Derek ColeGM, Simmons One Hour Heating & Air · AI HVAC Answers

Carbon Monoxide & Cracked Heat Exchanger | HVAC Tips

11 Dec 2020 · 2 min

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1:56

In this instructional segment, Derek Cole emphasizes the critical need for carbon monoxide (CO) detectors in any home with gas appliances such as stoves or furnaces. He explains that CO detectors must be installed at floor level near outlets on the wall, not high on the ceiling, and recommends placing them in every living and sleeping area, with at least one unit on each level of a multi‑story house or on opposite sides of a single‑story home. Cole stresses that CO is odorless, invisible, and often affects occupants during sleep, making detectors essential for early warning. He then describes how a cracked furnace heat exchanger can allow CO to leak into the home, describing it as a serious safety hazard. Consequently, HVAC technicians will shut off a furnace with a cracked heat exchanger to prevent any possible CO exposure, even though a leak is not guaranteed. The overall message is a precautionary call to install and maintain CO detectors and to treat any cracked heat exchanger as an immediate safety concern.

Chapters

If you have a gas appliance in the home at all, stove, furnace, anything in the home running off of gas, you should have a carbon monoxide detector in the home. So the best thing to do is put it on floor level with the outlets on the floor, on the wall. That is where it needs to go. If it's up there high in the ceiling on top of the wall, it's good for a smoke alarm, but it's not good for a CO alarm. So if you don't have one, you need one. It's recommended you have one in all living spaces. If you have multiple levels to the house, you have one on each level. Even if you have a single-story house but multi— or you have a bedroom on one side, bedrooms on the other side, then you should have one on that side and this side. Basically, so it can go off if you have any kind of carbon monoxide, which is odorless You can't smell it, you can't feel it, you can't sense it, so the alarm sets it off. And most cases, people get in trouble because it's usually at nighttime when they're asleep when it starts to bother them. It's something you can't feel going on, so you need that alarm in the living space or in the sleeping space to alarm you when that hazard is there. And as soon as you have a CO alarm go off, You need to have it checked out. And if you have— the biggest thing with a gas furnace is when you have a cracked heat exchanger. When you have a cracked heat exchanger, that CO, it's possible that CO can now come into the home, come into the living space, and that is very, very dangerous. So whenever we see a cracked heat exchanger, we turn it off for that reason. It's a safety hazard. Not saying it's a 100% chance they're going to come in, but you You don't even want the possibility of it coming in, so we're going to shut it off and kill it so it doesn't affect you and your family.