Buy Yourself A CO2 Detector.

[Swervin]

Buy yourself and family a CO Detector for Christmas.

This tragedy occurred on the 01DEC08.
CO kills four people. The Hawkins family, husband, wife, 14 year old daughter, 12 year old son all killed by CO.
Read article and please go out and buy one.

Swervin

Tragedy shines light on need
Posted By Bruce Urquhart, STAFF WRITER
Updated 2 days ago


OXFORD - Oxford MPP Ernie Hardeman has already mailed letters to the province's municipal and community safety ministers as part of his new campaign to make carbon monoxide detectors mandatory in all Ontario homes.

Referring to the recent deaths of Oxford OPP Const. Laurie Hawkins and her family, who were victims of carbon monoxide poisoning, Hardeman said the provincial government needed to pass legislation that could help prevent similar tragedies in the future. Hardeman said his office was already drafting the framework for a private member's bill that mirrored the 2006 legislation that made smoke detectors mandatory in Ontario homes.

"We've already started the process," Hardeman said Tuesday. "When a tragedy unfolds like that, you immediately look at ways you can avoid (the circumstances) in the future.

"We also hope to raise awareness through government channels of the dangers of not having one. We need to get that message out."

While the Ontario building code does require new residential homes with fuel-burning appliances to install carbon monoxide detector, the requirement is not retroactive, meaning homes built prior to the code's 1992 revision are exempt.

"The problem is, it only applies to new buildings," the Oxford MPP said.

Calling carbon monoxide an "invisible killer," Hardeman suggested many Ontarians were not prepared for a gas leak or similar danger.

While most Ontarians cannot envision a home without a smoke detector on every level, Hardeman suggested the same attitude did not extend to carbon monoxide detectors. The Oxford MPP admitted he only recently purchased a carbon monoxide detector after doing some work to his home's furnace.

"(But) you can sit there by the fireplace and not realize you're being asphyxiated," Hardeman said.

Household carbon monoxide detectors, which use a "concentration-time" function to sense the accumulation of the lethal gas, are relatively inexpensive, typically ranging from $30 to $60. Because carbon monoxide gas is colourless and odourless, and its symptoms initially mimic the flu, individuals suffering from poisoning often don't suspect the real cause.

"These tragedies are never envisioned to happen," Hardeman said.

[metalredneck]

Uumm, not to be too prickish, but CO is carbon monoxide, CO2 is carbon dioxide. One kills much faster than the other.

[Swervin]

carbon monoxide, opps sorry, corrected

[Malks]

That was a terrible tragedy. I would have thought that these things were mandatory already, just like smoke detectors. They are not that expensive and they may save your life. We have had a CO detector for years and I don't think I could sleep very well without one in the house.

[Rocking Couple]

Also, what many people do not realise (and your words Malks, when you said you had one for 'years', jumped right out at me) is that CO detectors wear out in a surprisingly short period of time. A unit should be tested for effectiveness every year. Many are not to be trusted before they are even 2 years old!

I am saying this also from personal experience with 2 of them. One at my own home and one I bought for Mom's place.

Just so ya know.

Wishing you guys a safe and happy/healthy holiday season, by the way.

[Malks]

Also, what many people do not realise (and your words Malks, when you said you had one for 'years', jumped right out at me) is that CO detectors wear out in a surprisingly short period of time. A unit should be tested for effectiveness every year. Many are not to be trusted before they are even 2 years old!

I am saying this also from personal experience with 2 of them. One at my own home and one I bought for Mom's place.

Just so ya know.

Wishing you guys a safe and happy/healthy holiday season, by the way.
RC, thanks for the reminder. I am not sure how to test a CO detector, so I think I will just go get a new one as a Christmas present for the house.

[Rocking Couple]

You're welcome Malks.
I'm not sure of an exact test method myself, but can tell you how I discovered ours were faulty. Or at least thought they were faulty. Since then have read their lifespan is only a couple of years or so. I retried the test with mine in the 2nd year and it failed to warn.

