CO alarm thread

JimH

Hi, I've read bits and pieces in other threads about CO
alarms (the kind you can buy from a big box), and heard
a lot of um, *alarming* things about them, in regard to
their lifespan, and indeed about whether they are useful
at all.

I have to admit that since Mike "Danger" Eatherton's daring
exploit to expose the problem of "cold slugging" (what a
fine piece of jargon that is!) I've been looking at the vent hood of my trusty old American Standard boiler with
even more trepidation... one dead pigeon down the flue
liner and my basement becomes a gas chamber.

Do any of you experts want to share what you know on this?

thanks,
-JimH

jp_2

COexperts.

I have one, I like it, it alarms every now and then when a big cold pot gets fired up on the stove.

Mark Hunt

CO alarms


What it all comes down to is this. UL listed CO alarms are designed to protect healthy, middle-aged, adults. If you read the paper work that comes with the alarms, they tell you this.(Although I have seen a few lately that are changing the wording in this warning)

A UL listed CO alarm will NOT, can NOT, alarm below 70ppm. At 70ppm it must alarm within 240 minutes(4 hours). That is 4 hours of breathing 70ppm CO. I have never been given a clear answer as to how 70ppm became the low standard, but there it is. So what happens when the CO is at 69.99999ppm? The answer is........nothing. 69.99999ppm is ok? Add .00001ppm and it's bad? Does this apply to EVERYONE? Nope. Just healthy, middle-aged adults. Elderly, children, infants, fetuses, folks with chronic illness are not protected. Says so right on the box.

We hear about the acute poisonings, the ones that resulted in 911 calls, hyperbaric chambers or, sadly, the coroner's office. What we NEVER hear about are the CHRONIC poisonings. Repeated exposure to low levels of CO. Read that as BELOW 70PPM. Chronic CO poisoning can make a person's life a living hell and no-one will figure it out. CO alarm never made a peep yet we have a person that has been poisoned. It would take me hours to type all of the problems chronic poisoning causes and every one of them is easily misdiagnosed as something else.

In nearly every story I read about CO alarms, the reporter mentions that CO alarms cost "from $15 to $40". Think about that for a minute. $15 to $40. What is the difference between the $15 alarm and the $40 alarm? Better sensor??? Nope. Longer sensor life?? Nope. The only difference is.....$25. Which will most people buy??? Some will get the "cheaper" unit, but most will pay the $40 for the BETTER unit. Marketing GENIUS! $25 extra for N O T H I N G.


Mark Eatherton's "experiment" proved another thing. They don't all work. Test after test after test has proved this. Those alarms, for lack of a better word, suck. Yet they are now MANDATED by several states and I imagine that just about every state will pass similar laws. Looks good to the voters but in reality, it is dangerous. People are lulled into a false sense of security. When that happens....I get to read about them on my Google News Alerts.

I was in a home the other day looking at a steam boiler. There was a CO alarm in the basement near the boiler. I asked the HO if he thought he would hear that alarm on the second floor where he sleeps if it went off. Nope. He's not a dummy, he just did not know where a CO alarm should be. Now he does and I will be getting him a GOOD CO alarm.

Now here's the catch. Who would you call if your CO alarm DID go off? Who would you trust to determine the source AND the REASON for the CO? Who would you trust to FIX the problem? If you think your local PHVAC contractor is the guy, call them and ask if they have digital testing equipment AND have been trained in their use. You'll be surprised.

Remember the Tylenol scare years ago? Remember that?

If you answered "Yes" to that question you are one step closer to understanding why CO is the #1 cause of accidental poisoning deaths in North America. It wasn't Tylenol that killed those people, it was the cyanide that was placed in those capsules. Tylenol = faulty furnace, Tylenol = faulty boiler, Tylenol = faulty water heater. None of the appliances I mentioned were designed to be "faulty".......they just got that way. How??? It wasn't the furnace or boiler that killed the people, it was Carbon Monoxide. A product of incomplete combustion. Apparently, CO ONLY comes from "faulty" equipment. Really?? All those folks that died this year from CO poisoning after they ran gas generators in their basements were killed by "faulty" generators??? No, they were killed by Carbon Monoxide.

I could make the argument that it is ignorance that causes so many preventable deaths every year and I would be right. Whose job is it to educate the ignorant?

Mark H

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JimH

thanks, Mark

Hi, thanks for "educating the ignorant". I've had one
of those "$15-40" CO alarms down next to the boiler for
8 years. I can hear it just fine upstairs in my small
house, but it's never read anything but "0" the whole
time it's been there.

