210 ppm CO in Elemetary School

Torch

One of our local schools has had high readings of CO and the school administrators waited weeks to tell the parents. What kind of CO detection equipment should be in our schools?

From the Lowell Sun Newspaper:

"GROTON Parents of students at the Boutwell School last night
criticized district administrators for waiting weeks to notify
them that levels of carbon monoxide had been detected in
the school, which wasn't shut down until Friday.
"

"Fire Chief Joe Bosselait said the school had been tested throughout the weekend
by the town and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The
latest reading showed spikes of carbon monoxide as high as 210 parts per million
more than 23 times higher than a maximum 9 parts per million of continuous
exposure for adults advised in guidelines by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency."

for the whole article see
http://www.lowellsun.com/Stories/0,1413,105%257E4746%257E1109570,00.html

KevMcG

another 1 from MASS (Boston Herald)

Feds punish landlord over carbon dioxide

by Franci Richardson
Thursday, January 16, 2003

In an unusual punitive measure, federal housing authorities will withhold February's rent subsidy from the landlord of 32 Blue Hill Ave. whose tenants were among those twice driven from their homes because of high carbon monoxide levels.


``We're doing this because on Nov. 30, several children were evacuated and brought to the hospital because of carbon monoxide poisoning and Benchmark (Management Corp.) didn't do anything to fix it and it happened again,'' said Kristine Foye, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

HUD's annual contract with landlord Israel Roizman of Lafayette, Pa., amounts to nearly $1.2 million, but the exact amount of subsidies now being withheld wasn't available.

A spokesman for Roizman released a short statement.

``Benchmark is working fully with HUD and all agencies to solve these issues as quickly and appropriately as possible,'' said Harry King.

By law, Roizman has three days to come up with a plan to bring his apartments up to code and then a month to implement it, Foye said.

Meanwhile yesterday, 19 building and housing inspectors walked through 114 of Roizman's apartment units and found 12 emergency violations, including three tenants without heat.

The problems must be fixed within 24 hours, said Lisa Timberlake, spokeswoman for Inspectional Services Department.

ISD has also scheduled a pre-condemnation hearing of Roizman's two buildings for next Thursday at 11 a.m.

Rudy

CO alarms in school buildings

I'd only recommend low level monitors such as the CO Experts alarms (www.coexperts.com).
The problem with most CO 'alarms' such as the cheap ones you buy at the local hardware store or the 'fixed' sensors most 'security' companies install is that they have MOS sensors which are cross sensitive to carbon dioxide (and a bunch of other things) which can be found in underventilated school buildings and will cause false alarms.
Plus, they are prevented (by the UL approval) from alarming or even displaying readings below 70. Given children are very suceptable to even low levels of CO, this is a huge concern.

Mark Hunt

How does that happen?


The CO discussion in the Round table has 127 posts to it. When will professionals take CO as seriously as it needs to be.

CO accounts for over 80% of the poisoning deaths in the USA and yet it gets the least amount of attention.

Call a Poison control number and see what they will tell you regarding CO.

New York has passed legislation that will require CO alarms be installed in homes before they can be sold,(A victory!)but that is only for residential properties.

This is serious business folks. If my kid was in that school I would be talking to a lawyer right now.

If you don't test you don't know.

Mark "CO warrior" H

To Learn More About This Contractor, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"

Randy_2

Where?

Can I get one of those low level sensors? I read the co experts web site and some of the related links, looks interesting enough to check one out, but the site dosn't list distributors.
Anyone know?

Art Pittaway

It's the MONEY..!

They won't shut down a school building until the bean counters know they can recover the money from the students. Most of the school board here are lucky to be able to fill a gas tank and drive a car. CO of 210 parts per zzzzzzz zzzzzz zzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz. The only thing that will get there attention is money and lawsuit. They have all but eliminated any trade or shop classes as being unnecessary in the modern economy. As you can tell I'm less than happy with our schools.
Art

John R. Hall

Not good

This is always disturbing news. I recently finished research for an upcoming News article which involved reading "Schools of Ground Zero" published by the Healthy Schools Network. It is outstanding reading and well reserached with documentation about the frustration of cleaning up NYC schools in the WTC collapse zone.

Mark Hunt

Another School CO issue!!!!


A school here in NY was closed today due to CO contamination.

This school had CO alarms and they went off. Fire officials found 30ppm ambient when they got to the school.

School administrators kept the children on the buses and then sent them home.

The CO source was said to be a boiler that was not venting properly.

Mark H

To Learn More About This Contractor, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"

John R. Hall

Mandatory inspections

This may sound like a question with an obvious answer, but aren't schools mandated to have inspections of their mechanical equipment every six months? Annually? Is this a business opportunity in the making? Me thinks so.