4 CO Deaths in Anchorage, AK

Mark Wolff

http://www.adn.com/front/story/4500312p-4478215c.html

Here's a copy of a news article in the Anchorage Daily News. The family was remodeling, and two weeks from moving. They disconnected their CO tester due to remodeling work, and boarded up the combustion air passage to the boiler room. When firefighters arrived they measured over 700 ppm in the house. The mother is still in critical condition, but the father and three children died.

Lets do our best to stress the importance of tune-ups, and combustion air to our clients, and hopefully save some lives. I'd rather save someones life and never know it, than not and wish I had.

Mark Hunt

Beat me to it


I get 4 or 5 e-mails a day about CO.

Tune-ups are important, but if the contractor doesn't know how to test or even that they SHOULD test for CO, the customer may be left with a false sense of security.

I have run into countless dozens of situation where a "qualified heating company" had been servicing equipment every year and missed potentially deadly problems.

A furnace that vents fine in July, may not vent fine in December. A boiler that vents fine when it is running alone may not vent at all if the clothes dryer is running.

Nothing to do with combustion air, it's combusting. It's all about pressure. High pressure goes to low pressure, and if the combustion appliance zone is sufficiently depressurized the atmospheric appliances will not draft.

The toll keeps going up.

Mark H



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John R. Hall

Mark

It may sound wacky, but an idea struck me. How about some of us guys put our collective heads together and put a CO "marketing" package together. I would love to contribute a nice PowerPoint presentation that I can download on CDs and include in an info package assembled by experts such as yourselves. It could be a pamphlet or booklet on all of the dangers of CO. We could put a neat package together and market it to local chamber of commerce groups or civic groups. Maybe a nominal fee would cover the cost of the kits with a little extra for charity. I'm writing this on the fly and it may be a pipe dream but I'd like some other feedback. We all certainly have the passion for the topic and many of us also possess the skills to get the message across. Collectively, an idea like this might work.

Mark Hunt

I'm in


What do you need me to do?

Mark H

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rudy_2

Pamphlet

We have already put together a pamphlet to help our customers market CO testing (in MS Word format).

To download the pamphlet go to:

http://www.bacharach-training.com/CO response form/downloadable_carbon_monoxide_res.htm

There is a place on the front and back for a company logo, etc. If a drop down box comes up asking for a password, just click cancel and it should work.

Mark Hunt

We hand those out


I am going to start a scrap book collection of the CO related deaths and injuries and carry it with me on sales appointments.

CO accounts for almost 90% of the accidental poisonings in the USA, so why don't we have "KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN!" stamped on the side of every combustion appliance?

Mark H

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John R. Hall

CD presentation

I'll work on updating my presentation and send you a copy Mark.

Mark Hunt

Thanks John


Could be the start of something big!

Mark H

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Unknown

John I have a guide

that I have been making available for 10 years now. If you are interested in putting something together I will be glad to help out.

By the way the American Gas Association has a mailer that gas utilities have been sending out as a bill stuffer for over 30 years now.

The problem we have is that prime time TV needs to put on a real presentation about Carbon Monoxide to educate the public. They do not seem interested.

I have offered my services on over 30 or 40 occasions to NBC, CBS, ABC and recently Fox. They are very polite but not really interested.

When I was with the gas company we did a half hour show back in 1978 on local TV which was picked up by New England affiliates. They actually aired the entire half hour at supper time on four different channels. That was a long time ago.

I have been doing this crusade for over 40 years now. The only way they will listen is when someone dies and then it is soon forgotten. I have as you know been very vocal about fire dept personnel who in many cases are very poorly trained on CO and also gas safety. It is really scary when you talk to some of them. We used to train local fire departments for free as a utility. The last time any training was done here locally was in 1993. When I left the gas comapny in 1999 they had totally dropped the program and it has not been conducted since.

Trades people are not interested in combustion analysis and CO testing as a whole. Those classes are my most poorly attended classes.

If a Hydronics or Steam class is held by local utilites they will pack them out. Just let them offer a combustion seminar and no one will come. They have to put on the seminars that will draw a crowd because that is where the money is. They want to sell gas. If the utilites nation wide got behind a CO campaign with all of their money it would get some attention at least among the trades.

They are giving away gas equipment, but there are no warning labels on the equipment. They do all kinds of training on how to install radiant, baseboard, duct work etc. They really do not however give adequate training on safety as it relates to combustion, venting and ventilation.

Mark Hunt

You nailed it Timmie


No interest in combustion or CO. I was the same way for many years.

Once things settle down here a bit, my partner and I will be attending your combustion classes.

I'll have a bunch of questions for sure.

Mark H

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John R. Hall

First client is TV news

Our first "package" should be sent to major TV news stations. I'll see about putting a contact list together. We should also market the material to local school boards, too.

Dale

Old style equipment

If it's a furnace that kills or a boiler it'the old stuff. With the millions of direct vent furnaces in the field over the past 20 years how many have been the source of a CO death? None that I have ever read about. I collect CO stories for my training and I don't have one yet on a 2 pipe plus 90 furnace. For the last few years even the 80 percent product have had flue spill switches mandated and I haven't heard of one of those involved in a death case. I think it's up to the professionals to explain the safety and effeciency of updating. I used to say that no one ever died from gas water heater CO but a "family" in Alabama proved me wrong by running a nat unit on LP unvented inside a mobile home.If you read the Alaska story the first thing the fire dept. looked for was a car running, I call this "death by Toyota" they idle so quiet people leave them running and close the garage door at night, a much bigger problem than furnaces and a good reason to have a CO detector with a tuck under(worse case)or attached garage.

Dan Foley

Old vs. new

I have measured lethal levels of CO from atmospheric vented equipment, 80% induced draft equipment, and 90% direct vent equipment. I would be careful in assuming that new equipment cannot produce CO - it can and it will. Be safe. -DF

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