A short safety-focused podcast episode advising listeners about carbon monoxide (CO) risks and where to install CO alarms. The speaker explains CO is colorless and odorless, stresses alarms are required when any combustion appliances are present, recommends locating alarms near sleeping areas (or in shared hallways), low on walls/near floor level for best detection, at least one on each floor, and in garages/basements as appropriate; also warns against shared HVAC returns with garages and advises calling a professional if an alarm sounds.
Chapters
What's up, everyone? Welcome back to the podcast. And I, I realized last episode, last episode, we covered this, we covered seal alarms. And I want to hit it again because the placement of seal alarms is very important. Carbon monoxide alarms, if you have any gas appliance in the home, stove, fireplace, gas fireplace, gas stove, gas dryer, gas furnace. If you have gas running in the house and you have combustion in the house, if it's a unvented fireplace or if it's even a stove, you need to have a CO alarm in the home to protect you. Now, what's if you don't know? Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless. It's the gas that can be deadly if not detected early. This gas is produced by burning fuels like gas, oil, coal, wood. It can easily expand, accumulate in a poorly ventilated space, causing headaches, nausea, dizziness, and even death. It's essential, essential to have carbon monoxide alarms installed in your home to protect yourself and your loved ones. After you, after you get one of these, the problem is, okay, not in this. The problem is, I don't have one. So once that problem is solved, you have one. The next issue is, where do I place it? Where does it go? What happens? What happens next is something very important. Where should I place the seal alarm? Well, if you have multiple bedrooms, it should always be in the sleeping bed area. So say you're at the end of a hall and you got multiple bedrooms. It's a good idea to put that in a central spot of those bedrooms. So if you have a hole, I'll put it in the hallway surrounding, you know, the hallway has those multiple bedrooms. I'll put it outside the hallway. The first, that's the first place you want to start. One is near a sleeping area. Carbon monoxide can cause drowsiness and cause you being unconscious. So it's important to have an alarm inside every bedroom in your home, at least, or at least in the shared section. Again, if you have multiple bedrooms in the area, you can put it in that shared space. Same area. Make sure you put it near floor level for maximum effectiveness. Now, you go to a lot of homes and you see a combination smoke and fire alarm. And it's up on the ceiling. It's way up on the ceiling. And that is the problem. Now, carbon monoxide is a little bit lighter than there, so it'll get there eventually. The problem is what's going to mix and dilute it as it gets up there. So if you got a leak, is it going to get there? Mix and dilute it and set the alarm off or not set off. So you want to keep it as low to the ground as possible at the wall outlet, at floor outlet. For maximum effectiveness, you want to keep it as low as you can to the ground. Hopefully that makes sense. Also want it nearer kitchen. The kitchen is another critical area because as mentioned earlier, is produced when co is produced, when fuels and gas are burned. When combustion happens, co is the byproduct. So if you have a gas stove or any gas plants in the kitchen as essential, I have one there as well, at least 10ft above the stove. Again, you want to be protected as much as you can. If your furnace or water heater uses gas or is in a basement, it could fill your basement. You want to place one in that area in the garage. The garage is another key area. A lot of folks have a attached garage attached to their homes. And on a cool morning like this time of year, or when they have a cool morning like this, their vehicle warming up before it leaves. Well, the problem is your vehicle is emitting this co, this carbon monoxide, so it can penetrate inside the house. That's why they don't want you to have returns. The garage. If you have a garage and a car can go in the garage, you obviously don't want to return in there because you don't want to be sucking the air out of that garage and bringing it into the house because of the CO danger. The carbon monoxide danger went to a home probably last year and they wanted to kind of add a few runs in the garage. Well, the problem is to get the air back to the unit, it's going to have to pull it from the garage to the return. So you can't put a return in the garage, but the air from the garage has to go in the house because it has to be returned back to unit. So you can't put one in. You can't put air in that garage unless it is a completely separate system. A great thing for it is a ductless mini split, something that's a standalone system only for that garage because you don't want to mix that air as it comes in. You don't want that to mix with the air in your house. Another important fact, each level of the home should have one. So if you have a two story house, you should have one each level. You have bedroom downstairs, bedrooms upstairs, each level. These things aren't completely expensive, but it's something you need to have in place for your safety. They say carbon monoxide is a silent killer, because it can sneak up on you without warning. You can't smell it, you can't see it, you can't touch it, you can't feel it. It's just there. That's why you need the alarm to protect yourself. Because if you have it go off, if you have that alarm go off, you need to contact a professional, see what's going on, see if something is leaking, see if somehow CEO is coming into the space. And that is always going to be a problem. So you want to get that checked out as soon as you can, because you want to be as safe as you can be. Safety first. Safety first. Safety first. Remember, gas or anything burning in the house, wood, anything with combustion, has the ability to have carbon monoxide. So if you have that in the home at any spot, you need to have a seal alarm.
