Carbon Monoxide detector

On Friday 01 November 2013 17:07 DerbyBorn wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Cigarettes produce a certain amount of CO - but I'm not sure the particulates in the smoke do CO detectors much good...

There may be a can of tester you can buy:

Perhaps:

Car exhaust has a significant CO content. Hold a large bin-bag over the exhaust pipe of a car until the bag is full, then deflate it close to the alarm. A repeat of the process should collect a similar concentration of CO if the car engine is warm.

But ISTR that some CO alarms have a significant delay built in before they go off. That was certainly the case twenty or so years ago, but modern ones may have an instant response.

But I've just remembered that modern cars are fitted with catalytic converters that are supposed to reduce or eliminate the CO content of the exhaust, so find yourself an old car without one, or the exhaust from a petrol mower or strimmer might do.

Then buy a new alarm in case the other pollutants have wrecked the sensor.

Having just done a search and found this:

I guess it depends on the make, etc.

Without proper test equipment you can't do it. Suggestions to try using vehicle exhaust are frankly bonkers.

On Saturday 02 November 2013 13:28 Peter Crosland wrote in uk.d-i-y:

There were 2 posts with links to the proper test gas in cans, mine being one of them...

Peter panic quivered:-

How do you know your CO alarm works ?

More blind faith?

Jim K

I don't have one. Saves worrying about whether it works or not.

Neither do I. My boiler vents outside, why would I need one?

;-) FFS don't tell Peter....

Jim K

I don't think there is a leag requirement for gas appliances, only solid fuel ones.

Of course there are plenty of cases of people being killed by CO from faulty gas appliances even "room sealed" ones.

Only once they have warmed up. You can still kill yourself by letting the car run in a garage. Just not reliably, it might warm up and just leave you with an awful headache.

Andy

Peter's parrots are probably the best detector.

If they fall off their perches... it's called bioassay.

Andy

But not if it is a diesel.

I learnt this, from one of our dealers, who sold industrial equipment, committed suicide. He had a duesel Transit van and new the diesel wouldn't kill him, so he took a petrol generator into the back of the van and started that up. That did the job.

If stuff starts leaking into the house I'd notice funny smells before it got bad enough to kill me.

On Tuesday 05 November 2013 09:33 Gefreiter Krueger wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Good luck with that... Can I come to your Darwin Award ceremony?

Oh, would you?

"Carbon monoxide is a colourless, odourless, tasteless, poisonous gas"

What makes you think a leak would be sudden?