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co detectors

Heres a link for a good co detector ...http://www.clovercool.com/co_monitor.html

Originally Posted by Bannerd

On the kiddie alarms the peak level is a average PPM reading. Some days it could pick up 3ppm. The next day it will read 6ppm and keeps adding to it. I've had mine at 212ppm in my garage for a average over several months. It's not a big deal because if you divide the days it's a low amount of monoxide. The kiddie monitors levels every minute and will display if there is over 30ppm present. Over 31ppm the alarm will go off, this is osha standard and no more than 8 hours at this level. Once the alarm goes off on the kiddie the readings are instant. Best thing to do is open the windows and get some fans to push fresh air into the home. Then call the fire department so they can test the source. If it's reading zero then you're fine, make sure you have a monoxide detector in every room of the house.

Also I want to hint more on co because many people think it is this horrible thing if you're exposed then you're infected. Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin stronger than oxygen binds hemoglobin. Consequently, there is a massive decrease in oxygen availability in your body and organs that need oxygen start lacking it. Thus why people get headaches. The brain needs air in the blood stream to function 100%, if your body isn't getting oxygen then things will start to shut down. If you were at high levels of CO the best thing for you is air. Going to a hospital they'll give you oxygen until you feel better. Seriously high levels of CO are a issue (thousands) and could cause brain damage or worse. What is serious levels? Putting a generator inside your house and running it all night long is seriously high levels. The best way to treat CO is to breath fresh air in, this will un-bond co from the hemoglobin and remove from your body on the next exhale.

30 is pretty normal for the average cook, although this is a warning level because something is making the CO and in average joe tech mind could be unsafe. If something is generating carbon monoxide at this level then whose to say it will break more and within seconds jump to 1200ppm. 30 is a average number if someone was cooking all day on a natural gas cook top. If this is being made on it's own then the problem puts a person in danger as it could increase more quickly than expected.

You got problems with carbon monoxide yourself after reinstalling a furnace with a bad heat exchanger after the new furnace you purchased on-line broke after a week in service.

Originally Posted by lotr13

Hello,

Forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this question, I'm just looking for a little guidance.

A few months back (May or June I'd say) I bought a combination natural gas/carbon monoxide detector. At first the carbon monoxide peak level was zero, but then it jumped to 12 and has slowly risen until it now resides at 31. The current reading always says 0 whenever I take a glance at it, but the peak level is concerning me. I've reset it a couple of times to see if it was a faulty reading, but it goes back up within a few days.

What really has me scratching my head is that we only have electrical appliances in the house. Nothing is running off gas except our heating, which does use natural gas. Even though the heat was not running the whole time the levels have been going up, I'm wondering if somehow that is the cause. If that's not it, what else should I be looking at?

Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt

On the kiddie alarms the peak level is a average PPM reading. Some days it could pick up 3ppm. The next day it will read 6ppm and keeps adding to it. I've had mine at 212ppm in my garage for a average over several months. It's not a big deal because if you divide the days it's a low amount of monoxide. The kiddie monitors levels every minute and will display if there is over 30ppm present. Over 31ppm the alarm will go off, this is osha standard and no more than 8 hours at this level. Once the alarm goes off on the kiddie the readings are instant. Best thing to do is open the windows and get some fans to push fresh air into the home. Then call the fire department so they can test the source. If it's reading zero then you're fine, make sure you have a monoxide detector in every room of the house.

Also I want to hint more on co because many people think it is this horrible thing if you're exposed then you're infected. Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin stronger than oxygen binds hemoglobin. Consequently, there is a massive decrease in oxygen availability in your body and organs that need oxygen start lacking it. Thus why people get headaches. The brain needs air in the blood stream to function 100%, if your body isn't getting oxygen then things will start to shut down. If you were at high levels of CO the best thing for you is air. Going to a hospital they'll give you oxygen until you feel better. Seriously high levels of CO are a issue (thousands) and could cause brain damage or worse. What is serious levels? Putting a generator inside your house and running it all night long is seriously high levels. The best way to treat CO is to breath fresh air in, this will un-bond co from the hemoglobin and remove from your body on the next exhale.

30 is pretty normal for the average cook, although this is a warning level because something is making the CO and in average joe tech mind could be unsafe. If something is generating carbon monoxide at this level then whose to say it will break more and within seconds jump to 1200ppm. 30 is a average number if someone was cooking all day on a natural gas cook top. If this is being made on it's own then the problem puts a person in danger as it could increase more quickly than expected.

