The heating element is presumably interacting with the air in some way. If the room runs out of oxygen can carbon monoxide be released via some mechanism?
An electric heater will only produce carbon monoxide if it starts a fire.
There is no carbon monoxide released whatsoever? The medical websites I’ve been using use weasel words suggesting a tiny bit might be released.
Can you link to one of the sites that suggest this?
The carbon has to come from somewhere. The carbon in the air is primarily in the form of carbon dioxide. If the electric heater can cause the CO2 in the air to lose an oxygen atom you could say that it produces some CO. I don’t know if that’s possible but it has to be a negligible amount, just like the stray CO molecules in the air already.
Really the only way an electric heater will typically ‘interact’ with air is if it’s heating elements are coated with dust, in which case you’ll smell that burning off for a few minutes. But that amount of combustion is negligible. Unlike the elements in light bulbs, electric heater coils don’t heat to the point of incandescence and therefore don’t combust in the presence of oxygen. This is also why they don’t glow nearly as bright as light bulbs.
Using a kitchen oven for heat is dangerous only if it’s a gas oven. It will generate CO. But a gas oven is the only kind you’d use for heat if the power goes out (i.e. an electric oven wouldn’t work)…
“Electrical space heaters pose less of a danger of carbon monoxide poisoning than those that burn fuels, such as kerosene.”
That statement is accurate. I would say the chance of carbon monoxide poisoning from a properly operated electric heater is zero, which is less than any fuel burning heat system.
Why is it dangerous to use a gas stove for heat, but not to cook on a gas stove? Is it just a duration thing? Or a fire hazard?
Zero is less, but zero is clearly not what is meant by “less” here.
The “less” is the result of someone putting together an advisory bulletin for a webpage who is not strong on the physics involved and is CYAing with a logically plausible statement per TriPolar’s point. “Zero unless a fire starts” is the correct answer. There is no orgone combustion mechanism involved.
Ventilation and duration. When people roast a turkey for four hours, there is usually a vent hood running (or should be) to remove heat, odors and CO. That said, ovens aren’t always on, but rather cycle on and off during cook times. It would likely take quite a while for enough oven CO to build up to harm someone, but it’s not a great idea to use it for that purpose.
The heating element’s only action on the air is to put energy in to the air causing the temperature to increase. There is no chemical reaction.
The only exception is when improperly used and the heater heats not air but some combustible material then harmful things can happen.
Heater elements hot enough to glow are incandescent.
WARNING: There is no way a gas oven or gas range can be used safely for ROOM HEATING. Whether it vents to outside or not …
Because if it did heat the room, it must have put a lot of the combustion product, and hence CO, into the room.
In summer, even with the vent on, using the OVEN will make your kitchen will feel hot, but thats just a trifling amount of heat compared to the amount of heat required for room heating in winter.
(There’s only a few degrees to turn a kitchen from pleasant summers day to hot, but in winter, you might be trying to change the temperature over 30 degrees ! )
Yeah, and I never said it was safe. I was a construction and facilities manager for a very long time and would never recommend that sort of use.
The website is factually correct but incredibly misleading. There is for all practical purposes, barring some microscopic level of CO2 dissociation occurring in the presence of a very hot electric heating element, perhaps with some chemical catalyst present in the air or stuck on the coils - or combustion of dust on the coils - no CO being produced. I highly doubt if my laboratory CO meter could even register anything over ambient.
The heating element is interacting physically by heating the air. It is not interacting chemically (i.e., can’t generate any different substances).
There is no reason for the room to run out oxygen that is in any way related to using the space heater. You might just as well say the space heater is on, and if four hungry lions enter the room they might attack you – makes just as much sense. Actually, makes more sense because it isn’t quite as unlikely.
There is no mechanism to produce carbon monoxide in this scenario.
Regardless of what is meant, or of what someone might interpret it to mean, the fact is that zero is the amount of CO the electrical heater will produce.
But, but… what about the fans!?