CO Detectors, if you have them time to check, if not time to get one.

Alexx1401 · Oct 21, 2022

Just as a reminder since its getting colder up here and furnaces are getting used. If you have gas or oil heat, or water heater ect, have a couple CO detectors. Wife in her line of work deals with people who have lost someone. She had a couple other day who had lost both parents at the same time. Turns out bee's had made a nest in the vent for the furnace. Couple was found dead in front of the TV. Feet up, one had remote in hand, other had some popcorn. When found it looked like they had both fallen asleep watching TV. They were dead from CO poisoning. Made me go check the batteries in ours. Anyone who has these check them. Anyone who does not they are really cheap and could have saved these people lives.

Tony617 · Oct 21, 2022

The CO detectors have limited life span as well. They are not mandatory in Washington State although our home was built in 1998 so not sure if newer home are mandatory yet. I know the ones we have will chirp every 30 seconds when they reach end of life until you take the battery out. It shows the date of manufacture as well but has not been 10 years yet.

Alexx1401 · Oct 21, 2022

Tony617 said:
The CO detectors have limited life span as well. They are not mandatory in Washington State although our home was built in 1998 so not sure if newer home are mandatory yet. I know the ones we have will chirp every 30 seconds when they reach end of life until you take the battery out. It shows the date of manufacture as well but has not been 10 years yet.

After checking the batteries in ours I just went ahead and ordered 2 more. $30 for two of them. Figured why not. I remember when I first heard of these things they were pricey. Now they are very cheap insurance.

Ruger Rich · Oct 21, 2022

Good prod, thanks.

gryghin · Oct 21, 2022

Smoke detectors have a 10 year usable life due to the sensor material. I just replaced ours and found out that it is dual smoke and CO detection.

Cheap enough to put one near the bedrooms as well as the living room near the kitchen.

pharmseller · Oct 22, 2022

Shouldn't CO detectors be near the floor, and smoke detectors near the ceiling?

gryghin · Oct 22, 2022

pharmseller said:
Shouldn't CO detectors be near the floor, and smoke detectors near the ceiling?

Hmm... back in the 90s that's what they told us... maybe that's changed?

We have any TVFR on here?

Alexx1401 · Oct 22, 2022

pharmseller said:
Shouldn't CO detectors be near the floor, and smoke detectors near the ceiling?

I have always had the smoke near ceiling CO at about 5 feet off the floor. When I get the new ones I ordered I will see what they say about it. Every place I have seen these since they started requiring them here they always seem to be mounted about the same, about 5 feet off the floor. Don't know if that's just to make them easier to see/ test or if they work best that way.

Member 34319 · Oct 23, 2022

I've rarely heard of CO2 deaths. I know they happen, but it's rarely rare. Usually I'll hear stories about folks in campers more than their homes.

Scary stuff!

I've got CO2 sensors in the garage and the first floor of the house installed by the builders. They are stand alone devices and are hardwired into the rest of the alarm system. IE if one is tripped the fire alarms also turn on. Only on the first floor though, so the house would have to be pretty well filled before setting them off as none are on the floor level. I want to say they even installed a Radon sensor in the crawl space with a ventilation fan.

Things I usually do to my alarms, install lithium low self drain batteries. Replace them in my odd birthdays. https://www.batteriesplus.com/produ...MI3IOy__v2-gIVkw6tBh2fMQcSEAQYAiABEgKy0PD_BwE
Keep an eye out in November, they go on sale. My birthday is in November so it helps that they usually go on sale around when I replace them. Even at $10 it's worth the $60 or so to swap all of the batteries for peace of mind.

This way you don't get that annoying beep at 2am like all detectors like to do.

Alexx1401 · Oct 23, 2022

Reno said:
I've rarely heard of CO2 deaths. I know they happen, but it's rarely rare. Usually I'll hear stories about folks in campers more than their homes.

Scary stuff!

I've got CO2 sensors in the garage and the first floor of the house installed by the builders. They are stand alone devices and are hardwired into the rest of the alarm system. IE if one is tripped the fire alarms also turn on. Only on the first floor though, so the house would have to be pretty well filled before setting them off as none are on the floor level. I want to say they even installed a Radon sensor in the crawl space with a ventilation fan.

Things I usually do to my alarms, install lithium low self drain batteries. Replace them in my odd birthdays. https://www.batteriesplus.com/produ...MI3IOy__v2-gIVkw6tBh2fMQcSEAQYAiABEgKy0PD_BwE
Keep an eye out in November, they go on sale. My birthday is in November so it helps that they usually go on sale around when I replace them. Even at $10 it's worth the $60 or so to swap all of the batteries for peace of mind.

This way you don't get that annoying beep at 2am like all detectors like to do.

It is or does seem to be rare. Which is also why its so tragic when it happens. Up here we seem to get at least one any time we have a nasty (for us) winter with a lot of people losing power. Seems to always be at least one family who runs a genset in the damn attached garage and does them selves sick or dead.
WA or the city (not sure which) did put in code requiring these a while back. Place Wife and I lived was all electric, no gas or oil. Guy who owned it had to put a couple in by Code which just shows how much sense laws often make

We already had one CO detector I had bought a while before only for power outages. I knew not to run the genset inside but we did use portable propane heat in the winter. Bought the CO detector to use when we had to use that heat source. I bought that one more for the Macaw than us since that heat was only used when we were up. The bird would have been effected long before we would have and I was trying to protect him more than us

Now that we have a gas furnace I will make sure we keep a couple of them going here after what happened to those two just from bees blocking the damn vent.