I'm poisoned 5 days a week driving my co's 2007 van. I read at least an 8 ppm from sitting still at stop lights while they are red etc. Plus going into lingering CO saturated homes with CO producing heaters. We breath more CO in a given day than any firefighter working 3 fires a day. "They use self contained gas tank/mask systems", where is ours?

Originally Posted by agentphelps

This could have already been said but.. All home CO detectors have a service life of about 6 to 7 years, once activated before the sensor gives you a false positive or no reading at all. I toss all mine out at 5 years and buy new ones.

There is no guarantee that a CO alarm is good for 5 years. But if one has a good low level CO Monitor that actually can protect everyone, they are easily tested with the smoke of a match at any time.

This could have already been said but.. All home CO detectors have a service life of about 6 to 7 years, once activated before the sensor gives you a false positive or no reading at all. I toss all mine out at 5 years and buy new ones.

We really need a few more scientist's on the internet telling us what their theories might be.

CO IS LIGHTER THAN AIR!!! It will always collect at the ceiling before it disperses to the floor and may never get to the floor. It does not mix with water or CO2 and make something else. A bowl of mixed nuts is still a bowl of mixed nuts and the heavy nuts are heavy and the light nuts are light.

If 10ppm of CO was spilling into a room for 15 minutes, 1 hour or 24 hours, the maximum the room could get would be 10ppm. To get any higher you would have to have a higher consentration of CO. CO does not add and subtract. 10ppm plus 10ppm is 20 pp2m = 10ppm.

If air was passing across a 1" hole in a heat exchanger at 1000 cfm and the flue gases contained 1000ppm of CO, how many parts per million of CO would we read in the airstream? Depending on, if there was a venturi affect, it would be between 1ppm to 10ppm or less. Checking for CO in the duct system to determine cracked heat exchangers is not practical.

Rust is caused by poorly operating and serviced equipment. I would replace the contractor before I would replace the rusty heat exchanger.

Originally Posted by cmajerus

Haven't had a reply from the OP yet, too much CO? What have you found out? Dead? Living? Bad detector?

Well from what I gathered from the first post was that way back in May or June Matt bought a CO detector and almost immediately it read peak levels of 12 and has slowly risen to 31 since then. He also said that he has reset it a number of times with the same end result.

I believe his CO detector is working. The slowly rising levels of CO in the home from at least the month of May(I say at least because before then I don’t think he had a CO detector at all so this could have been going on for years) to November(his last post on this board) is of great concern.

As for reasons to why he has not gotten back to us:

1.We don’t know the age or health condition of Matt. It could be that the continuous CO poisoning Matt has endured is now causing memory impairment and he has forgotten that he started this thread.

2.The CO peak levels were rising which means the problem was getting worse. It’s only logical that the levels have/ will continue to rise. Matt stopped posting in November which is the time of year when you start closing up the house and use your furnace more. Given these facts it could be that the CO levels went from bad to worse with the changed conditions and Matt is now dead.

If Matt is still alive and healthy he is lucky and needs to address the rising CO conditions inside his home immediately.

He seemed like he was very concerned and thankful for replies and help. Would have thought he’d follow up when or if he found a solution...

Originally Posted by lotr13

Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt

Originally Posted by DavidInAustin

Someone will surely say - Co2 is heavy and will build up on the floor blanketing and preventing the CO from lower areas - Scientist disagree - Mechanical mixture will prevent this. In fact Each room may act different - Obviously poor duct design may save your life in a back beedroom 40 foot from the furnace as oposed to your wife who got mad at you and spent the night on the couch next to the furnace room!(poor lady, I loved that women!)...lol

The CO2 variable is what makes unvented gas longs even more dangerous in a basement.
The CO2 has nowhere to fall to and displaces the O2 at the already low to the ground burners.
It's easy to check and see if this is happening on a furnace or water heater also, use a combustion analyzer and watch the O2 levels near the burners the O2 should not be dropping.

You bring up a good point on poor duct design as it is a huge culprit in many CO related problems.

Competing airflow situations in buildings make many flues intake ducts.

Originally Posted by DavidInAustin

Very interesting! - Do flatulents count?

You’re on your own on that one. That’s one place I never insert my probe...

