Wood stove and oxygen therapy

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Jesepi

New Member
Nov 19, 2021
56
NW Pennsylvania
I am on oxygen therapy at night. My Blaze King is in the living room and thats where I sleep also. I am about 10 feet away from the stove. In your all opinion is that safe ?
Thanks.
 
Personally, I would ask your doctor about this. Unless someone on here has detailed knowledge of how oxygen therapy works, of course. Let us know what the doctor says, I’d be curious. I hope it all works out.
 
Thinking the question is more about the open valve on the oxygen tank next to the stove. Also the therapy likely involves a purposeful venting of oxygen into the patient and/or the space.

Certainly not a BK specific question.
 
Agreed! Once your MD provides guidance, please post here. Although no one here would provide medical advice, experience of others is what this site is about.

BKVP
 
Quick search returned this.
I feel that concentrators have small risk than canisters/tanks.

Personally as long as I and the machine/tank was at least 10 feet away I would ok. I would personally make an exclusion zone (furniture,tape, correct length of tubing ect) so I would never approach the stove while O2 was running.

Understand that should any fire breakout your risks are much greater because there is more oxygen available.

 
When I was working in people's homes we tried to use flame arrestors in the oxygen tubing for smokers and woodstoves. I got quite a few hits when I internet searched on "medical oxygen flame arrestor."

It has been a while, but the ones we were installing would not only arrest the flame but also close off the flow of oxygen through the tubing. I think we were paying $25-30 each for those, but we were buying fairly large quantities. I would not suggest ordering a case because probably all the product in the case will have the same expiration date on the packaging. Something 3-6 months service life for each flame arrestor, not something you have to replace every week.

You might also search on youtube, I recall one of the products we used over the years had a marketing video embedded on their corporate page but hosted on youtube.

Besides your doc, you might poke around to see if you can find an RT, a respiratory therapist local to you, and ask your home medical equipment supplier what their policy is. You might also call your local fire chief.

At the end of the day you are managing risk. Having a woodstove in all of our homes is a risk. Having oxygen therapy going on with any open flame, whether it is cigarettes or a natural gas water heater in the basement is some risk.

Other parts of the risk/benefit analysis are how high (not asking) is your oxygen flow? 2 liters per minute? 12 liters per minute? How about air turnovers within your home? 1 turnover per hour, 1 turnover per day?

At the end of the day there are plenty people out there smoking in bed while intoxicated and on oxygen. That to me is pretty much asking to become a statistic.

Any road, do your due diligence, talk it over with your doc and take responsibility for your choice.
 
My experience when asking a fire chief or department anything always results in an ultra conservative answer. You say oxygen source near a flame and they say no. Even as they cook over a gas flame. They always want a zillion fire hydrants every 10 feet. Their world is slanted.
 
Anecdotal experiences. My grandmother had a small oxygen tank and she wouldn't step foot in my parents home for holiday meals if a fire was burning or even if there was a single coal still left in it. Even if the stove was 60ft away at the other end of the house. "Because her doctor said so". Not sure if that was overly conservative advice or actual truth based on facts.

My neighbor has one of the oxygen devices that makes its own oxygen. She sits right next to the wood stove until about June. But she is the type that would continue to do so even if doctor told her not to.

Talk to your doctor, read the manual for your equipment and reach out to the fire department for guidance.