A cracked furnace heat exchanger lets carbon monoxide into your home. William Skipper explains why technicians shut off the gas immediately, how to spot problems during tune-ups, and why you need CO detectors on every level, placed 2 to 3 feet off the ground. Replace detectors every 7 years.
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Hey, this is Derek Oholo with Williams Skipper and welcome to the Comfort Experts. And today we're talking about something very important that is your heat exchanger. We get the question quite a few times when we go to a house and find a crack in that heat exchanger, why do we have to turn the gas off? So William, why is that necessary?
Well, a cracked heat exchanger is a life safety hazard. Your heat exchanger is the barrier between the bad gas and the good air. When you heat, you've got a heat exchanger. Behind that heat exchanger you've got the fire burning The Flames producing CO2 and CO2, what's it called? The silent killer. You want to keep it out of your home. So that heat exchanger, once it forms a crack, it will allow that CO2 and those toxic gases to get into the airstream and then the blower picks it up and it takes it and distribute it through the home. And it is very dangerous. We're introducing CO2 into the home. You never want to do that. So once we find them, we're killing that system. We're not allowing it to run until we can get somebody there to fix it. Because of the life safety hazard.
Yeah, because it is a combustion item. So you're burning fuel, you're making fire. Of course, a ByProduct is the CO2, and if it's not burning correctly, that's also a problem. So one thing we do on a tune up is you check that gas pressure and check the flame to make sure you have a nice pretty blue flame, not a yellow reddish flame.
That's right.
So that way you're burning properly. But CO2 or carbon monoxide in the home is possible with that crack. So when it's possible, we're going to turn the gas off. It's better to be safe than sorry.
That's right.
So make sure you also have a CO2 carbon monoxide detector in your home. And kind of a pet peeve of mine, but we go into a home, usually have the fire and smoke, CO2 all combined into the smoke alarm, which is epicling. That's not where you want to be, is it?
No, not with carbon monoxide. You want that carbon monoxide detector somewhere in the life living area, somewhere close to the ground, you know, two to three foot off the ground. The perfect application for it is a receptacle. Your receptacles are good heights. CO2 is going to fall, it's going to pick it up. If I've got my carbon monoxide detector on the Ceiling. By the time it detects that CO2, it could have allowed enough levels in that home to where it could be very dangerous and too late. So I want to detect it early, get that warning. So you say, hey, let's get out. And a CO2 detector, like you said, Derek, anytime you've got any appliance in the home that works off of combustion, whether it's a gas stove, a gas hot water heater, your gas dryer, your gas furnace, whatever your heating source may be, even a little space heaters, a fireplace, you want to have one of those CO detectors and CO2 detectors in your home to protect you in case something were to go bad.
Yeah. And the recommendation is to have the CO2 detector at the receptacle, preferably if you have a hallway with bedrooms, to have it in that hallway. That way if it happens at nighttime, which your heat will run when you're asleep, you want to hear that alarm go off. So then you can't get up and see what the problem is. You also want to have it on every level of the home. So if you have a two story house, you want to have on each level of the home as well. And I think the lifespan is seven years.
And it's not a bad idea. They're very inexpensive. It's not a bad idea to even put one in each bedroom. If you just want one on each floor, you put it in the hallway. But to protect you for extra, put it in each bedroom. That way you know it's going to alert somebody and you might have a heavy sleeper that had the door shut and the hallway go. One in the hallway goes off. But if I've got it in my bedroom, it could alert me a little bit quicker. So they're very inexpensive. So splurge a little bit and get it. Life safety. I don't know if you put a price tag on life.
Yeah, I mean I would treat it the same way as a fire alarm or a smoke alarm. You want to keep them in bedrooms and living areas and spaces where everybody's going to be. Because again, you can never be too safe. And we want to make sure in seven years is the lifespan on that CO detector. So you want to make sure that changes out. It doesn't last forever. It's not like a smoke alarm. All those things need to be changed out. Smoke alarm is also seven years.
Depends on the brand. And you got something that you can renew, but it's best to go ahead and replace them by any time they.
Are making some new ones coming out. That have a 10 year warranty. But again, those are brand new ones. So the ones you have existing do have a lifespan, do need to be checked out. Because when you're dealing with cracks in the heat exchanger or any combustion item, A, safety is the number one priority. So that is why we turn the gas off. We also put a sticker on that system. That way if somebody comes behind us, they know we found a hazard.
