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CO detector going off (SE)

Steve Ebels_2
Steve Ebels_2 Member Posts: 47
in THE MAIN WALL
Phone rang about quarter after 10 and a rather concerned voice on the other end of the line informed me that his CO detector was alarming. I went out and found a York 80% LP gas furnace in the basement which looked to be functioning normally. After questioning the HO a little as to circumstances I found out they had done some painting in the house today and the wife had done laundry. (The washer and dryer are approximately 4' from the furnace)Lots of detergent and bleach containers in close proximity to the open burner. He had the detector laid on top of the furnace where it was exposed to all kinds of vapors from the laundry.

As there was no obvious malfuntion of the furnace or the water heater, I went back to the truck and got the Testo to see what was going on. A quick sample confirmed that everything was indeed OK with all the fuel burning appliances in the house. This included the furnace, water heater and gas cook stove. I also sampled the ambient air in the house and that too was OK.

What's the point of this little story?

The point is, if I didn't have a combustion analyzer to determine that everything was OK, I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. You couldn't see anything wrong with the furnace and there wasn't anything wrong with it either, but, what if there had been and it wasn't a visible problem?

There's another discussion on the Wall right now about a guy deciding which analyzer to buy. Testo, Bacharach and others are all good. It makes little difference which one you have.

The crux of the issue is that you can't be 100% certain that your customer is not going to croak if you don't have the equipment to properly test. I will sleep well tonight because I am certain that his family is safe.

As Mark Hunt says so often. "If you don't test, you don't know"! I'll paraphrase that a little and say "If you can't test, you can't know!!!

Get an analyzer and be sure your customers are safe!!!!

Sleep well Wallies

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