Originally Posted by DavidInAustin

*Again as stated in past posts - Some say... CO can attach to other gasses (moleculary hot when bonded) such as CO2 during and as a part of combustion (44 weight) for a non spcific time. This changes the weight of the combination of gasses while they are mixed. I think the point is Gasses dont readily separate in seconds (obviously not always) - It takes some time and also to not be mechanically mixed by the blower (if its running they mix!) - from what I have read in scientific websites! - Again, not absoulutly positive this is true)

Point - Just as particulate such as (particals of soot - more heavy than "Air" combine with air and float for some time - will eventually separate and fall to earth(or attach to something else) - as they do not have neutral bouyancy, such as "Air")

It is true, the weight of CO doesnt change - Pure CO that is...

There is no way CO will ever come out of a fuel burning appliance and drop down to the floor and collect there. CO2 will.

Placing CO detectors down at the floor would never help alert the homeowner of the problem any sooner. Eventually that CO detector would go off because the CO is going to mix very well with the air but it’s not the best way to go. The worst case scenario to protecting yourself would be no CO monitor at all or having one that doesn’t work. The next worse case would be a monitor that plugs into a 120V receptacle and gets placed near the floor of a basement.

Reasons for why it is unsafe are:

1.It’s not going to sound an alarm until it gets to 70 ppm for 3-4 hours.

2.If you lose power it won’t sound an alarm even if CO reaches 120000 ppm.

3.Being located on the floor of the basement it will take longer for the CO to get there due to CO being slightly lighter than air.

Wow!

Very interesting! - Do flatulents count?

*Again as stated in past posts - Some say... CO can attach to other gasses (moleculary hot when bonded) such as CO2 during and as a part of combustion (44 weight) for a non spcific time. This changes the weight of the combination of gasses while they are mixed. I think the point is Gasses dont readily separate in seconds (obviously not always) - It takes some time and also to not be mechanically mixed by the blower (if its running they mix!) - from what I have read in scientific websites! - Again, not absoulutly positive this is true)

Point - Just as particulate such as (particals of soot - more heavy than "Air" combine with air and float for some time - will eventually separate and fall to earth(or attach to something else) - as they do not have neutral bouyancy, such as "Air")

It is true, the weight of CO doesnt change - Pure CO that is...

Variables inside a house can and do change all the time but the molecular weight of CO doesn’t.

In my house I have a low level CO detector located 6’ off the ground on a wall 4’ away from my nat. gas furnace, water heater, and dryer. I also have one on the main level in the hallway located again at 6’. No matter how the variables may change in my house everyone is protected no matter where they are.

The low level CO detectors also have a memory built in to store peak levels, which is a great feature because it lets me know what’s been happening while we’re away. Never had a reading above zero yet on either one!

So you’d think by doing that I am safe and not getting poisoned by carbon monoxide, right? Wrong! I have a third low level CO detector that has gone off a dozen times over the last year alerting me to the fact that I was being poisoned, everywhere from 30 ppm to over 400 ppm. This third detector isn’t in my house it’s in my pocket.(Kind of brings a whole new meaning to pocket protector! ) I never get poisoned in my home it’s when I leave my home that I get poisoned!

Very interesting

I absolutly enjoy exploring situations such as this. It is very enlightening. Beliefs and facts are only part of the answer(its the facts or dynamics of the situation blind to the observer that make the difference). It is the dynamics that change everything - One situation is ( I would guess) never the same outcome as another to different degree's.

Thank you all so much - I can say that I have checked all of your answers, all of them are viable - Except the fact that there is information on the internet from professors and scientists bringing up examples of differences in each situation that would not agree with all (We together have said).

This simply means - CO can and will act in different ways givin different situations - I think without giving examples the point is made clearly.

One point i found interesting is ( for CO detector manufacture liability reasons) The manufacture of these detectors wont tell you a height to mount the detectors! In their instuctions they tell you to have more than one on a cieling hall way bedrooms - (Basicly @ different heights because of the points we have all been exploring). CO will not always do the same things! (point being stratification of gasses not possible)

Someone will surely say - Co2 is heavy and will build up on the floor blanketing and preventing the CO from lower areas - Scientist disagree - Mechanical mixture will prevent this. In fact Each room may act different - Obviously poor duct design may save your life in a back beedroom 40 foot from the furnace as oposed to your wife who got mad at you and spent the night on the couch next to the furnace room!(poor lady, I loved that women!)...lol

I think mainly the density is so close to Air. Temp - location - situation - mechanical mixture - Density based on clean - unclean burn(major factor in density) - Way way to many variables.

Thanks!

