Ever have Carbon Monoxide Detector go off?

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tla100

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Well, tonight is the 2nd time had detectors go off. 1st was years ago when had burner a month or so, coals smoldering. Added fresh air intake for stove, no problems.

Started stove in AM, it is in basement. Did not feed it when I got home early at 5:00, normally do, but plenty warm inside from lots of sun today. Brought my boy upstairs to bed and thought I could get a hint of backdraft. Main floor alarm did not go off. His room did, above kitchen . Also laundry room and our master bed did too, although they above our garage, and weird thing, had tranny problems with work vehicle and had running for a few minutes with overhead garage door open trying to get it outside. It has steel ceiling with blown insulation between floor joyces, plywood floor on top with flooring.

Well, just ash and a few coals were smoldering, opened a couple basement windows to get draft, loaded stove and it took off. Opened all windows and doors. Took a bit n I think highest CO reading was about 80 ppm.

Kind of scary, but glad had alarms, and they are loud! Not sure what levels are too high, but....
 
Well, tonight is the 2nd time had detectors go off. 1st was years ago when had burner a month or so, coals smoldering. Added fresh air intake for stove, no problems.

Started stove in AM, it is in basement. Did not feed it when I got home early at 5:00, normally do, but plenty warm inside from lots of sun today. Brought my boy upstairs to bed and thought I could get a hint of backdraft. Main floor alarm did not go off. His room did, above kitchen . Also laundry room and our master bed did too, although they above our garage, and weird thing, had tranny problems with work vehicle and had running for a few minutes with overhead garage door open trying to get it outside. It has steel ceiling with blown insulation between floor joyces, plywood floor on top with flooring.

Well, just ash and a few coals were smoldering, opened a couple basement windows to get draft, loaded stove and it took off. Opened all windows and doors. Took a bit n I think highest CO reading was about 80 ppm.

Kind of scary, but glad had alarms, and they are loud! Not sure what levels are too high, but....

Mine will go off if I leave the door open to my stove when there is just coals burning. I just open an outside door and air it out. But I like to keep a small window slightly open to draw in fresh air when the stove is going. They do have a life span and wear out so if there old, it might be best to replace them every 10 years. I keep one in my camper to because it's a small area and I had a friend die because his on board generator compartment developed a leak and the co2 got into his small camper and he never woke up the next day. I keep my generator in the back of my truck and I disconnect the truck from the camper and move it at least 10 feet away from my camper. Besides I hate the vibration from the gen if its attached to the camper keeps me awake.
It's not the sound because I use a Honda and I can't hear it running, but I can feel the vibration.
 
How old are the detectors? The sensors in the units are only good for 10 years. Are the detectors wired together. One bad sensor causing the others to alarm?
 
Yup. The one in the shop will go off every time you start up the backhoe. I had one go off in the house but it was due to age not CO buildup. You really should have them on every level of your home. CO is wicked bad news and very deadly.
 
Is that a outlet on fire?
Ha... night light, and obviously very poor photo.
(I just posted but it did not show up here. not sure where it went...)
We have a fire extinguisher by each exterior door.
One in the living room, as shown.
One in our bedroom on the main floor. (Ranch style, one bedroom on the main floor, two egress bedrooms down stairs.)
One fire extinguisher at bottom of stairs, near both bedrooms.
One in the garage.
One in container in wood lot.
One smaller DOT one in firewood truck.
One medium size in rv trailer which also has carbon monoxide and smoke detectors..
I should probably get one more for the pickup when towing.
In defense of myself, this comes in part from crossing the Atlantic on a friends 44' sailboat. A great deal of thought, planning and money goes into things you hope will never be needed,
 
Mine never go off but iv had carbon monoxide poisoning from work and it sucks. We were running a ceiling with a sizzor loft. One minute I felt fine then puking and major headache.

Steve, can you elaborate on the symptoms? I think CO poisoning may have happened to me once. I was working night shift at a hotel and locking up the spa area when I suddenly felt dizzy and saliva started drooling from my mouth like a running tap (faucet). Went to the toilet to vomit but couldn't. Then I left the spa and I was ok. It has always puzzled me and creeped me out, and remains a mystery. Now I'm wondering if it's possible there was CO contamination in the spa changing room that night.
 
