Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

[HoosierBuddy]

Hey guys...post title says it all. I just wanted to share some thoughts about Carbon Monoxide and what we need to know about it to stay safe. Hope to hear others thoughts as well.

Carbon Monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas commonly formed by the incomplete combustion of a carbon based fuel (like gasoline, propane, natural gas, wood, coal, etc) with air. It is flamable in high enough concentrations (ever see the movie "BackDraft"?) but that is not it's chief danger.

Carbon Monixide is toxic to humans (and most or all animals as well) as it is absorbed by the blood in place of oxygen and will prevent the blood from being able to carry oxygen. Light exposures may lead to a headache, nausea, blurred vision, lethargy, etc. Heavier doeses can lead to coma, paralysis and death. In high enough concentrations, CO can kill a human in less than a minute.

If you suspect you (or someone else) is suffering from CO poisoning call 911 and seek medical assistance. While a fire department (or your local gas company) may be able to check your house for CO, the only way to know for sure if you have been exposed is to go have your blood tested. In other words, just because the Fire Department's detector doesn't find any CO when they come check, doesn't mean that an hour ago you didn't get a lung-full of it.

Carbon Monoxide detectors are available (at places like Walmart) and provide a good bit of comfort to know if you have CO in your home. I personally prefer the one's with a digital readout compared to the ones that are just like a smoke alarm. Also, I like the plug in ones, as the battery operated ones start going off when the battery gets low leading to a lot of angst by those that own them.

The biggest dangers you are likely to run into in your garage due to carbon monoide are improperly installed appliances (i.e. forgot to install the flue?), faulty heating equipment (cracked heat exchanger), wrong heating equipment (heating your garage with a grill for instance) OR RUNNING A VEHICLE without proper ventilation. I've also read accounts of generators being run inside a garage and causing deadly CO issues.

Something I've noticed is that older cars with carburetors put out one hell of a lot more CO then modern EFI cars...but you can't probably count on that because even an EFI car could have a fault that would cause it to put out a lot more CO than it should.

Besides being a threat in the garage itself, CO can migrate to other attached areas of a home or building and harm someone there.

So...be careful out there. The last thing any of us want to do is poison ourselves or our families. It's a dangerous deal and kills people every year.

I personally don't have a CO detector in my garage...but I do have one in the bonus room above it. I'm curious how many people have CO detectors in their garages and if they do...is that working for you?

Phil

 

[6768rogues]

My Man Cave in another town is attached to a storage building. Even running a snow blower for a minute or two to get it outside registers on the CO detector in the cave, and the two structures are well separated. Not enough to sound the detector, but enough to register on the digital display. I usually push things outside to start them up.

 

[cowboyjosh]

I have a Carbon Monoxide detector in my garage its tied into the security and fire alarm and rings in as a SUPERVISORY alarm, that way if the Garage CO2 alarm trips the alarm company will call and verify before automatically dispatching the Fire Department like they would if they received a Carbon Monoxide alarm drop from inside the house. I also have a bonus room over the garage and it also has a monitored Carbon Monoxide alarm wired into the alarm system.

There was a story out of Ohio last week where a State Trooper and his wife died as a result of them running a portable generator in their attached garage during a power outage.

 

[rickairmedic]

Cowboy the sad part is the State trooper has most likely or one of his fellow officers has pulled people out of a house with carbon monoxide poisening.


Phil thanks for posting this it is honestly scary how many customers I ask and how many say no they dont have one . ( Even firemen and Police ) . I agree a unit with a digital readout that plugs in is what I recomend to all of my customers . I actually have an area on my invoices for " recomendations " and that is the first thing I write on every invoice . People die everyday from Carbon monoxide poisening . I also recomend to my customers that they put the units in their master bedroom or the nearest hallway . Most folks think they are supposed to put them near the furnace/water heater and that is the wrong location to put them .


Rick

 

[bkg]

having been treated for this recently w/ a 26 hour stay in the hospital on 100% O2, I can say it *****. Check your CO meters often. Mine was apparently busted.

 

[c39er]

having been treated for this recently w/ a 26 hour stay in the hospital on 100% O2, I can say it *****. Check your CO meters often. Mine was apparently busted.

At least you were not in the De- Compressiom chamber It *****-BIG time!
A boating incedent..

 

[AmickRacing]

I went to some CO training (along with combustion tuning for furnaces and boilers)... some mighty interesting stuff they are finding out about this stuff!

Pure O2 is actually bad for you if you are CO poisoned. Your body needs a bit of CO2 to help you absorb the oxygen and flush the CO out.

CO has a half life of 4 hours. You get 32 ppm in you, in 4 hours you'll have 16, 4 hours later 8 etc.

Hyperbolic chamber is the best treatment if you do get nailed though.

They are finding out that there's a lot of diseases that are related to CO poisoning too, like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's to name a few.

You're body will actually produce a very very small amount of CO, it helps it with you're memory.

Exerting yourself will make you go down faster (duh eh? lol), along with being very young or old.

Be safe fellers!

