Forget terrorists, forget armed intruders. Statistically, you run a far greater risk to be killed in your own home by carbon monoxide poisoning..
Even if it does not kill you, it can harm your and your families health, and cause “vague” symptoms like lightheadedness, confusion, headache, vertigo, and flu-like effects.
Even if you have a new heating system, if it is not perfectly installed, it can still cause too high levels of CO in your home.
Now that the heating season starts again, my Dutch consumer’s magazine ran a test of Carbon- monoxide-alarms. They found that many alarms don’t even work well, and give a false sense of security. Twelve brands/makes that did work well, ( available in the Netherlands, maybe someone has a comparable test for the US) were, from cheap to expensive:
Alecto COA-26
Kidde (Ajax) 5CO
Sensotec (Firehawk) CO7B
Ei 207
Fire Angel CO-9B-BNLT
Fire Angel CO-9X-10-BNLT
Kidde (Ajax) 10LLCO
First Alert CO-9B-FA-BNLR
AngelEye CO-AE-9B-BNLR
Fire Angel CO-9D-BNLT
First Alert CO-FA-9D-BNLR
Nest Protect 2nd generation
The rental has electric heating, everything in the kitchen is electric… there are CO alarms because they are legally required, but unless I take to leaving candles unattended, they really make very little sense.
The water heater in my flat is gas, though. It’s also in the kitchen, right next to a vent that’s actually overdimensioned. Every time I get the gas installation checked (whether the yearly check or the government-mandated every five year check), the tech grumbles it’s bigger than needed, being inherited from when the kitchen burned wood. Every time I ask “ok, why would that be a problem”. Every time they answer “no, no problem at all, but damn, this is old!” It’s not old, it’s… aged.
There are deaths every winter from improperly vented gas boilers and other heating devices. In Alaska, the typical method for providing makeup air to the boiler in your garage is to simply cut a hole in the garage wall near the roll-up door and install a passive vent. The problem comes when people detect cold air coming into the garage, locate the vent and, not understanding its purpose, plug it with rags.
When I was the facility manager for the embassy in Lisbon, an employee mentioned to me that he was really looking forward to vacation because he and his family kept getting headaches and were feeling nauseated. I immediately went to his home with him and discovered that a worker had removed the vent hood over his kitchen water heater and neglected to reattach it, leaving about an 8" gap. The wall above the heater was black with carbon. They were lucky; a lot of folks aren’t.
Bottom line, get your boiler and water heater checked annually.
That depends on how one reads the statistics. The large majority of CO deaths (in the US, anyway) are from suicides or house fires. According to the CDC, excluding those leaves about 430 unintentional CO deaths per year in the US (mostly from fuel-burning space heaters).
According to the FBI (scroll down about 3/4), the number of burglary-related homicides in the US per year is – you’re going to think I’m making this up – 430.
Ha! That IS an incredibel co-incidence. Thanks for those numbers.
Still, I think that lower-level cases of CO poisoning are more numerous and can go unnoticed. The way I see it, CO poisoning is a poverty disease; it strikes at people who are uneducated about CO and the need for ventilation, and who may ventilate less then advisable because they want to save on heating costs. And who can’t afford Chefguy’s correct advice to have the heater checked professionally every year.
If you look at it that way, a CO alarm is a worthwhile investment. I got the NEST after [a review thread here on SDMB](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?. t=768869&highlight=NEST) I was looking for a user friendly smoke alarm but was pleased to find, after ordering it, that the NEST is also an effective CO - alarm.
Oddly enough, I have only become receptive to the dangers of CO after I got the NEST. Before that, I pooh-pooh-ed the danger away. Funny how that works.:dubious:
I’m wondering what scary thing happened to or near our dear **Maastricht ** to motivate this completely valid but somewhat unusual public service announcement. I hope it wasn’t *too *awful for whoever.