D

One interesting point I read was - Locate a detector near the bed you sleep in at the height of your nostrals roughly! So to say that when a situation occures stratification or not ( the height that you breath in at night will be covered) - The problem I see is it doest always strike when your sleeping! You can be poisoned while answering this post! I think I read 12000 PPM will kill you in 1-3 minutes! ummmm...

Haven't had a reply from the OP yet, too much CO? What have you found out? Dead? Living? Bad detector?

Would be interesting to know if the instrument in question was Nox compensated.

These will always read lower levels of CO than non Nox compensated models.

The TSI I use is Nox compensated but don't ever remember seeing a reading of 0 PPM.

Originally Posted by davidr

If I was to read 0 PPM in the undiluted flue gas I would be double checking the CO sensor in the instrument I was using.

There will always be CO present in the combustion process, it's our responsibility to make sure it is within acceptable limits and stable.

That’s what I was thinking so it raised a red flag when DavidInAustin said his CO readings have been 0 ppm most of the time in PM checks over the past 6 months.

Originally Posted by DavidInAustin

I have a TP7 with digital wireless Printout. For $565.00, and a Factory calibration required yearly. I trust it when it says 0 PPM (most of the time in PM checks ive performed in the last 6 months) and I trust it the same when it says 400PPM (once in 6 months - The exchanger had a dime size hole in the top rung of the 4 tube exchanger)...Peak or Avg - It better work!

0 ppm isn’t Avg as davidr said. I’m thinking you need to send that CO sensor back for another Factory calibration.

Originally Posted by Wild

That’s what I thought you were referring to but it threw me off when you said that it read 0 ppm on most of the PM’s you’ve done over the last 6 months. It’s extremely rare to come across a furnace that is safely running at 0 ppm. What is the accuracy of this meter? I would question all these 0 ppm readings you’re getting because to me it sounds like it isn’t working.

If I was to read 0 PPM in the undiluted flue gas I would be double checking the CO sensor in the instrument I was using.

There will always be CO present in the combustion process, it's our responsibility to make sure it is within acceptable limits and stable.

Originally Posted by DavidInAustin

This is my reasoning and from what I have read must be taken into account. In real world conditions (not pure CO, or Pure Oxygen) The connection and answer is in the mixes friend...

For mixed gasses just take a proportionate average:
Air is 80% N2 + 20% O2 .
air = 0.8(28) + 0.2(32) = 29 (exactly neutral, by definition)

So pure carbon monoxide is actually about 3% lighter than air.
But usually it is mixed in with the normal combustion products: CO2 - (CO2= (12+16+16)= 44, heavy)
and H2O. Which are always mixed with the 80% Nitrogen that never participates in burning.


Hmmmm....Think about it! Gn

D

PS - If I am wrong about this please let me know.

You make for a good discussion David thanks.

The problem occurs when we combine basic air movement in a building from driving forces such as wind and stack effect into the mix.

The flue gas can have temperatures from anywhere between 300º to 500º.
When these gases spill due to whatever reason they are not heavy but very light due to the difference in density.

The lighter heated gases will make their way upward through the building when mixed with ambient air while the heavier gases will tend to drop as mixed with the ambient air.

This is why CO alarms that are plugged into a receptacle down low in a basement are useless in addition to the fact they have a UL 2034 stamp on them.
They get exposed to carbon dioxide at this level not carbon monoxide.

Thank you

Goodnight all...

Originally Posted by DavidInAustin

This is my reasoning and from what I have read must be taken into account. In real world conditions (not pure CO, or Pure Oxygen) The connection and answer is in the mixes friend...

For mixed gasses just take a proportionate average:
Air is 80% N2 + 20% O2 .
air = 0.8(28) + 0.2(32) = 29 (exactly neutral, by definition)

So pure carbon monoxide is actually about 3% lighter than air.
But usually it is mixed in with the normal combustion products: CO2 - (CO2= (12+16+16)= 44, heavy)
and H2O. Which are always mixed with the 80% Nitrogen that never participates in burning.


Hmmmm....Think about it! Gn

D

PS - If I am wrong about this please let me know.

Another way to explain this is to compare it to smoke from a fire. Visible smoke from a fire is a particulate which is heavier than air, but it rapidly rises to the ceiling because of the heat. The same applies for CO spilled from an appliance. It will rise to the ceiling and will always be at a higher concentration near the ceiling.

Molecular weight of:
Carbon Monoxide----->28.01 Lighter
Nitrogen----------------->28.0134
Air------------------------->28.975
Oxygen------------------>32.00
Carbon Dioxide------->44.01 Heavier