Carbon Monoxide

[Gervase]

The beastie that I got is here

Tesco is doing the same model at the same price at the moment. It has a seven-year guarantee.
If you've got any sort of combustion heating in the house you'd be daft not to get one. Daft or possessed of an unhealthy obsession with Émile Zola.

 

[biffvernon]

I've always assumed that my tendency to drop off to sleep on the sofa in front of an open fire was usually the result of red wine,

A safe assumption. Alcohol-related deaths in the UK are running at about 9000 per year while CO deaths are about 50 per year.

Being one of the 9000 may have been more fun that being one of the 50.

 

[Onetap]

I've often wondered about the CO risk with open fires but have always assumed there isn't one because they can't have the flow of air to them regulated (assuming the house is not airtight) and thus can never burn in an oxygen-restricted environment - unlike stoves and other heating 'applicances'.

Is this a dangerous assumption?

It is an assumption, that there is a free flow of make-up air and that there is an unrestricted flow up the chimney for the combustion products. You'd get CO spillage if that assumption became untrue; fixed ventilation blocked, flue blocked (birds' nests, masonry dislodged, soot build-up) etc.. CO detectors are quite cheap.

Also, please not that a smoke alarm is NOT a CO alarm. Smoke detectors detect particles; CO is an invisible gas and you can get CO spillage without smoke. There was an incident in a hotel (just looked it up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Grand_fire ) in which a number of guests were killed by CO & other toxic gases spread by the ventilation system. Any smoke particles had been removed by the filtration system and the smoke detectors weren't activated.

There was also an incident in the UK in which someone was killed by CO from an electric heater. The details weren't published and I assumed that the gas had been given off by dust or lint on the heater element. ISTR that It was ruled that the accident could not have been forseen by a person of average competence and the prosecution of the installer was dropped.

 

[Flyfisher]

I've always assumed that my tendency to drop off to sleep on the sofa in front of an open fire was usually the result of red wine,

A safe assumption. Alcohol-related deaths in the UK are running at about 9000 per year while CO deaths are about 50 per year.

Indeed. Even lightning seems to strike about 49 people per year. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V95-42BTKBJ-T&_user=10&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F2001&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1608215890&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8c3bd280f4a475279864be83df1e96a3
Perhaps I should have purchased a breathalyser machine and a lightning conductor as well. :lol:

Perception of risk is a funny thing. As the chauffeur who used to drive me to the airport on regular business trips used to remark on arrival, "well, that's the most dangerous part of your trip safely over".

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Perception of risk is a funny thing. As the driver who used to take me to the airport on regular business trip used to remark on arrival, "well, that's the most dangerous part of your trip safely over".

I once had a pilot who said the reverse as we reached a stop by the terminal "Thanks for flying with us, and the best of luck with the most dangerous part of your journeys".

 

[LadyArowana]

Perception of risk is a funny thing. As the driver who used to take me to the airport on regular business trip used to remark on arrival, "well, that's the most dangerous part of your trip safely over".

I once had a pilot who said the reverse as we reached a stop by the terminal "Thanks for flying with us, and the best of luck with the most dangerous part of your journeys".

Don't they say that most accidents happen at home and most people are murdered by someone they know ?....... so maybe the key to a long life is to go out and then ignore everyone you meet, I'm not sure it would be a lot of fun though :lol:

 

[d49xc]

From the list copied above of everyday items which are CO producers.......
Running a modern car in a garage is unlikely to do you much damage.
The Catalytic convertor will remove most of the CO - which is why we don't hear of so many people committing sucide by gassing themselves in their cars these days.

 

[skier-hughes]

I think I put this in the last thread as well, but our CO detector went off in the middle of the night a few months back.

Jo's office wood burner had been lit during the day, burning nicely, keeping her very warm. Come the night the fire was allowed to burn down naturally.
Also during the night the winds really picked up, so much so that although the fire looked out it was still very warm and obviously producing gases, the wind was in such a direction that it caused a downdraught, blowing the gases into her room and set off the detector.

Will those particular circumstances ever meet again?

I don't know, but at least we are here to see!!!

 

[Penners]

possessed of an unhealthy obsession with Émile Zola.

In order to emulate Monsieur Zola's passing, one would presumably have to pee off a roofing contractor quite severely.

 

[philpjuk100]

, my own death doesn't bother me that much.

It is not always fatal,we have friends who survived CO poisoning thanks to summoning help on a bedside phone but are still suffering from head/lung problems several years after.(we now have CO detectors!) take care,phil.

 

[Penners]

my own death doesn't bother me that much.

It is not always fatal

I don't want to sound picky, Phil, but I think you'll find that death is invariably fatal.

