Birds Nest in Pipe - Possible Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

[UpStateNY]

Well I stated up my Pellet Stove for the first time this season like I always do. I did a complete end of season cleaning in the spring. Last week I put the leaf blower to the the exhaust part of the stove from the inside out. I I did not check the pipe outside. Big mistake.

So tonight I decide to startup the pellet stove for its 10th season without fully checking the exhaust pipe. I started smelling slight smoke and the stove sound was slightly different. I figured it was burning off some dust. Well 30 minute later still slight order of smoke a little stronger. Decide to go outside in dark. to check the pipe. There it was a birds nest in the end of the pipe. Shut down stove. Pull what I could see of the birds next out. I notice I have a slight head ache . BIG RED FLAG NOW GOES OFF. Head ache is a symptom of Carbon Monoxide poising.

Tell the wife we got open all the windows and doors and put a fan in the door way to get air flow. to remove any possibility of Carbon Monoxide before we go to bed. BTW Carbon Monoxide takes 5 hour to leave your blood stream with high flow O2. and longer without the O2. It is not something you can be too careful about. Currently the house windows and doors are now closed and propane furnace is warming the house after it went down to 59 degrees.

MAKE SURE YOU CHECK YOUR PIPE FOR BIRDS NESTS

 

[kappel15]

Good lesson or all. Cleaning exhaust path means all the way from stove to end. kap

 

[JRemington]

Another lesson is to always have a smoke and CO detector. Where in Upstate NY are you? I’m an hour North of Syracuse

 

[rickwai]

I always run a brush thru vent before starting in the fall. Birds are a pain.

 

[rona]

This fall I had a customer who had a huge mud dauber or wasp nests in the exh system. Seen birds and mice plug it but never wasps before.

 

[cparts]

Please... everybody.... get a CO monitor near your stoves.

 

[FirepotPete]

All great advise, I will add to also check your fresh air supply. Years ago our furnace wouldn't run properly even though we had it serviced a couple of weeks before needing to use it. Turned out one of the kids (could have been ours or their friends) put a small ball in the PVC pipe for the high efficiency furnace. They even pushed the bug screen further into the pipe.

After that we put the screen between a coupling so it couldn't move and put a cap on it in the off season.

Furnace rumbled like it was going to blow up!

 

[JRemington]

I’m estimating 40 percent of the homes we go in don’t have working CO detectors.

 

[bill3rail]

Need to change battery on CO/Smoke detector! NOW!

Thank you for the warning.

Bill

 

[tlc1976]

I use a CO detector with a realtime readout. One by the gas appliances in the basement, and one near the pellet stove on the main floor. They last 10 years before needing to be replaced. I don't take any chances anymore since the furnace in my old house almost killed me. No headache or anything but it just looked like dirt was being filled in over my eyes as the oxygen to my brain depleted. I immediately knew what was going on and went outside in a February snowstorm and ran laps up and down the driveway to try to exchange as much fresh air into my lungs and blood as possible, phone in hand in case I needed to call 911. Went back in and shut down furnace and opened windows, had to go outside and run again. Then went back in and turned on fans and went back outside for awhile. Waited up all night because wasn't sure when it was safe to go back to sleep. Good to know about the 5 hour thing, I had tried calling the Health Access line for our local hospital and they couldn't tell me anything. I shut the furnace down permanently until I replaced it years later, that's when I started exclusively burning wood. My furnace installer told me that those old horizontal ambient vented furnaces killed people and they were outlawed in the 80s. Got very lucky it was 1 AM and I was up on the computer not sleeping and my daughter wasn't here for the weekend.

 

[UpStateNY]

Yes I agree on the CO detector. Good advice!!
The one we have at the bottom of the stairs did not go off. I changed the batteries. I am part of local volunteer fire department. Many CO detectors made a few years ago were defective back when it was required by law and everyone had to buy one. . Our fire department got a lot of false calls for CO detector going off but the FD CO accurate monitor indicated no problem. This is fine but I always wondered what if the CO defect was the other way when it should have alarmed and didn't. Anyway I am going to go and buy a new CO detector with a high rating. Since I have seen a number of defective CO detectors, personally I do not trust the CO detectors to save the lives of my family but there better than not having one at all.

BTW my fire department does get a lot of calls for the CO going off when there really was a CO problem. Usually its a blocked chimney in the fall.