First time I hooked it up (winter, and I heat with wood) after about only an hour or so of putting ashes out of stove in a pail (my usual routine every few days)
later, upstairs, I hear this fairly quiet beep-beep, beep-beep; about every 15 seconds or so. It toke me a while to figure out what it was because I guess the TV was overriding it a little. Anyway, of course it's the new detector. So I reread the directions and decide that this one is maybe too sensitive because there was no reason (in my mind at the time) for it to be even giving out a 'preliminary type warning'. On full blown alarm, you would hear it over other things easily. I go down to the wood stove, check around etc and go back upstairs. It has me puzzled. There were no other changes to my routine, the house or anything else. So I let it beep beep for a few hours, and it never gets worse, so I unplug it deciding to deal with it the next day. Next morning comes, I plug it in, 20 min later, it's doing the beep beep thing again. So I'm downstairs bringing in more wood etc. I reach down to pick up the ash pail to take out to dump at the edges of my road which discourages moles and mice from burrowing, and it hits me. I wonder? So of course that ended up being the source. Once the pail was outside, it took about an hour or so and the CO detector had cleared itself.

So I was impressed with how sensitive it was and yet felt a bit foolish for being so unaware of this non-vented little sub fire I had going on for years, anytime I cleared ashes.

There was never any smoke, or smell of course.

[TimP]

I've had a CO detector in my house for a few years (will check the date and consider replacement - thanks). It's on the ceiling just outside the furnace room, and I never heard a peep out of it, didn't even know what the alarm sounded like.

One Friday night in January last year I went to bed and fell asleep. At 12:30 am I awoke to loud beep-beep-beeping intermingled with the distant strains of some weirdly garbled digital voice alarm I'd never heard before. As I made my way downstairs I became aware of the message "CARBON MONOXIDE - BEEP - BEEP - BEEP - MONOXIDE DE CARBON", etc. It was indeed the CO detector. Everything seemed fine, the boiler was operating apparently normally and nothing seemed amiss. I turned off the boiler, opened the basement windows, and noticed I was being very cautious in my breathing and almost subconsciously monitoring my body for "signs of distress" (mostly caused by being scared shitless by this unseen, unsensed enemy). Then I went upstairs and called the gas company's emergency call number.

Around 2 am this "dude" showed up. Guess I got him out of bed. He's more than grumpy, especially since he can't find a problem. Everything seems to be in working order. False alarm. So, to make his trip worthwhile, he starts examining my boiler and gas hot water heater, both of which were upgraded a year earlier during some minor renovations. Seems they're not to code.

Well, they were up to the code that existed when they were installed, but the code has apparently changed. No, I wouldn't have been notified, Dude says. It's my responsibility to keep the premises up to code, not theirs... Dude proceeds to apply "red tags" both the boiler and the water heater. Shuts them off completely. In January. It's -15°C and the house, heatless for just over an hour, is cooling. Sorry, he doesn't do repairs, I have to call my Service Provider to arrange fixes. So I do. No crews are available until Monday for such a "minor repair".

What is the nature of these "minor repairs" (remember that everything was peachy - or so I thought - until the alarm went off)? The freshly installed water heater exhaust is too close to the heat recovery ventilator intake, and the furnace room door needs a pair of grill vents to let in fresh air (likely the cause of the alarm in the first place). Dude agrees there's no real risk, but he's just doing his job.

"What should I do?" I ask. "I suggest you get out some blankets" he helpfully replies. I suggest that this seems unacceptable given the weather and the "minor" adjective everyone agrees is an appropriate measure of the real risk. He suggests I call his supervisor, so I do, and she helpfully suggests "you get out some blankets". Are they reading from a script?

I get through the weekend with a single measly portable electric heater (which follows me wherever I go) and on Monday morning a repair tech shows up. He can't understand what all the fuss was about, but happily quotes an astounding $736.70 to fix the problems. But he can't do it today. What he CAN do is turn the heat back on as soon as I take the furnace room door off its hinges, thereby ensuring fresh air to the boiler.

But wait, it's not so simple. I can't just pull the hinge pins because it would be too easy to rehang the door. I have to remove the hinge screws from the door frame, thereby rendering the defeat of the fresh air edict an insurmountable task (!). I can't imagine how difficult it will be to drive those six screws back in as I'm turning them out.

