CO and the local Gas Co

Tony_23

They won't come out unless someone is SICK !!!

CO detectors can go off all day and unless you show symptoms of poisoning, no dice.

I've seen 100 PPM in the living space of houses they refused to check, for lack of "symptoms" :(

Tom_35

CO and the local Gas Co

With all the talk about CO, we decided to call our local gas utility to see what their "official" stance on CO was. What we were told is shocking.

If they get a call about supposed CO, they send a man out with a CO detector and simply hold it in the living space to see if it picks up a dangerous amount. If not, no problem. If CO is detected, they will pull the meter.

We have all our techs do a CO test as per training from NCI and Jim Davis. So while we can measure a problem with CO in the flue, if we called the Gas Co to do a follow-up, or if the customer called another competitor that did a CO "test" the same way the Gas Co did, they would come away with saying everything is safe.

So far this year, we have had 2 customers that have been furious with us for disabling the furnace because of very high CO problems.

What do other utility companies do when CO is shown by correct testing?

Tom Atchley

will smith_4

Good luck Tom-

By me, the "gas company" is fully stocked with meter readers with meters. I've followed gas co. techs in systems with two pound pressure with leaks so big my meter went off outside the mechanical room, with a tag that read "leak in regulator needs to be corrected", when it was their reg! Other times, I've seen 'em shut down buildings when the leak ended up being a union that needed tightening-slightly. The GasTech meters our gas co. uses cost about $2,000. new, but have a thunbwheel for "adjustment". I have one. Could convince you that a glass of water was leaking gas if I wanted to. Makes me wonder if the CO detectors they use are the same. I bought a Bacharach combustion flue gas analyzer some years back, paid a lot of dough for it...costs $300.00 to calibrate it. A year. Do you really think the gas co. is calibrating the meters on all their slacking wagons?Like to think so, but...

Shark

CO calls

Hi Tom,
The utility company in my area does check for reads in each room of the house but they take it alot further. Each appliance flue is checked, burner front and areas around the appliance. If an appliance is above the allowable ppm CO in the flue then we disconnect the piping to that one appliance, tag it and advise the customer to call a heating contractor. We also have the customer sign the tag noting they understand why the appliance is no longer in service. The customer is given a re-check date and we do follow ups until the condition is corrected.
There are many other checks completed during an inspection and the test equipment is all calibraited. I'm not sure what utility did the inspection but a CO call is an important call to go on and should not be taken lightly.

[Deleted User]

Shark...

what city are you in?

ME

Mitch_6

CO

I just had a case in wellesley mass, customer had a bad smell from the boiler room and from a ceiling fresh air grill going into front entry. This had been going on for several months and the husband finally got around to calling us.

I used a TSI combustion analizer found co starting at 100 then rising to 600 in the breach with up to 15ppm rolling out of the front and above of the boiler.

I shut down the unit and left while another teck cleaned the boiler, adjusted the logs and repaired the burner door.

The husband thought I was an alarmist and called the fire inspector who stopped by while I was out and the boiler was shut down since nothing had been running for two hours they did not get any ambient readings.

When I got back to the site and fired the boiler up again the co continued to rise into the 1075ppm range and nothing i tryed seemed to have any lasting effect.

I had the house wife call the gas company they came down put there sniffer in the draft hood got 40 rising to 50ppm shut it down and red tagged it.

Next monday they had a new boiler in the house.

Note: Home owner had a co alarm near the boiler room it was at least ten years old and set to go off at 100ppm both the house wife and one of the kids had the flue or bronchial spasms

Shark

Mark Eatherton

Hi Mark,
My work location starts in Syracuse New York and covers the central NY area. I live in Oswego, just about 40 minutes north of Syracuse on Lake Ontario.

Unknown

Different strokes for different folks

As far as Gas Companies go it depends on their training and also if they ever did appliance service at anytime. Many utilities never did service so they are not checked out on combustion and CO issues. In other locations they have been trained and are a good first responder for gas leaks, CO and any foreign odor complaint of any kind.

I would be more than willing to come to your city to do training for Fire Depts and utilites on these emergency issues. I have a full curriculm set up for this exact kind of training.

Bob W._3

Before I sold my last home in 2001 I had my HVAC tech come out to check out the Pulse furnace. There was a very slight leakage in the secondary heat exchanger, reading 1-2 PPM at the first floor registers, and I had them change it out under their replacement program. I wasn't even sure that their meters could read it, and they told me I didn't have to do anything about it. I could only assume it would get worse with time. Cost me $300 labor but there was a lady with a daycare moving in and I didn't need that on my conscience.

Greg Swob

CO

We take what Shark said even further. As a full service gas utility company, we also will clean burners, heat exchangers, set and adjust burners, manifold pressures, examine heat exchangers, etc. and what ever other service is needed. We test all combustion appliances in a home for CO output and attempt to create worse case scenarios to determine the causes. The customer may of course contact any qualified firm they wish to do the necessary repairs, but our reputation usually preceedes and more often than not, we do the work, too. We have found many damaged furnace heat exchangers and other problems overlooked or ignored by others. We are the firm of choice that the local fire department calls to confirm or dispell their findings due to the more complete investigations we perform. In fact we have trained them to investigate to a higher level than they did before.

Different levels of training and in our case, state regulatory requirements will dictate the services provided by utility firms. Here, the investigation work is all done at no cost by state requirements. Repairs are performed at a cost, as this portion of our business falls under 'non-regulated' enterprises. Often, we will red-tag an appliance and let the owners determine who will repair or replace but then we follow up to confirm repairs are performed. 'Trust everyone... but cut the cards'. Anyone who doesn't test is only guessing and anyone who half heartedly tests is not doing their job.