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol:

But I take Phil's point. I really must get one of these alarms, and in the meantime am peeling the duvets and cardboard off the windows, it's become warm, and damp, in here - we need some draughts.

 

[Penners]

I really must get one of these alarms

Yes, yes, yes.... today!

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: Spent this week's house-keeping on new velvet dress. Wednesday. xx

 

[Penners]

Spent this week's house-keeping on new velvet dress.

I'm guessing that you're female, then. :roll:

 

[Onetap]

There was also an incident in the UK in which someone was killed by CO from an electric heater. The details weren't published and I assumed that the gas had been given off by dust or lint on the heater element. ISTR that It was ruled that the accident could not have been forseen by a person of average competence and the prosecution of the installer was dropped.

And I assumed wrong; I Find I usually do with assumptions.

I had a search on the net for that incident and found the details below, shaelessly copied and pasted.
Someone on that thread also stated that cast iron becomes porous to CO at high temperatures and Zola was killed by fumes passing through the wall of his stoked-up stove.

"This was a 10kW storage heater (made up of nine heating elements - selectable for heat demand), with both off-peak and continuous mains supplies connected.
Cast iron core temperature was controlled at 660 degs C by thermostat, in series with;
a safety thermal trip (manual reset), set to 740 degs C.
A final safety feature was three thermal fuses, each controlling a section of the heater bank. These fuses were located in the outer casing of the heater and would have opened at 202 degs C.

Failure mode was;
Thermostat AND thermal trip had both failed closed (ON). That is assumed to have caused an overheat situation which had opened all three thermal fuses and rendered the heating inoperable.
The repair in question had been completed by shorting out the three thermal fuses with fusewire.
Following that repair, the heater was put back into service.
Unknown at the time was the fact that the off-peak timeswitch had an intermittent fault whereby instead of providing power for just seven hours overnight, it occasionally stayed powered for over 79 hours.
All the above elements combined to keep full power on the heater bank in all probability for over 79 hours .
That caused the cast iron heater core to reach a temperature in excess of 1100 degress C. So hot that the core had melted in places. HSE scientists advise that at these elevated temperatures, the carbon composition in cast iron can part oxidise to create carbon monoxide. They estimated that up to 600g of carbon had been lost from the core in that way. (About ten times the amount needed to create a lethal concentration of CO in the flat.)"

 

[Flyfisher]

The repair in question had been completed by shorting out the three thermal fuses with fusewire.

Not exactly a like-for-like repair.

But what an unlikely tragedy, requiring FIVE separate components to fail and/or be badly repaired and, even then, requiring the actual cast iron to decompose to form the deadly carbon monoxide. Very, very sad.

 

[Lime]

The repair in question had been completed by shorting out the three thermal fuses with fusewire.

Not exactly a like-for-like repair.

But what an unlikely tragedy, requiring FIVE separate components to fail and/or be badly repaired and, even then, requiring the actual cast iron to decompose to form the deadly carbon monoxide. Very, very sad.

It is not uncommon for thermostats to fail closed.
I have never known a thermal fuse fail to operate correctly.
(that is why they are fitted)
Thermal fuses only operate (melt) if they get too hot!!!
to replace them with fuse wire is a major risk, of fire in particular.

 

[AMc]

We've had CO alarms since our now retired oil boiler was shown to be puking out poisonous gas by the engineer who came to bring it back to life.
The first one was mains powered with a 3 pin plug with a built in rechargeable battery backup and never went off but was tested regularly until the boiler was removed - I then passed it on to someone else with oil heating.

The stove in the front room has its own battery powered CO alarm and also has a battery powered smoke alarm - neither of which have gone off by accident despite the wood burner. As that stove has leaky doors and a big crack I thought it prudent.
There is a battery smoke alarm at the top of the stairs fitted when we first moved in.

Building control demanded mains powered interlinked alarms with battery back up in all the bits we renewed.
The CO alarm in the vinery has never gone off - the heat alarm (not smoke) in the linked kitchen hasn't gone off either but they test OK when I remember.

If you find your smoke alarm is going off you might want to look into heat alarms. We have a woodburner and an LPG cooker in open plan rooms we were told we needed a non-smoke fire detector. This doesn't go off when I burn the toast unlike the smoke alarms fitted in the previous house

I would get proper ceiling mounted mains smoke/CO/heat alarms wired into the lighting circuit so that it's a real job of work to disable the alarm and you have to worry less about the batteries going flat.

 

[Penners]

what an unlikely tragedy, requiring FIVE separate components to fail and/or be badly repaired and, even then, requiring the actual cast iron to decompose to form the deadly carbon monoxide. Very, very sad.

Sad, indeed. And it confirms the absolute imperative of fitting a CO alarm in your home. The chances of suffering an almost incredible sequence of problems like that must be millions-to-one against.

But it happened to someone.