Red Hot Coals & Carbon Monoxide

[gangsplatt]

So yesterday I had a bunch of red coals in my stove probably 3-4 inches worth and in an effort to be able to put a little more wood in I removed one of the ash buckets worth of the red hot coals and left the bucket of hot coals inside. The stove is in my basement as was the bucket of hot coals. About 2 hours later my digital CO detector on my ground floor went from 0 to a peak of 70, the alarm wasn't sounding but I was starting to get concerned. First thing I did was move the bucket of coals outside (it was raining so I wasn't worried too much about the bucket of coals) and opened up the windows in the basement and opened a few of the windows on the ground floor. After airing the place out the readout was about 35 ppm, so I ran to Lowe's and picked up a second detector by that time I got home the other detector was reading 0 again as was the new one. I had been running the stove since September and 24/7 for the past week and I've never had a draft issue and no smoke was present inside the house. Now if my stove was causing the issue wouldn't I have seen/smelt some smoke? Is it possible issue was caused by the red hot coals? I'm not burning tonight as I'm a bit gun shy to fire her up. Note: the levels have stayed at 0 since the situation but I slept with the CO detector in plain sight and woke up quite frequently during the night to make sure the zero on the display was visible.

 

[bokehman]

Being in an enclosed space with red hot coals is a common form of suicide.

Charcoal-burning suicide

 

[firefighterjake]

So yesterday I had a bunch of red coals in my stove probably 3-4 inches worth and in an effort to be able to put a little more wood in I removed one of the ash buckets worth of the red hot coals and left the bucket of hot coals inside. The stove is in my basement as was the bucket of hot coals. About 2 hours later my digital CO detector on my ground floor went from 0 to a peak of 70, the alarm wasn't sounding but I was starting to get concerned. First thing I did was move the bucket of coals outside (it was raining so I wasn't worried too much about the bucket of coals) and opened up the windows in the basement and opened a few of the windows on the ground floor. After airing the place out the readout was about 35 ppm, so I ran to Lowe's and picked up a second detector by that time I got home the other detector was reading 0 again as was the new one. I had been running the stove since September and 24/7 for the past week and I've never had a draft issue and no smoke was present inside the house. Now if my stove was causing the issue wouldn't I have seen/smelt some smoke? Is it possible issue was caused by the red hot coals? I'm not burning tonight as I'm a bit gun shy to fire her up. Note: the levels have stayed at 0 since the situation but I slept with the CO detector in plain sight and woke up quite frequently during the night to make sure the zero on the display was visible.

More than likely it was the hot coals left inside that caused the CO levels to rise and not the stove . . . airing out the place was the right thing to do.

However, in the future I would buy a covered metal container and when you remove the coals, place them in the pail, cover, and then take them outside away from any combustible material (i.e. not on a covered porch, in the garage, sitting in a pile of dead grass, etc.)

 

[WoodMann]

Being in an enclosed space with red hot coals is a common form of suicide.

Charcoal-burning suicide

Hmmm, I'm gonna hafta remember that one...............

 

[derecskey]

Local couple just died of that. (broken link removed)

Last person to see them alive was my and my folks' electrician. He was working at my parents place the day they were discovered.