For crying out loud

Aidan

Caused by a generator, in this instance, not a faulty gas appliance.

One by one, the children passed out on or near their mother's bed.
"And I started to feel funny, and I just thought I was having a panic attack, and I was going to go up and lay down with them," Daft said. "I know (that) if I would have laid down with them, we wouldn't have got up."

Is the word ‘daft’ used in the US?

daft > adjective

Meaning: Informal or slang terms for mentally irregular.

Synonyms: balmy, barmy, bats, batty, bonkers, buggy, crackers, dotty, fruity, haywire, kooky, kookie, loco, loony, loopy, nuts, nutty, round the bend, wacky, whacky, etc..

Serious question; would you start doing daft things if you've inhaled some CO? Should you go into a boiler room with a CO detector/alarm and head for the door if it goes off? Could you be certain that you'd remain sufficiently alert to know when you should run?

Mark Hunt

What's it gonna take guys?


You got kids?

Read this.

http://www.nbc4columbus.com/news/2743050/detail.html

We're supposed to be the best in the industry.

Mark H

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Dave Yates (PAH)

PPM

Only if you knew the actual parts per million in the air you're breathing. That will determine the amount of "safe" time for breathing in a CO contaminated environment. Removal from exposure is only part of the equation. The five hour half-life of CO will continue to prevent red blood cells from assimilating oxygen after vacating the problem area, which is why specific contact times must be followed closely.

(The following is from an article I wrote for Contractor Magazine)

During normal combustion, each atom of carbon in the burning fuel joins with two atoms of oxygen, forming harmless carbon dioxide. When there is a lack of oxygen to ensure complete combustion of the fuel, each atom of carbon links up with only one atom of oxygen, forming carbon monoxide.

Carbon monoxide inhibits the blood’s capacity to carry oxygen. In your lungs, CO quickly passes into the bloodstream and attaches itself to hemoglobin, the oxygen carrying pigment in red blood cells.

Hemoglobin readily accepts carbon monoxide over the life-giving oxygen atoms – as much as 200 times as readily as oxygen – forming a toxic compound known as carboxyhemoglobin.

Low levels of carbon monoxide poisoning result in symptoms commonly mistaken for common flu and cold symptoms: shortness of breath on mild exertion, mild headaches and nausea.

With higher levels of poisoning, the symptoms become more severe: dizziness, mental confusion, severe headaches, nausea and/or fainting upon mild exertion. At high levels there may be unconsciousness and death.

Compounding the effects of the exposure is the long half-life of carboxyhemoglobin in the blood. Half-life is a measure of how quickly levels return to normal. The half-life of carboxyhemoglobin is about five hours. This means that for a given exposure level, it will take about five hours for the level of carboxyhemoglobin in the blood to drop to half its current level after the exposure is terminated.

So, the real question becomes how much is too much? Symptoms vary widely based on exposure level, duration, and the general health and age of an individual. The one recurrent theme that is most significant in the recognition of carbon monoxide poisoning is headache, dizziness and nausea.

These “flu-like” symptoms are often mistaken for a real case of the flu and can result in delayed or misdiagnosed treatment. The chart on this page shows exposure limits.

The OSHA standard for exposure to carbon monoxide prohibits worker exposure to more than 35 PPM of CO, averaged over an eight-hour workday. There is also a ceiling limit of 200 PPM, as measured over a 15-minute period.

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Mark Hunt

You never know


what you're walking into.

I have entered several homes where CO was present and the homeowners were unaware.(I bring my tester everywhere!)

In one instance, we walked into a basement where the CO levels were climbing over 100ppm. The boiler was plugged solid and was venting into the basement. Turned it off and got out of there PDQ!

Gas generators produce HUGE amounts of CO, but people just aren't aware of this fact. The same goes for cars.

Yes, we do use the term "Daft" here in the US.

If it wasn't so scary, it would be funny.

Mark H



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