keep out/off/away from the cold.

[quote]Hi,

--Which works with the following text, keep out, keep off, and keep away from? And could you explain why? Many thanks in advance to you.

--Other ice fishing houses are small, portable shelters that fishermen can take to a lake each time they fish. These houses can only seat a few people, but also have heaters to keep out/off/away from the cold.

To keep out the cold

Many thanks to you Londres.
It seems easy as pie for you to pick the right answer

Keep out the cold = keep the cold air that is outside the shelter outside while heating the air inside the shelter.
Keep off the cold doesn't quite work here: it's just a wee bit vague, I feel: I find myself asking off what?.  Keep the cold off them [the few people] would sound better.
Keep away from the cold doesn't work because it sounds like to keep the heaters away from the cold, which is daft.

At the real and horrible risk of being condemned for paraphrasing where a paraphrase was not asked for, I'd suggest heaters to keep the cold at bay.  Keep at bay is often used in circumstances

such as these.

Many thanks to you ewie.
Now I think I know why the other two don't work. In order to make them work, we have to reword them a bit as follows, right?

These houses can only seat a few people, but also have heaters to keep the cold off/away from them.
These houses can only seat a few people, but also   have heaters to keep the cold  at bay.

 Yep, you've got it, Phil, though I'm still not entirely happy with away from.

Many thanks to you ewie.

I can't see why you're not happy with away from, so I try to tear apart the base sentence and put them together again.
What about the following revision?

These houses can only seat a few people, but also have heaters to keep those people away from

the cold.

Hmmm, yes, I see what you're doing, Phil, but I'm still not sure it works. I'm trying to put my finger on it. Maybe it is that away from makes 'the cold' sound like a 'physical entity' (like, e.g. a polar bear) that is standing outside the door of the shelter waiting to pounce, whereas in reality it's a thing surrounding them on the outer side of the 'membrane' of the shelter. Anyone else care to help me out here? The heaters do not keep people away from the cold. The heaters are instrumental in helping people from getting cold. You could say keep away from the fire but when we are talking about the cold it simply does not work. None of the above. Surely it is not the function of a heater to keep out, keep off or keep away from the cold? I may have a coat, or a rug, or a curtain with those functions - but not a heater. The function of a heater is to generate heat, not to act as a barrier to cold.