Ha... night light, and obviously very poor photo.
(I just posted but it did not show up here. not sure where it went...)
We have a fire extinguisher by each exterior door.
One in the living room, as shown.
One in our bedroom on the main floor. (Ranch style, one bedroom on the main floor, two egress bedrooms down stairs.)
One fire extinguisher at bottom of stairs, near both bedrooms.
One in the garage.
One in container in wood lot.
One smaller DOT one in firewood truck.
One medium size in rv trailer which also has carbon monoxide and smoke detectors..
I should probably get one more for the pickup when towing.
In defense of myself, this comes in part from crossing the Atlantic on a friends 44' sailboat. A great deal of thought, planning and money goes into things you hope will never be needed,
Ya I hear ya. A lot of money and love could be gone in minutes if not prepped for it. My wife lost her house when we were in high school never figured out what it was. Two story house from early 1900s started and was completely gone in 20 -30 minutes. It was February 40-50 mph winds and below zero. Luckily no one was in the house. My father in law was doing chores in the barn when it happened and a plow truck went by and stopped and said “ hey your house is smoking” by then the back of the house was already gone
 
Steve, can you elaborate on the symptoms? I think CO poisoning may have happened to me once. I was working night shift at a hotel and locking up the spa area when I suddenly felt dizzy and saliva started drooling from my mouth like a running tap (faucet). Went to the toilet to vomit but couldn't. Then I left the spa and I was ok. It has always puzzled me and creeped me out, and remains a mystery. Now I'm wondering if it's possible there was CO contamination in the spa changing room that night.
Ya sounds like it. It hits you out of nowhere. I also remember drooling but I drool a lot before I puke anyways so always thought it was because of that. I left work and within a couple hours I was feeling ok
 
Had mine go off once. Put the ashes in the ash drawer and was gonna take them out when cooled off for an hour. 20 mins later my co detector went off. Never did that again.

Totally different. I have a built in co detector in travle trailer and one time when i got home it smelled terible of rotten eggs. Detector never went off. Thought thats weird so i baught a backup one just incase and it did it again. Stunk real bad but neither one went off. Do they not detect propane too?

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I had an apartment where the CO detectors would go off when the wind was from the west. Finally fixed when they put a forced exhaust on the furnace vent.

My dad got CO poisoning during a winter construction job that was heated with the old oil salamanders. They were building a K-Mart. Only a couple of the many guys were affected at all. Really messed my dad up for about six months mentally. He became very paranoid and required mental health treatment to get straightened out. One of the problems with things like CO or illicit drugs is that in the wrong person they will flip a switch in your head and you may never come back normal again. On that note my wife's brother was institutionalized since high school with schizophrenia. Probably from dabbling with drugs in the 60's.
 
Never had mine go off. I have it about 20 feet from the stove. I'm not sure if that would be the area with the highest levels if there was a problem, or if it would be upstairs. I suppose i should have one upstairs as well. My house is insulated good but not airtight, so I think i have quite a bit of fresh air coming in.
 
I’ve had ours go off once. No woodstove in my house though (natural gas furnace). Called the non-emergency phone at the FD because we all felt ok and they told us to go outside. In about 5 minutes a fire truck pulled up and they walked through the house with a CO2 meter and it registered nothing. Detector malfunctioned so i bought a new one.
 
Mine would go off if we used our non vented propane heater (backup heat at the cabin). Never otherwise.

Using my gas oven will make my older smoke alarms go nuts too.
 
I came home to mine going off on Thanksgiving day, the very first year I started using the wood furnace.

I aired out as much of the house as I could, and that night, took both detectors upstairs into my bedroom, and slept with the windows partially open and the door closed to keep any possible residual CO out.

I figured out the next day that when I installed the chimney (triple wall 6" - bought used) I replaced the mesh screen around the cap (that was falling apart) with one that had too small of openings, and creosote was building up and clogging the flow. I pulled it off and had amazing draft once again. I decided I didn't need any screen anymore. :lol:
 
I came home to mine going off on Thanksgiving day, the very first year I started using the wood furnace.

I aired out as much of the house as I could, and that night, took both detectors upstairs into my bedroom, and slept with the windows partially open and the door closed to keep any possible residual CO out.

I figured out the next day that when I installed the chimney (triple wall 6" - bought used) I replaced the mesh screen around the cap (that was falling apart) with one that had too small of openings, and creosote was building up and clogging the flow. I pulled it off and had amazing draft once again. I decided I didn't need any screen anymore. :lol:


Same here I removed my screen as well.
 
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