California law requires a carbon monoxide detector in every home (essentially) as of July 1st.
Since I need to get a few, do you guys recommend any particular CO detector?
I'm planning on putting one in each bedroom; but I'm not sure if they belong in the garage or kitchen.
Any recommendations?
Check the local code. I doubt the garage is needed as there could be many false alarms. Why each bedroom? CO only comes from a couple of sources. I have mine in the hallway, just outside the bedrooms as the CO has to travel that way to get to them. A second one is about 12' away from the heater, the main source of CO.
SF Man wrote in news:itmvn8$o1q$1 @speranza.aioe.org:
Decide whether you want a combined CO and smoke alarm and whether you want stand-alone or interconnected (as in if the battery is low in 1 - even hardwired ones need a battery - all of them start beeping). Then price them too.
The ones consumerreports.com recommend First Alert CO615 Type: Stand-Alone Models Price as tested: $40
And First Alert OneLInk SCO501CN Type: Interconnected Models Price as tested: $70
CO detectors have a rather limited life span. According to CU, CO detectors need to be replaced every 5 years. That adds to the expense.
Think canary.
This news is by itself interesting, but may be incomplete: in Ontario, Canada, the current requirement (since the 1980s) is for smoke detectors, not CO1 detectors (which appeared on the market not much later -- but are increasingly popular.)
Are few CA households all-electric, heating and cooking solely with electricity (not oil or gas)? All-electric houses (like mine) are unlikely to generate CO1, whatever goes wrong: if a fire started, modern smoke detectors seem to offer the best warning. (Mind you, sources of open fire, e.g. wood stoves or fireplaces, are prudently supplied with a CO1 detector.)
I agree with check the code.
Battery? Hardwired? Plug-in? Interconnect with fire alarms?
I also agree that hallways outside the bedrooms are likely where they would be installed.
If you want to be code compliant you need to know what the code requires.
you really only need one. outside the bedrooms in the hall. Maybe two if you have a two story house.
I'd check with your local fire dept. I bought one recently and it was useless. Always gave the same reading, even when put in a propane oven. Find out where you can have one tested, to make sure it actually works. Again, I'd suggest the fire dept. They could at least direct you.
Another thing, and this applies to both CO and smoke alarms. Get an AC powered device. Not because they are more reliable or dectect any better, but they have an honest-ta-gawd horn/buzzer/klaxon. There's no chance of not hearing my Sears AC smoke alarm. That sucker will flat blow yer ass clean outta bed! ;)
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What reading was that? If it wasn't zero, then that's a problem, but if it was zero, then that's normal. A gas oven should not be expected to contain CO unless you had contrived to starve the flame of oxygen. Heck, my 11 year old car tests zero for CO on its periodic emissions testing. CO should normally be pretty rare anywhere in living quarters.
CO detector test kits are available, they have little breakable ampules of the gas, you put the ampule and the detector in a ziplock bag and break the ampule within the bag. Look on the shelves where the detectors are sold or with all the other test kits for stuff we never used to be scared of.
I have not seen a battery-only CO (or gas) detector, I presume because they inherently use more power than can be supplied by a battery with a practical replacement interval (smoke detectors basically just need a bias voltage). But the ones I've seen have battery backup.
I have not found a smoke, gas or CO detector that I'd fault for having too quiet an alarm. In fact I'm convinced that most of them are so loud that they interfere with calm, correct response, and with communication, in an actual emergency. Mebbe they ought to have a brief ultraloud initial alarm that ramps down a few dB lower 10 or 15 seconds...wonder if I can patent that.
As for placement, since the OP's motivation is to follow the law, then the law probably specifies where to put them. Of course it may say "per manufacturer's instructions". The CO detectors I've bought have instructions that if there's only one in the house, it should go in the vicinity of the bedrooms. There have been other threads on this group about how CO disperses; I think the bottom line is that it spreads pretty much uniformly (or failing that, unpredictably) in air so the detectors are best located near the people that they're protecting.
Chip C Toronto
Just bought a battery-only operated one at Home Depot last week to put in a house I have for sale and to comply with the new April 1st code of one on every floor.
"California homeowners will be required to install carbon monoxide detectors starting in July 2011 under a bill signed Friday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that is aimed at preventing deaths and injuries caused by poisoning from the odorless, colorless gas.
"Up to 40 California residents die each year from carbon monoxide poisoning, according to state Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), whose legislation was signed by the governor. "
I know maths is hard, but geeze!
In , HeyBub wrote in part:
40 lives per year over the 5 year life expectancy CO detectors means 200 lives may be saved by 180 megabucks. That's one life may be saved per expenditure of 9 megabucks.How much is yours worth? Your spouse's? Your childrens'? Those of your parents? How much would you pay to capture an assassin going after your mother? How much would you sue for if a member of your family ran into a wrongful death?
A lot of people don't have the good luck to die from CO poisoning but instead become drooling human vegetables.
Factor in the cost of lifetime care for seriously brain damaged victims of CO poisoning and the equation changes mightily. Fetuses of pregnant women exposed to CO even minimally fare very poorly.
Ironically, I read that low doses of CO are being investigated for possible health benefits. Meat packers treat meat with CO because it keeps it bright red and much more saleable.
Food safety advocates claim that the meat stays red, even when thoroughly spoiled, making it harder for consumers to buy meat safely.
-- Bobby G.
That is the way it is. Worry about the small numbers and forget about the larger ones. I do not know the number of people in California,but over the US there are 30,000 to 50,000 people killed in car accidents each year. Nothing much is done about that.
All this nanny legislation is driven by the insurance companies looking to create loopholes in payout lawsuits. Didn't have an accurate recently calibrated CO detector? Sorry, we don't hafta pay hospital expenses on yer persistant vegitative state wife. You can believe they are doing it with automobiles, too. Data collection boxes that record how fast you were going when you slammed on the brakes prior to skidding into that light pole. Yer fault! You were speeding. Sorry. Broken airbag when yer head slammed into the windsheild? No money fer you.
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Not true. Seat belts, air bags, stronger frames, anti-lock brakes, etc. But there is no reliable technology that will prevent a drunken fool from getting in a car and ramming it into another one.
Not as many as coal miners who die in work related accidents
As if the insurance companies couldn't make the detectors a requirement for insurance without the law.
Broken airbag meet my lawyers and the automobile company that installed you
Nonsense the rate of automobile deaths (deaths per X million miles driven) has fallen steadily since the 1920s or so. If fatalities had increased at the same rate as miles driven between 1994 and 2009, for instance, there would have been 45601 people killed in 09 compared to the actual total of 33,308 (which was also less than in 1994). The rate, or fatalities per 100 million miles driven, fell from 1.73 to 1.13 over that time period. I don't know why Americans have aversion to figuring out risk data and using it properly (I also see a LOT of health care stuff where the media gets all upset about a study that shows a doubling of relative risk and sorta ignores the fact that a doubling of relative risks means two people in a million will get the disease instead of 1 in a million).
Once inflated airbag not replaced by owner cuz costs $1800!
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