2000ppm in cellar..feeling woozy..RUN!

[Oldsolarguy]

just glad to see its not this.


I know about the boilers rooms, had a near death co experience myself. Where did you get the co buddy. I would like to get one of those myself. Landlords kill me, they think they are getting a deal because something is cheap. He's lucky no died and took him to court. That's just uncalled for

[ryan1088]

At what ppm do you go to sleep at?

[RDorr92788]

6400 ppm death in 15 min, 12800 ppm death in 3 min

[tday99]

so.....where is all the CO coming from?

Lack of combustion air, improper flue collar on a nat draft appliance, and the fact that these units prolly have never been looked at by someone qualified.
Glad to hear it didn't KO you!

[chuckcrj]

At what ppm do you go to sleep at?

At 2,000 ppm a healthy adult would be unconcious at around 15 minutes.

[Freightshaker]

I would want to figure out what caused it to soot.

It is really hard to soot up a NG unit.

It's not really hard. It doesn't always take long. Like another poster said it snowballs. Once it starts sooting if conditions are not corrected it starts piling up in the HX. Once it starts layering it makes the A/F ratio even worse producing more and more soot until it's noticed/fails.

[fenian]

"who cares what was causing it?"

The OP probably saw enough of the furnace to have confidence of the source and knew it was the right call. I still like knowing if my license is on the line. Swapping put the furnace obviously isn't enough if the issue is a restricted chimney or malfunctioning water heater. Squirrels are good at getting in 3" rounds here. It only takes a few minutes to isolate equipment.

[Sicofthis]

"who cares what was causing it?"

The OP probably saw enough of the furnace to have confidence of the source and knew it was the right call. I still like knowing if my license is on the line. Swapping put the furnace obviously isn't enough if the issue is a restricted chimney or malfunctioning water heater. Squirrels are good at getting in 3" rounds here. It only takes a few minutes to isolate equipment.

My point was the op saw so many things done incorrectly and he decided not to test run the equipment. Even if he pulled and cleaned the burners and determined another cause he still would have other issues that could be contributing. He knew he a hacked job with so much wrong, the time spent fiddleing with it in a confined space would yield little reward. I think the op did the right thing not attempting a band-aid and just starting from scratch.

Of course a flue inspection would need to be done before start-up, after repairs and replacement.

I do believe in finding the cause of problems and did not try say it should not be fixed. But when you are staring at multple possible causes that must be fixed anyway "who cares which is the worst?"

[fenian]

@sicofthis: no doubt about the furnace. It sounds like it had seen its better days. If the source was the furnace I'd be of the same opinion as you. My assumption is the combustion was spilling prior to the vent. I don't deal with Lennox that often but I would expect there to have been limits up high. Why didn't it trip?

[slctech]

QUOTE fenian I don't deal with Lennox that often but I would expect there to have been limits up high. Why didn't it trip?

Old Lennox equipment like this G12 unit did not have any form of a spill/draft auxiliary limit switch installed, only a fan/limit.


Quote Sicofthis: Of course a flue inspection would need to be done before start-up, after repairs and replacement.

Entire flue system was replaced with install.

[slctech]

As for worrying about any other additional sources of CO, beyond that of the water heater and furnace. This is a 900 sqft old farmhouse. Probably at one time in the old days was heated by a interior stove of some kind. Back in the fifties someone probably built this cellar just for the purpose of adding a water heater and upgraded heating source. So nothing other than these two NG appliances, that is it. Pretty cut and dry. With the CO concentrated only in this add-on cellar, that pretty much sealed the deal in my mind.

The flue was originally a 5" B-Vent that pops out roof of the cellar, goes up the back wall of the house, up past the eave line of the home, with a crushed old china cap. Could the cap being crushed cause some restriction....sure. Just all the components of hackery coming together to create the perfect storm.

[slctech]

As for the CO analyzer, I use the TIF 8500A. Not as much as a personal thing-of-a-ma-jig that attaches to your belt or body.
I like the ability for it to literally vocalize the current ppm in my work area. I used one of those personal monitors originally, but I would get so busy and focused on something and I would tend to not pay attention to it. Even though it had an alarm you could set, I just couldn't trust it. Once you have almost been a casualty you become quite paranoid and really take CO seriously. I have wireless earphones I can attach, so in noisy pump rooms, I can be working away with the soothing sound of a man's robotic voice talking in my ear...

[Crimzin Shadow]

Glad your senses kept you alive!