 

[Gary S]

I don't worry about CO poisoning. I have a CO detector in my house where I have a gas furnace and a gas water heater. My garage is heated electrically, so there is no danger there. I never run my vehicles, snowblower, lawn mower, or rototiller in the garage. They go outside for that.
When it comes to carbon monoxide poisoning, common sense does more for you than all the detectors and warnings in the world.
#1. Always think about what you are doing, and you don't need to worry about carbon monoxide.

 

[flightlessbird]

With the Cyclone in Far North Queensland we lost one of our finest due CO poisioning. He bunkered down in a small room with his favourite generator going to power his TV while he waited for the to pass. And guess what happened?

 

[rwhite692]

Another place to make sure you have a CO detector, is in your boat or RV.

CO is particularly dangerous in smaller, confined spaces.

 

[Lippyp]

We have two, one in the utility room where the gas boiler for the hot water/central heating is and another in the living room as we have an open fire in there and apparently thats as dangerous if not more so than a gas appliance, just takes a partially blocked chimney.

 

[kered]

It's not just at home, or out in the garage that you are at risk from Carbon Monoxide poisoning. As this very sad tragedy that happened only a few weeks ago shows.

 

[holland_patrick]

At least you were not in the De- Compressiom chamber At 350 feet for 4 hours! It *****-BIG time!

Chambers can't go to 350

The normal treatment depth is 45 ft for wound care and 65 ft for CO2

 

[NUTTSGT]

Hoosier, that is a very good post.

Some of the syptoms are similar to the flu, which can be easily looked over.

We generally recommend the Nighhawk CO monitor as it plugs in and has a digital readout.

If you have problems with your detector or it is beeping, there are directions on the back. It will tell what the beeping means, high CO is a different beep that low battery. If you have a high reading, contact your local FD. Go sit in your car(running outside) or to your neighbors. Do not open door and windows, when you ventilate the house, we can not get a good reading.

If your detector goes off, call us. Don't keep reseting it, I can't count the number of times we have went out at 11 pm. The story we get, "well it's been going off all day but I didn't want to go to bed if there was a problem."

Also we recently used grant money to buy one of these.
http://www.masimo.com/rad-57/

It's pulse ox that also measures the CO in your blood. A very very good tool for diagnosing if somebody has CO posioning.

 

[c39er]

Chambers can't go to 350

The normal treatment depth is 45 ft for wound care and 65 ft for CO2

Sorry- my memory was affected--- it was 3-1/2 hours though and 3 of us in it with a nurse to watch over us.. Not fun-remember it got really cold!One guy wanted to puke.

 

[ishiboo]

Menards has two First Alert CO detectors for $19.99 after rebate, compared to $17.99 each at Lowes at the present time.

Just a heads up so you can continue to

 

[scott37300]

A new law just took effect last week in WI that every floor has to have a CO detector.

 

[CraigFL]

...Carbon Monoxide is toxic to humans (and most or all animals as well) as it is absorbed by the blood in place of oxygen and will prevent the blood from being able to carry oxygen....

This is the important part that some people don't realize. CO looks just like O2 to a red blood cell so it carries it the same way. But now that the red blood cell is carrying a CO molecule, it no longer has room to carry an O2 molecule. Even if you take a person away from the source of the CO, their blood is still full of CO molecules and can't instantly carry O2 where it's needed. As someone else stated about the half life, you can still be in mortal danger even if someone drags you out of the garage into the fresh air...

 

[AmickRacing]

It's not just at home, or out in the garage that you are at risk from Carbon Monoxide poisoning. As this very sad tragedy that happened only a few weeks ago shows.

You'd be amazed and scared to death if more places had CO monitors. Hospitals, schools, hotels, business's (especially one's with a warehouse in the same building) are all very high risk places that seem to go unmonitored.

Oddly enough, probably one of the safest places to be would be in a public parking garage/ramp. They are governed by the EPA not OSHA, and the EPA's standards for CO exposure are very strict.

 

[Stuart in MN]

CO is particularly dangerous in smaller, confined spaces.

A man died here a few weeks ago from CO poisoning, he was using an unvented heater in an ice fishing house. It seems there are usually a few deaths each year from this.

 

[Skyline]

The one correction to that excellent post I'd like to note is that Fire Departments, (like ours,) are starting to carry blood pulse oximeters on all first due fire apparatus that respond to CO calls. So they CAN tell your exposure right on the spot. For those that are not familiar with this device, it is a small hand held meter with a probe that attaches to your finger. Our first unit was donated by a local hospital, (I guess just good business, as they have a hyperbaric chamber). These are a fantastic (although quite costly,) equipment addition to a fire apparatus.

What happens frequently on these CO calls, is that once the FD gets there, all the windows are open, and the house aired out...making it more challenging to find a minute source. Being able to test a potential victim really makes us a lot more comfortable when a person says they are fine and does not want to go to the hospital. Before we got the blood pulse oximeters, I have seen situations where someone RMA's and a few hours later starts to develop truely life threatening symptoms.