Carbon Monoxide

[EatenByLimestone]

I got my Grandfather's riding lawn mower working today.

Later on I got a call that an alarm was going off in the house. I went over and it was the CO detector. I just thought it was old so I went to WMT to buy a new one.

When I put it up the alarm sounded again.

Too much of a coincidence so I called the guys with the big truck and pretty lights.

There was CO in the house. They checked out the boiler in the basement and it was running fine. The only other thing it could have been was the lawnmower. Water heater was electric.

My grandfather had been running it (It was running rough.) with the doors to the garage open before I came over to play with it.

Please be careful guys. It would have been easy to consider it a fluke and ignore the alarm. Many of us are screwing with lawnmowers, splitters and generators trying to get them back in working condition for the summer.

Matt

 

[mayhem]

This is precisely why basements should not be used as garages. Ever. I know its convenient, but a garage should not be underneath a house...it should be adjacent, preferably detached with a walkway or something.

Just my $0.02.

Glad everything turned out ok.

 

[Stevebass4]

out of stupidity i did the same last night - working on one of my snow blowers and had it running in the basement for maybe ten minutes around 9:00 pm - CO alarm was going off at 2:00 am reading 50 ( i think that's 50 parts per million or something) anyway open the windows and doors to air the place out and everything is good now

wont do that again

 

[stee6043]

Your wives should have been screaming long before the CO detector! I'd never think to run any of my toys in my basement.....aside from the CO it's got to smell the place up a bit?

 

[Stevebass4]

i'm bachelor so i can pretty much do anything i want.. even try to kill myself

 

[firefighterjake]

Your wives should have been screaming long before the CO detector! I'd never think to run any of my toys in my basement.....aside from the CO it's got to smell the place up a bit?

HehHeh . . . my wife is always telling me I stink when I come inside after running the chainsaw, snowmobile, etc. . . . pretty much any two-stroke engine . . . and these are all outdoors.

 

[colebrookman]

And it gets worst with winter power outages. Start the generator in the attached garage, leave the door partially open and go back in the house. Pull the CO detectors batteries because they must be faulty and you can't sleep with the noise. Go to bed and an entire family is dead. Calls to local police for a well being check, they call fire to open locked door and Check the news, happens often and everywhere. These are not stupid people but, like us, are human and make a fatal mistake. Be safe.
Ed

 

[mayhem]

Its interesting how poeple always assume that because the CO detector is going off that it must be defective or old? If its going off you gotta open a damn window and get out of the house for a bit...maybe call for help or something.

 

[colebrookman]

Its interesting how poeple always assume that because the CO detector is going off that it must be defective or old? If its going off you gotta open a damn window and get out of the house for a bit...maybe call for help or something.

Exactly. If the smoke detector goes off they usually call the fire dept. If the Co detector goes off they often will just pull the batteries and curse. Co is not detectable with our normal senses so it must be wrong. Happens often when the batteries chirp and need replacing. It's the "it won't happen to me" syndrome which may be okay if you live alone and like to live life on the edge, but to place your family at risk is unconscionable. Be safe.
Ed

 

[billb3]

The only time mine has gone off, the battery was dead.
New battery and take it out to the truck tail pipe and test it.
Which doesn't work too well, but at least I know zero is now zero.

 

[chelmbold]

This reminds me of a news story from last winter where a few friends were renovating a home and were running a generator in the basment to run heaters. Long story short they didn't wake up the next morning.

 

[ribs1]

Spend the night in a hyperbaric chamber and you will have much more respect for CO.
It's bad news folks. My college roommate and I were almost killed because of a cracked heat exchanger on the crappy furnace in our apartment.
I have CO detectors everywhere now including the camper. When that thing goes off, you call the gas company no matter what. (they have the serious detection equipment.

 

[jdinspector]

I don't go anywhere without my trusty Toxi-Rae III. Seriously. I wear it at work and most places in public. It goes off pretty frequently. Weird times like when I start my truck, but then goes back to 0 in a minute or two. But also at restaurants, parking lots. It's very sensitive and seems accurate. I have a calibration kit (bought it for work), so can calibrate to 50 ppm CO whenever I want.

CO is bad stuff. I'm amazed that everybody doesn't have a CO detector at home.