# Stove burners, room heating, and carbon monoxide **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 14, 2016, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145 "2016-01-14T16:34:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/41 "2016-01-16T19:31:00Z")
> [@I.Dunno](#): > > No, the smell is put in gas so if there is a GAS leak, it would be noticed before the house/neighborhood blows up. It has nothing to do with Carbon Monoxide. I rely on Asimov and the gas companies. If you think what I say is wrong, take it up with the utilities; I know the science author is no longer with us. I am not questioning your statement about a safeguard against an explosion or other disaster, however. ---
**Author:** ![I.Dunno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9f8e36/32.png) [@I.Dunno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I.Dunno)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/42 "2016-01-16T19:51:16Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Now I’m wondering: when gas is burned, what happens to the smelly mercaptans? Stove exhaust doesn’t smell anything like a natural gas leak, so they must be transformed somehow…but into what? Mercaptan is made of carbon, hydrogen and sulfur so it just burns off. It’s added to natural gas in a very minute amount because it is so pungent. It’s actually what is smelled due to flatulence. ---
**Author:** ![I.Dunno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9f8e36/32.png) [@I.Dunno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I.Dunno)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/43 "2016-01-16T20:04:17Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > I rely on Asimov and the gas companies. If you think what I say is wrong, take it up with the utilities; I know the science author is no longer with us. > I am not questioning your statement about a safeguard against an explosion or other disaster, however. I’m not sure what Isaac Asimov has to do with this but I’ll restate what I’ve said before. A properly adjusted burner with adequate oxygen will likely not create carbon monoxide. When that oxygen is reduced (due to a sealed room for example), at some point there is not enough oxygen to continue creating carbon dioxide and instead carbon MONOXIDE is created. That is: one oxygen molecule instead of two bonding with the carbon molecule. I’m a retired HVAC tech with almost 40 years experience. I’m done with this conversation but I think you should convince your mother not to use the stove for heat unless it’s an emergency. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/44 "2016-01-16T23:54:00Z")
> [@I.Dunno](#): > > I’m not sure what Isaac Asimov has to do with this but I’ll restate what I’ve said before. > > A properly adjusted burner with adequate oxygen will likely not create carbon monoxide. When that oxygen is reduced (due to a sealed room for example), at some point there is not enough oxygen to continue creating carbon dioxide and instead carbon MONOXIDE is created. > > That is: one oxygen molecule instead of two bonding with the carbon molecule. > > I’m a retired HVAC tech with almost 40 years experience. I’m done with this conversation but I think you should convince your mother not to use the stove for heat unless it’s an emergency. I am not trying to be argumentative. I have the best intentions in what I say and I assure you I mean only to be positive. 🙂 I quote from Asimov’s _Building Blocks of the Universe,_ 1974 edition (pp. 107-08): “Hydrogen sulfide [which is given off by rotten eggs!] is quite poisonous, even more so than carbon monoxide. It is not as dangerous as carbon monoxide, however, because of its odor. By the time there’s enough of it in the air to do considerable harm, the odor is unendurable. People open the windows or leave altogether. Hydrogen sulfide, in fact, is sometimes deliberately added to cooking gas. When this is done, a gas leak can be smelled at once, and there is less chance that the odorless carbon monoxide will sneak up on you. Mercaptans [the source of a skunk’s smell] are sometimes added and then the odor from a leak is even more noticeable.” (bracketing mine) Certainly even the odor of hydrogen sulfide would drive people to safety long before the presence of leaking gas could trigger an explosion. Thankfully. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/45 "2016-01-17T01:07:30Z")
I think Asimov is wrong on this. CO would be from incomplete combustion, not present in the gas itself. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/46 "2016-01-17T01:25:01Z")
Ask Southern California Gas. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/47 "2016-01-17T01:45:49Z")
Are you talking about the Porter Ranch leak? Where do you see that it is leaking CO? ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/48 "2016-01-17T04:04:15Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > Are you talking about the Porter Ranch leak? Where do you see that it is leaking CO? Heck no! I live maybe 45 miles from there! I don’t even know what kind of gas is leaking there. ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/49 "2016-01-17T09:15:18Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > I think Asimov is wrong on this. CO would be from incomplete combustion, not present in the gas itself. My [post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19021962&postcount=39) is my cite, but you can Google “producer gas” and “water gas” easily for yourself. Before natural gas was widely used, gas made from coal was the standard, including gasification of coke. In the UK there was a big shift circa 1970 as “North Sea Gas” came online. Burners had to be converted to use the new fuel. I don’t know when Asimov was writing, but from context, it must have been before natural gas was widely used. Note that natural gas has to be piped from the source to the home – whereas coal gas can be made from coal that has been shipped by road, rail or sea from the mine to your local gas works. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/50 "2016-01-17T14:11:21Z")
People have a hard time in assessing risk. Too often, people assume that ideal circumstances magically persist. E.g., a perfectly working gas range won’t produce worrisome CO. Accidents often happen from a series of things that individually usually aren’t all that bad. Discounting each one isn’t the same as discounting the overall risk. So your range isn’t doing a perfect burn, the house is tightly sealed because it’s cold and you go to bed with the range on. Sometimes this is fatal. How can you be sure it isn’t in your case? Don’t use the range for heat! Simple solution. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/51 "2016-01-17T15:47:04Z")
The original edition of Asimov’s book was about 1957, by which time natural gas was already in wide use. And FYI, neither of us is foolish enough to go to bed and leave the stove top unattended with burners burning. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145/52 "2016-01-17T16:30:13Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > You may be right, but not on any range I’ve ever seen. Typically the pilot lights have a temperature sensitive shutoff; blow out the pilot light and _the pilot’s gas_ is shut off. That’s the ‘safety mechanism’. You have to hold down a button, light the pilot, and keep it lit long enough for the thermocouple to reopen the safety. > > This doesn’t exist for the gas to the burner. If it did, you would have to go through the same gyrations every time you turned one on. Instead there is a pilot light which will ignite the gas coming out of the burner, or an automatic spark device to do the same. Blow out the pilot or disable the igniter and the control knobs will still let gas come out of the burner, but with nothing to ignite it. That’s the situation the OP has – they light the burners with a match. Bump a knob by accident or mischance and gas comes out, for as long as the knob is tweaked. If no person, and no automatic sustem (pilot, igniter) lights it, gas will accumulate in the building until something else ignites it. Then BOOM. That system would never get past safety regs in Europe. Many years ago, appliances like boilers would have a permanently lit pilot light. If the gas gad to be cut off for some reason, the gas supplier would have to visit every house to make sure that pilot light were switched off. My gas appliances have spark ignition. To light the hob, I have to hold the control down and turn it on, that opens the valve and starts the spark. If I release it too soon, the gas supply is cut off - no pilot. The boiler is fully automatic but works the same way - you can hear the tick tick tick when it cuts in. If my power was cut off, I could light the hob with a match, but the safety still applies - no heat from a flame = no gas to the burner. No power means no gas heating for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stove-burners-room-heating-and-carbon-monoxide/743145.md?page=2)