until it fails. Refrigeration works hardest in exactly the weather when technicians are hardest to book.

Book these before December:

• Air conditioning service — clean filters and coils, check refrigerant.
• Fridge, freezer and cool room service — condenser coils cleaned, door seals checked, fans working, thermostat calibrated.
• Airflow around compressors — clear anything stacked against condensers outside or in storerooms. A compressor that can’t breathe in 42°C is the classic heatwave breakdown.
• Server and IT equipment — a hot back office can shut down your point-of-sale system or modem. Move it somewhere cooler or ventilate the cupboard.
• Blinds, awnings and window film — a low-cost way to take load off everything else.

Then put a thermometer in every fridge and cool room and start a simple log: time, temperature, initials, twice a day. In a heatwave, check every few hours. The log is also evidence if you ever need to claim.

If something does fail mid-summer, our equipment breakdown page walks through what to do in the first day.

Step 3: Plan for the power cut

Heatwaves push electricity demand up, and outages become more likely. The business.gov.au summer checklist lists planning for power outages alongside your emergency plan, backups and an up-to-date continuity plan.

For any business holding chilled food, a power cut starts a clock. Food Standards Australia New Zealand’s 2-hour/4-hour rule covers potentially hazardous food held between 5°C and 60°C:

Total time between 5°C and 60°C	What you can do
Less than 2 hours	Use, sell or return it to the fridge
2 to 4 hours	Use or sell it, but don’t re-chill it
More than 4 hours	Throw it out

That time is cumulative, so every period out of the fridge counts. Build your outage plan around it:

1. Record the time the power went off. Write it on the whiteboard and in the log.
2. Keep doors shut. A full, closed cool room holds temperature far longer than one being opened every few minutes.
3. Have a backup cold-storage option arranged in advance — a refrigerated trailer hire company’s number, a neighbour’s cool room, a supplier who’ll take stock back.
4. Decide on a generator now, not during the outage. If you buy one, have a licensed electrician set up a safe connection and test it before summer.
5. Know who to call. Save your electricity distributor’s outage line and sign up for its outage alerts.
6. If you can’t tell, throw it out. Photograph and list discarded stock with quantities for insurance.

Our power or access outage page covers recording lost trade if an outage drags on.

If a fridge failure or outage has already cost you stock this season, you can see what’s possible in about a minute.

Step 4: Read your policy for heat, not just fire

Heatwave losses tend to land in the grey areas of a business insurance policy. Pull out your policy schedule and the product disclosure statement and look for:

• Spoilage or deterioration of stock cover. Is it included, or an optional extra? What’s the sub-limit?
• What triggers it. Usually a breakdown of refrigeration machinery or an interruption to the power supply — rarely heat on its own.
• Grid versus on-site failure. Does an outage on the street or at a substation count, or only a fault on your premises?
• Minimum outage periods before the cover starts.
• Machinery breakdown cover for the compressor itself.
• Business interruption — does it include a utilities extension for lost trade during a long outage?

Ask your broker these questions in writing and keep the answers. Our pre-season insurance review has the wider checklist.

Step 5: Add heat to your continuity plan

If you already have a one-page continuity plan, add a heat section with three trigger points:

• Severe heatwave warning issued: brief staff, check stock levels, confirm backup cold storage, reschedule outdoor work.
• Day of extreme heat: reduced or changed trading hours, extra temperature checks, customers told via your socials and Google Business Profile.
• Power off: outage plan from Step 3, stock moved within two hours, photos and lists started.

The business.gov.au checklist also suggests keeping your ABN details current on the Australian Business Register, because emergency agencies use them to identify affected businesses. It takes five minutes. The emergency action checklist gives you a printable list for the outage scenario.

What does a heatwave plan look like in practice?

An illustrative example, not a real business.

A family-run deli in western Sydney has two upright fridges, a display cabinet and a small walk-in cool room.

• October: the owner books a refrigeration service. The technician finds a worn door seal on the cool room and a condenser packed with dust. Both fixed.
• November: a one-page heat routine goes on the staff room wall. Deliveries move to 7am. A thermometer and log go in every unit.
• Broker call: the policy includes deterioration-of-stock cover after a power supply interruption, with a sub-limit the owner thinks is too low. They increase it before summer.
• January: a severe heatwave warning is issued for the district. On day three the power drops at 3.40pm. The time is written on the whiteboard, doors stay shut, and the cheese and smallgoods go to a neighbour’s cool room by 5pm.
• The gap: the compressor on one upright fridge fails the following week. Insurance covers the stock, but the replacement unit and the excess are needed now, so the owner uses short-term working capital to bridge it rather than empty the account that pays wages.

Heat can’t be stopped — the gap can be planned for

The best heatwave plan reduces the damage. It doesn’t always remove it. A failed compressor, a cool room of spoiled stock or a week of slow trade can still leave a bill that lands before any insurance money does — and with heat events there’s usually no recovery grant to apply for.

That’s where we help. Unsecured funding for trading businesses typically runs from $5,000 to $500,000, sized on turnover and bank statements, with same-day funding possible for smaller amounts. Larger needs can be secured against residential or commercial property. We’ll also tell you if restocking after a loss or replacing equipment is better handled another way.

Here’s how enquiring works:

• It’s about 60 seconds, and asking won’t touch your credit file — there’s no credit check when you first enquire.
• We don’t send your details to a pile of lenders. Your phone won’t light up with strangers in the middle of summer trade.
• A real person reads what happened — the outage, the breakdown, the stock — and calls you to talk it through.

Please fill the form in accurately: what failed, what it cost, whether a claim is lodged and roughly how much you need. Like your temperature log, accurate details mean the right answer comes first time.

See if you qualify →