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Best CO monitor?

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seized123
seized123 Member Posts: 481
edited December 17 in Carbon Monoxide Awareness

I found posts on this but mostly they are old or very brief. Any opinions on a low level CO monitor for the homeowner, CO Experts vs Defender vs whatever?

I think I had what might be an old CO Experts, that is if they made one shaped like a white hockey puck back then. (It reached its end of life and there were no identifying logos on it and I lost all purchase paperwork, so I’m not sure of the brand.)

I know CO Experts changed hands, are they still good?

I want one in general, but specifically now because my intention is to do what I did last year, do the oil burner fall service myself (In December! Such is the life of the procrastinator.) then have a pro with a combustion analyzer check it out. Thing is, if I have to wait a few days for them to come out, at least with the CO detector going I know I’m okay, safety-wise.

A combustion analyzer just seems not to make any sense financially for a homeowner. I bought a Bacharach wet kit (!) on ebay and used it, but now the fluid is low and I can't find replacement fluid. (Can still check smoke and draft, though.)

Comments

  • pecmsg
    pecmsg Member Posts: 6,781
    edited December 17

    I like the defender Model.

    Depending on how much protection depends on cost. They make models that begin at 5 PPM, 10 PPM, 15 PPM. The lower the rating the higher the cost.

    10 or 15 is fine for most residences. Mabe a 5 near the boiler.

    My personal monitor shows 3-7 in the kitchen when the stove is working hard. Once the exhaust fan is on it drops down.

  • seized123
    seized123 Member Posts: 481
    edited December 17

    Thanks @pecmsg. The Defender 10 ppm model seems to be half the price of the 5 ppm, but my old CO Experts or whatever it was went down to 5 ppm (or lower?) and I liked feeling like I know more what's going on, so I was considering the 5 ppm Defender despite the price.

    However, interestingly, comparing the 5 and 10 ppm Defenders, they recommend replacing the 5 ppm model every three years (so about $70 a year to operate). The half price 10 ppm is warrantied for 10 years, so if it lasts that long at $10 a year it's like one seventh the price! (Can that be right?)

    So I'll probably settle for the 10 ppm. I plan to keep it in the kitchen mostly, but after a boiler tuneup I would walk it down there and keep it there for a while to make sure things are mostly okay, CO-wise, if that makes sense, pending professional combustion analysis of course. (Now that I think of it, the last couple times I had that done, I don't think they tested for CO. I think they said the machine hadn't been calibrated for that lately …. CO should be a part of every combustion analysis, right? When I was testing with my wet kit, I couldn't check CO directly, but if I recall correctly, if you take a couple of readings with the liquid Fyrite thing, changing the air intake on the burner each time, you can infer by how the CO2 changes whether you are on the right side of some curve, I forget what it's called, and whether therefore CO should be okay. Very technical, I should go back and review how that works.)

  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 15,609

    you can make your own fluid. it is just a common salt that i forget at the moment and phenolphthalein. (potassium hydroxide maybe). it absorbs all the co2 and you measure the change in volume of gas.

  • seized123
    seized123 Member Posts: 481
    edited December 18

    Hi @mattmia2, yes, and I just came across this thread from earlier this year:

    https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/201042/is-anyone-familiar-with-bacharach-wet-kit-for-smoke-draft-and-c02-can-you-help-with-this
  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 15,609

    there are 2 places the mixture is right, one with little excess air and one with a fair bit of excess air. you want to be on the more excess air side.

  • seized123
    seized123 Member Posts: 481

    @mattmia2 yeah, exactly. I have to go look at some of my old threads where people were instructing me on this, and I learned all about some curve ("stoichiometric" curve, I just looked it up) and you need to be on the excess air side of that, I guess, I forgot all the details, especially since I stopped testing with the wet kit.

    The level on my barbell liquid thing isn't a lot low, and on that thread I mention above I think someone said maybe you can just add a bit of water. (I just looked, and indeed that was @EdTheHeaterMan, who also mentioned the 11-7052 BACHARACH REPAIR PKG, which I'm looking into but may have gone the way of the brontosaurus.) If worse came to worse, and I were ambitious, I could look into making it myself. All of which might be kind of weird just for a homeowner who is not making 20 measurements a day like Ed said he might sometimes do.

  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 15,609

    you can add water to it as long as it stays red. when it turns clear all of the base has been consumed by the co2. technically you could add more base at that point to make it work again, at least until you start getting K2CO3 percipitating.

  • seized123
    seized123 Member Posts: 481

    @mattmia2 that sounds great.

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