You mention above that you'll be getting the homeowner
a "good" CO alarm, and I'm wondering what you mean by
that.

Also, I've priced out the professional hand held units and
don't think they're that expensive. Can someone with a
bit of technical education who's willing to spend a week
or two of his free time reading learn to do anything useful
with one?

thanks,
-JimH

Uni R_3

Mine has never registered anything...

I'm almost tempted to stick it in the garage with the door closed and the snowblower on. :-/

JimH

\"premium\" CO detectors

Okay, I did some research and only found one unit which is different from the pack in sensitivity, which is the "Safe-T-Alert", which is made by MTI industries in Illinois, which features a 2 stage alarm, sounding a caution alarm
when the unit is exposed to continuous levels in the 60-70
PPM range for 90 minutes. It also has a crude memory feature, which indicates whether the concentration which
triggered the alarm was under 100PPM, under 200PPM, or
over 200 PPM. They say it's useful for first responders
to know this information, is that true?

Do these detectors offer any meaningful improvement over the Kidde/Nighthawk variety?

thanks for any info,
-JimH

-JimH

jp_2

did you?

did you look at the COexperts? they are around $100.00, well worth it.

mine has alarmed around 15ppm if i remember right, and it did NOT take an hour to alarm, let be know right away, like any should....

Mark Hunt

Not really


Again, those numbers are for healthy, middle-aged adults. I am not familiar with that manufacturer so I can't comment on the quality of their sensors.

I only know of two CO alarms that will protect everyone in the house/building. CO Experts and the NSI 3000.

I have a UEI monitor that clips to a belt. It saved my bottom on one occasion. An NSI 3000 would make a GREAT safety monitor. Bring it with you where ever you go. Seriously, especially if you are planning on staying at a hotel.

Entering homes I have my Bach 120 or my TSI going. On several occasions I have found people sitting in the house breathing CO and they didn't know it. Twice I have evacuated a house and called the utility. I have found more equipment producing very high levels of CO and in these instances I have disabled them until repairs could be made. I "watched" an atmospheric boiler spill combustion products into a home through the "draft diverter" and the spill switch never popped. That was because the boiler was spilling on the opposite side of the "draft diverter". I "watched" as a fan assisted furnace vented through the "draft diverter" of an atmospheric water heater. The flue gases condensed on my glasses and the HO asked, "Is it supposed to do that?" I "watched" as combustion products were sucked back into a house when the HO ran the 1000 cfm exhaust hood over his gas oven. I "watched" as an under-fired, fan assisted furnace blew combustion products into a basement through the rotted flue pipe it was connected to. The masonry lining in the chimney that the flue pipe went into had collapsed probably two years before we went to that house. The night before we came to do the energy audit, the lady of the house had to be taken to the hospital suffering from dizziness, nausea and fatigue. Doctors told her it was the flu. It was CO poisoning and it came from the FLUE NOT the flu.

A year ago we were working on a new house and had just fired up the new furnace for heat. PVC vents out the side of the house. Masons come along and build a tent over the exhaust and intake so they could work on the stone work. Luckily, my helper caught it BEFORE they went in the tent. We extended the pipes outside their so they would not die. They had NO IDEA what was coming out of that plastic pipe. Similar story, some friends that Darin and I know have an insulating business. They do blown cellulose. Someone stays in the trailer and dumps the bags of cellulose in the hopper. They call me the "CO Nazi". Well, a few weeks ago the wife had to be MEDI-VAC'd to a hospital with a HB chamber. They had unknowingly back the trailer in front of the exhaust vent for the heating system in the house. It wasn't until several hours AFTER they had left the sight that she suffered the black-out. She did not pass out on the job, she was on her way home. They take me a bit more seriously now.

Darin and I walked in a couple that we thought were trying to commit suicide. Sitting at their kitchen table with the LP gas stove firing all burners AND the oven with the oven door open. My Bach 120 hit 30ppm CO. They were trying to thaw some pipes that had frozen under the floor.

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

At ISH Chicago this past year, we had about 8 contractors attend our morning CO session and only one in the afternoon and she walked in by accident. I guess everyone else at the ISH show already knew everything about CO. I wonder how many there knew about the Chicago story?

When you combine cavalier attitudes from pros with poor info given in the media you get the state of affairs we now have. I will keep preaching CO and combustion safety even when no-one is listening.

Mark H

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