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Anyone here tonight if you could give some insight, share your experience it would be gratefully received. My husband decided to move the cold air return for our gas furnace last night. We spent the night unable to sleep, with headaches etc. until he turned the furnace off (there might be no connection as I am prone to headaches for various reasons). I think it was probably this morning or late last night I heard the furnace “labouring” and hubs made some adjustments. We checked the carbon monoxide alarm and realized it had no battery. Hubs put an old one in and it started going off in high alarm. Hubs said it was because the battery was old. A little while later I bought a new one and put it in. Hours later, I went downstairs and it was in warning alarm mode. We have turned the furnce off again, have windows open. I am very concerned there is not enough distance between the furnace and the cold air return which now sits almost directly one floor above, whereas previously it was in the next room (one floor above).
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DO NOT USE THE FURNACE UNTIL YOU HAVE IT CHECKED BY A COMPETENT SERVICE TECHNICIAN!
Yes, I am shouting, in BOLD!
CO is DANGEROUS!!!
QUOTE
Hubs put an old [battery] in and it started going off in high alarm. Hubs said it was because the battery was old.
ENDQUOTE
Sorry to do this to another guy, but hubs doesn't know sh..., er, what he's talking about. Has hubs recently taken out a life insurance policy on you?
High levels of CO can kill you; repeated exposure to lower levels can cause serious health problems.
It is impossible to diagnose what's causing the problem based on the info available. The relocation of the return doesn't sound like it should have caused the problem, but this can be tricky.
Try to get a service technician who is also a Carbon Monoxide Analyst trained by the Building Performance Institute.
If the service technician doesn't use a CO meter with a probe that measures CO in the flue gases and use a draft guage on the flue pipe, his/her knowledge is questionable.
Two things are going wrong with your furnace: First: the burners are producing too much CO. Second: the CO and other combustion gases aren't being properly vented from the home. Both problems have to be fixed!
There is a lot of misinformation out there about CO and what causes it. Don't take chances with bozos.
If anyone tries to get you to ignore the CO detectors, tell 'em to talk a walk. (Or ask them to put their opinion in writing, together with a certificate of Errors and Omissions Insurance!)
Some sources of information:
The CO Headquarters (mainly medical stuff) is at http://www.phymac.med.wayne.edu/FacultyProfile/penney/COHQ/co1.htm
The Building Performace Institute CO Analysis Protocol is at http://home.att.net/~cobusters1/coprotocol.htm
The best set of links on CO is at http://www.essex1.com/people/mechacc/carbon%20monoxide%20links.htm
Bob Walker
Carbon Monoxide Analyst
Paradigm Inspections, LLC
NW Ohio
*i Two things are going wrong with your furnace: First: the burners are producing too much CO. Second: the CO and other combustion gases aren't being properly vented from the home. Both problems have to be fixed! The fact that they are producing too much CO is also costing you money.There may also be a leak directly from the combustion chamber, not just the vent.i If anyone tries to get you to ignore the CO detectors, tell 'em to talk a walk. (Or ask them to put their opinion in writing, together with a certificate of Errors and Omissions Insurance!)Better... Make them live in the house with the furnace running full blast for a few days. What ? You mean it's ok for you, but they wouldn't want to take the risk ?
*Thanks Guys. I don't give a da----mn about it costing more right now, but I suppose you could be right, that it was a problem more long term than we had realized. I know I won't be here when/if hubs starts up the furnace again tomorrow...meanwhile we will pile on the blankets and try to through another night without heat. The alarm is old and never registered a warning in the years I know we had a battery in it. (but then my smoke detector never registered an alarm either, even when 10 firemen tried to break down our door at 2am...)
