Carbon Monoxide Poisoning- How to Prevent It

There is a silent killer that lurks in 95% of American homes. It is a stealth killer that can creep silently into your home and take the life of you and your children as you sleep. This silent killer is carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless gas that kills many unsuspecting Americans each year.

Most of us assume that with today's technology and all of the protection devices available we are not at risk for carbon monoxide poisoning. The facts are however, if you own a home, multiple opportunities for carbon monoxide poisoning exist in your own personal living environment. These include, but are not limited to, gas and oil fired furnaces, gas logs, gas fired dryers and water heaters, charcoal grills, kerosene heaters, propane fired grills, generators, kitchen stoves that operate on natural gas, automobile exhaust fumes, and many others. A good rule of thumb is, if an appliance uses fossil fuels it produces carbon monoxide and has the potential of emitting poisonous fumes that may endanger your life and that of your family.

Most of us are well enough informed to avoid the use of fume emitting appliances inside our home. We know that charcoal and gas grills, generators and other appliances designed for outside use should not be used in an enclosed environment and yet several hundred deaths per year are the result of people attempting to use the devices inside their homes without proper ventilation.

Perhaps the larger threat to unsuspecting families is found in fumes escaping from older or improperly maintained appliances that over a period of time gradually emit poisonous and undetected fumes into our homes resulting in nausea, dizziness, headaches and if allowed to continue , eventual death.

My recent experience in carbon monoxide poisoning provided the motivation for my writing this article. My hope is that in sharing it you can avoid a similar experience.

As the fall months gave way to the colder winter temperatures my twelve year old gas-fired furnace provided the required warmth and comfort to which my family had grown accustomed. We had no concern for safety as we annually had our furnace inspected and serviced by professional HVAC technicians who declared our unit fully operational and safe for another heating season.

Within a month however, out heating unit began to exhibit some unusable symptoms. The thermostat would call for heat causing the outside furnace to come on, but the furnace blower motor would not distribute the heat throughout the house. The only heat we received was what little heat seeped through the ducts without benefit of the blower motor. The problem was intermittent, one day the blower would function, another day it would not.

A return visit by the service technician found everything operational, even the furnace blower motor. The technician was at a loss to explain the failure of the blower motor to operate. Fortunately, for my family he sought the advice of a senior technician who after inspecting our furnace suggested that the blower motor was part of a safety mechanism built into the furnace that caused the motor to shut down whenever it sensed a malfunction elsewhere in the furnace. He suggested that there may be a hole in the heat exchanger that would allow fumes to escape. (The heat exchanger was not accessible for the previous inspection and service call).

The technician next asked if I had a carbon monoxide detector installed in my home. When I answered that I did not he suggested I purchase one immediately as the symptoms exhibited by the furnace suggested a potential problem that could result in poisonous fumes being distributed into my house.

Within an hour I had purchased and installed an inexpensive , plug-in carbon monoxide detector. Turning the thermostat down I was surprised and pleased to hear the blower motor activate, but was shocked to reality when within minutes the carbon monoxide detector sounded an alarm as the poisonous fumes entered our home.

My family evacuated our home and made arrangements to stay with relatives until repairs to the furnace could be completed. Without question the advice of the service technician and the subsequent installation of the carbon monoxide detector had saved the lives of my family.

It was only later when my wife and I were discussing this event that we recalled having experienced unexplained periods of nausea and headaches, all symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning that we had written off as flu-like symptoms.

My family and I learned a invaluable lesson from this experience. Prevention of carbon monoxide poisoning (and death) is completely avoidable with the purchase and installation of inexpensive and easy to install carbon monoxide detectors. These can be purchased from any home supply store for less than $30.00 and can be installed by simply plugging these into an electrical outlet. I have installed one on each floor of my home. It is recommended that one detector be installed in the vicinity of fume producing appliances (gas dryers, stoves, furnace outlets, etc.)

My hope is this article will be informative and will provide the motivation for you to take the simple steps required to protect yourself and your family from this silent killer.