He tells me to install two grills in the door (this takes me 90 minutes and $12, including my trip to the hardware store to buy the grills) and says he or someone else will be back sometime later in the week to extend the water heater exhaust. Then I have to provide the Dude's Headquarters with proof the work has been done, or I'll be in big trouble. On cue, the fax machine and the mailman start spewing written warnings of the consequences of my flagrant violations, and I start getting phone calls from Dude Headquarters insisting I provide proof of repair. This harassment goes on for literally weeks after the work has been completed (for the bargain price of only $470.40 since I did the $12 grills myself), but finally everyone is satisfied with the state of my gas appliance infrastructure. Except me. I'm out almost $500 and I now have a large diameter beige pipe stuck out the side of my house, right beside the front door, nicely harmonized with the red brick. Yuck!

Fast forward to this Fall, home-heating start-up time. I fire up the boiler and it runs fine. Two weeks into the season, the alarm goes off again. Yes, in spite of past experiences, I shut things down and made the call. Wouldn't you?

[New & reborn Priest]

Tim is damn good with a yarn. You could say that he ought to be writing for a public, but he already is...

That scenario could not have played here in the Wild West. For starters, 'Dude' does not exist here. He certainly doesn't get out of bed at anytime before he regularly will. There is a powerful feeling that bureaucratic interference ("fuckin' desk-jockeys!") should be stamped on wherever it dares to emerge. Cockroaches likewise.

When I built this house between 2002 and 2004, codes were just being heard about. Inspectors were just then trying to sell their services with straight faces. I had one, one only - who arrived on the invitation of the guy with the backhoe who dug out the big hole which became the basement - and he stayed only long enough that he could tolerate my ignoring him. While staring pointedly at his brand-new boots.

It helped that I didn't have to go to the bank for building money. So I was able to let it be known that 'permit merchants' had a choice between the .410 and the 12-gauge. I myself preferred the small bore because the cartridges were cheaper. It does a good job with magpies and coyotes.

So I will probably gas us in our beds before this winter is over. (There is a vague rotten-eggs smell downstairs as I write.) Since you guys have brought up the subject and discussed it, I will get more worried about it later today. But bringing a fresh air tube in through a hole the wall to the boiler looks better to me than have some snotty voice on the phone tell me to get out more blankets...

Dostoevski said about the Russian people in the nineteenth century that they were kissing the lash. Is that what the eleven million of you poor bastards are doing?

[Ancient Priest]

I went out and bought one. (CTC - $54.) Detects everything that a canary would die of...

And today I'll hang it between the water hotter and the hydronic boiler.

And if it starts its beeping, should I blast it with a shotgun?

(Thanks for the heads-up, Swerv: you may have prolonged a useless life.)

[Ivor biggin]

North Bay council unanimously adopted a motion on Monday that would require detectors to be installed in all homes in the city by Jan. 1, 2010. The council acknowledged the province is moving forward with legislation to address the issue.
I.B.

[Canada Dan]

Great nudge Swervin', reading this thread reminded me of an incident at work last winter.

I was passing through Spirit River and stopped at the Esso service station / convenience store to grab some lunch. After being in the store for a couple of minutes the monitor that was clipped to my coveralls started to beep and flash. Surprised, I quickly grabbed it and saw that it was reading CO - can't remember what concentration. ( It has four heads - H2S, LEL, O2 and CO) I silenced it and did a quick zero calibration on it and carried on with my purchases.

As I left the shop and approached my pick-up I noticed the monitor was now reading the exact opposite reading (negative). I did another calibration and re-entered the shop only to have it alarm again!

I asked to speak with the manager and told her of the situation. She immediatley took me to the attached garage area and spoke with the shop forman. He said that they hadn't been running any of the cars in the shop but that one of the mechanics had left a short time ago complaining of a headache.

I checked around with the monitor and found that an overhead heater was the source of the CO. They shut the gas supply off to it and I was on my way.

I had never had a CO alarm with this monitor other than when standing next to the exhaust of the pick-up. This, together with the embarrassment factor of being in a store with several other customers and a monitor flashing and beeping on my chest caused me to think it was simply malfunctioning.

I just went downstairs and changed the batteries in ours, thanks for that.

Merry Christmas Everyone!
Dan