*"I know I won't be here when/if hubs starts up the furnace again tomorrow..."Quick, see if your insurance agent is available and can kick up the life insurance limitsKeep in mind, CO is odorless, tasteless, etc - it cannot be detected by the human senses. (Some of the real guru's in this area, Jim Davis & Jim Day, talk about being able to feel a tightening in the chest when exposed to high levels of C, but these are the guys with extraordinary experience.)With all due respect to hubs, this stuff is best left to people who know what they are doing. (Many professionals, some amateurs.)Ask hubs: "how do you know the burners are adjusted right?" If he responds "blue flame = good flame, orange flame = dirty flame, yellow flame = high CO flame" tell him he's only 1/3 right. An orange flame shows up with a dirty furnace/burners. (On the scale of life to death, 33 1/3% is not a passing grade!)As to CO: you can't, tell anything by looking at the flame! The belief you can tell by color is wrong. Trust me on this, I've tested plenty of furnaces, many with a "textbook" blue flame that blew my CO meter off the scale at 2,000 ppm.In my area a service call is $75-100; compare the price of serious medical problems or death.I suppose I'm a bit of a fanatic on CO. The more I learn, and the more I see of people who's lives have been really screwed up by it, the more "fanatic" I've become.
*We've had someone in from Enbridge to check CO levels this morning, he says we're fine, and that our alarm is probably a dud. Still, I think we are going to buy a new alarm just in case. The furnace was off all night so big surprise no CO levels in the house, but I guess if the furnace was producing CO he would have found something. He checked the exhaust as well. There was something odd about the furnace though so I am still a little jittery, even though everything seems fine now. Interesting about the flame colour note: our flame looked a bit murky yesterday and is running blue today. There was a lot of dirt in the furnace esp. after vents got moved. Oh God - here we go again - alarm is off so I'll leave....
*How did he check? For how long? Did he check the draft? Did he open and close windows and doors to see if the draft was affected?It is not unusual for a furnace to go from "relatively clean" to major CO problems with changing envelope conditions (Garage door left open, bathroom and/or kitchen vents run, dryer run.)While it is possible that the co detector is a dud, it is more likely that the person calling it a dud is the actual dud, IMHO.I'm not sure who/what Enbridge is. Compare what he/she did with the BPI Carbon Monoxide Analysis Protocol at http://home.att.net/~cobusters1/coprotocol.htm
*Any news?I'd be very interested in what turns up!
*J Williams,You mention Embridge, are you in New York? If so who came to your house? It seems to me that your furnace is backdrafting itself. This happens all the time and is misdiagnosed all the time. Calling a heating guy may not solve this problem either.Tell them that you want them to measure the PRESSURE in the mechanical room, and do a complete combustion safety test.I am very concerned for your safety, please don't goof around with this.-Rob
*Rob,I was wondering about that, although it didn't seem likely: " I am very concerned there is not enough distance between the furnace and the cold air return which now sits almost directly one floor above, whereas previously it was in the next room (one floor above)" [Emphasis added]Do you think the relocated return is creating neg pressure in the utility room below and causing the flue cases to be pulled out of the draft hood and into the return?I haven't seen this happen myself with a return on another floor, but I certainly haven't seen everything there is to see!
*Well, we are fine. Welcome to the chaos/comedy of our lives! This house has been under reno since we moved here about 5 years ago and this will be just one more anecdote to log in. The furnace guy was not of the opinion that the cold air return was a problem. The furnace is not contained in a small room, and our house is hardly what you would call air tight. We think almost certainly, that the alarm was a dud, though the amount of crap in the furnace could very well have been giving it problems (a mystery we may never solve). We called a very annoyed furnace guy back to check CO again and 0. We bought a new alarm and 0. We know the new alarm probably works because it actually went off (at low warning level) while we were running a (large) gas powered tool in the house. The old alarm made not a peep. It is very irritating that these alarms are sold if they don't even function properly ... I guess there are probably consumers reports for these things. Thanks everyone, for your concerns.
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Anyone here tonight if you could give some insight, share your experience it would be gratefully received. My husband decided to move the cold air return for our gas furnace last night. We spent the night unable to sleep, with headaches etc. until he turned the furnace off (there might be no connection as I am prone to headaches for various reasons). I think it was probably this morning or late last night I heard the furnace "labouring" and hubs made some adjustments. We checked the carbon monoxide alarm and realized it had no battery. Hubs put an old one in and it started going off in high alarm. Hubs said it was because the battery was old. A little while later I bought a new one and put it in. Hours later, I went downstairs and it was in warning alarm mode. We have turned the furnce off again, have windows open. I am very concerned there is not enough distance between the furnace and the cold air return which now sits almost directly one floor above, whereas previously it was in the next room (one floor above).