When I was in my early twenties, I moved in to a rental house that a couple of buddies were already living in. It was old and not terribly well maintained, but the rent was dirt cheap! One morning I woke up with the most incredibly painful headache I’ve ever had. Like something was squeezing my brain from all sides and the slightest movement would send intense waves of pain through my head. I had no idea what might have caused it–I didn’t do any drinking the night before and was never prone to headaches. Anyway, it went away after a while and I didn’t think more about it…
Until a couple of weeks later when my roommate had our landlord’s handyman over for something else and he took a look at the heater while he was there and said it was way past due to be replaced (it was probably 30 years old) and had a large hole in the side that was dangerous because it could be leaking carbon monoxide. This heater was in a hallway closet that shared a wall with my bedroom. :eek: The landlord had a new heater installed shortly after that.
I don’t know for sure that’s what caused my headache, or what my level of exposure might have been, but I’ve always wondered if I had a very close call there.
When we were little kids, my brother and I had a very close call with CO. We were making our usual weekend trip to Grandma’s, late on a Friday, so my parents thought nothing of a 3- and 4-year-old being asleep in the back seat. About halfway through the 90 minute drive, however, the dog started whining, so Daddy pulled over, thinking that Shep needed a potty break. The dog refused to get out, though - just kept whining and nudging us kids. Ma started checking on us, and we were pretty incapacitated.
Turns out that there was an exhaust leak, and small short people succumbed more readily than larger, taller folks. That dog literally saved our lives. He was one hell of a dog! (Half German Shepherd, half collie, 100% awesome.)
I’m obsessive about CO detectors and vehicle inspections. And even a whiff of “bad exhaust” makes me nauseous - I’m just waiting for the speeding ticket I’ll get when I have to pass someone because I don’t want to puke!
My ex-wife’s sorority sister decided to have her friends over for a New Years sleepover party in the early 90’s. It was colder than expected so they fired up a space heater. They thought that they were simply drunk as they fell into bed or onto the floor but that wasn’t it at all. It took many hours for most of them to die from carbon monoxide poisoning but at least one of them that fell on the floor managed some consciousness early the next day and crawled to the lawn that initiated the response that led rescuers to a whole room full of dead teenagers.
OTOH, carbon monoxide poisoning is reportedly one of the most painless deaths possible. My uncle, a veteran of failed suicide attempts, eventually succeeded by running a simple hose from his exhaust pipes into his SUV and then settling down for a permanent nap.
Carbon monoxide is especially worrying because it is odorless, tasteless and interferes with judgement so people that die from it often don’t realize that they are in life-threatening danger at all. Check those space heaters and anything else that burns fuel because they can kill you. I am sticking with my electric heat.
The timing on this thread is really weird; the fire department just let me know that my stove has been poisoning me for weeks. I also learned that a CO detector is only good for five years or so, so make sure yours isn’t too old.
I got a dose of CM poisoning earlier this year, and its no joke.
It wasn’t from my home it was while vehicles were moving in items for a trade show and I don’t want to get into more details, it started with dizziness, then 30 minutes later I puked my guts out, and with the exception of a 30 minute break where I had to get some equipment back, spent the next 16 hours curled up in a ball with the chills and jitters praying for death. Only time sicker was when I had chicken pox at 19.
Can only imagine what happens when it hits you while sleeping.
Oh, and an adjoining PSA: replacing burners with electrical equipment doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful.
In Spain we used to have a few deaths every year from CO poisoning due to braziers. Now we get a few deaths every year from electrical fires due to braziers :smack:
It’s taken seriously here. The parents have one of those little cards where the “spot” turns dark and it hasn’t, but in any case the gas meter guy came to change the meter, took one look at the fireplace and refused to reactivate the gas until it’s replaced. Very old gas fire, and he ran his finger over the wallpaper above it - one clean streak of wallpaper, one blackened finger. It’s actually quite shocking how you don’t really notice as a fine layer of soot builds up over every wall and ceiling of a house over several years.
Not really sure how normal or dangerous that is when it’s over decades (they’re not fans of redecorating) but it’s disturbing - even if there wasn’t a CO problem, that’s going in your lungs!
Definitely hoping they get electric next. Gas doesn’t seem worth all the risks it comes with.
I recall a newspaper article years ago in which a guy told of a CO problem in his home. He knew there was a problem and he had to get out of the house, but he was so impaired that for a while he couldn’t figure out how to work the doorknob.
