TheBostonChannel.com

Jim Davis_3

Four people taken to hospital overcome by carbon monoxide(March 13, 2012), one was unconscious.  The fire department had been called out the day before because their CO alarm was going off.  They told the people to replace the batteries and they would be fine.  The fire department measured no CO or that is what they stated.  Next day the people are lucky to be alive. 

Things just don't seem to change.  The consumer is still putting their trust in people that don't have a clue.

Charles Johnson

Re.

You know the way it goes Jim.



Nothing happens because there are not enough people dying. Cynical, I know, but more dead people is what it will take to get consumers to demand trained fire dept.s, service techs, etc...

Steamhead

Here we go again

you can't fix stupid!

billtwocase

it also depends

did the family ventilate the home before the test was done? I can't see that even the dumb and lazy would ignore any co readings with liability in play. Lack of training perhaps? Who knows what really happened here. I agree Frank, you can't fix stupid, and that also goes for the homes occupants. We all see and hear of dumb things that people do in their homes that cause co. It is nothing new. Thoughts and prayers go out to them

icesailor

CO Training:

CO Training for fire personnel is still in the stone age. They are clueless to low level CO numbers.

I was traveling to Florida last February and stopped in a town in North Carolina. When I went into the lodging place, I smelled gas in the lobby. After I checked in, I went downstairs with my UEI CO75C Carbon Monoxide detector which I carry in my computer bag where ever I work. It read 6 PPM. Walking around, I found an area in the back that was 8 or 10 PPM of CO. It was coming from a utility room that probably had pool equipment in it. I told the front desk. They could have cared less. There was no detectable CO on the second floor or in our room. The next morning, while everyone was eating breakfast, the levels were still there in spite of the front doors being open most of the time with guests leaving. No one cared. I worried. I shared this on The Wall. I was urged to report it to the NC city. I did. I don't think that whomever looked very hard because I never heard from them again.

I recently found a 90+ furnace with a black PVC exhaust that had a blocked secondary heat exchanger. I put my Bachrach Insight into the exhaust and found 495 PPM in the exhaust. Put my UEI next to the Insight, sniffing the same exhaust and had readings within 3 PPM. CO. The gas service company came and replaced the rotted out shotgun burners. Before they left, I insisted that I test it again. (They don't own combustion analyzers. They are too expensive) It now read 1400 PPM, CO. Disconnecting the outside air intake at the unit got it down to 740 PPM, CO. In each case, my UEI read within a few PPM's of the Insight.

But there were no detectable CO levels in the lodging place.

The FD told me that they were highly trained in CO detection. There were billboards all over the town touting their Smoke Detector installation safety program.

I walked into a house recently and smelled gas. Was it combustion gas or CO/gas. The UEI said, no CO. A gas sniffer said it was gas, LP. The gas leak was in an enclosed and unventilated crawl space with the foundation vents closed for the winter. They had been smelling gas for over three years and thought it was a dead animal. I wasn't the plumber of record. I was there to address a back-flow problem. The leak was a piece of CSST, laid over a old rusty I Beam and vibration had worn a hole through the insulation and the tubing.

Be aware folks.