In this HVAC safety video, Derek Cole advises homeowners with any gas‑powered appliances to install carbon monoxide (CO) detectors and explains how to position them for maximum protection. He stresses that CO detectors should be mounted low on walls near floor‑level outlets because CO is heavier than air, unlike smoke alarms that sit high. He recommends placing a detector in every living and sleeping area, on each level of a multi‑story home, and on opposite sides of a single‑story house to ensure coverage. Since CO is odorless and often triggers alarms at night, he urges immediate inspection when an alarm sounds. Cole also warns that a cracked furnace heat exchanger can allow CO to enter the home; therefore, any furnace with a cracked heat exchanger should be turned off right away to eliminate the risk to occupants.
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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. A lot of clients we go to have a combination smoke and carbon monoxide detector in the house. The problem is with the CO part of it, or the carbon monoxide part, is that when it's up high on the ceiling, it's not doing you any good whatsoever because carbon monoxide is heavy. 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 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.
