No.. I am not running a house of ill-repute.
All joking aside, this post is lengthy but hear me out as it contains a message that everyone should know about.
My garage is attached to my house, in that garage is my 1957 classic car, which was my late husband's pride and joy. During the wet cold months of Fall, Winter and Spring it never leaves the garage, but on a regular basis he always started up her Hemi. I am now trying to do this, but needed help to connect the battery, so #2 sil helped me last night. Opening up the garage door to let out the exhaust, we revved her up, she purred like a kitten for awhile then we turned off the motor.
I then settled down to watch TV and work on my hexies. At 10:15 I hear a shrill beeping sound, thinking it was my smoke detector I ran upstairs to see what the problem was, the Carbon Monoxide alarm was warning me of high levels of co2 in my house. Now I know this is a very serious problem, as it is known as the "Silent Killer". I got my phone and went outside and called 911. Enter the firemen, their monitors detected the co2 and they brought in huge fans, opened all the doors to rid the house of it. After all of their tests they concluded the exhaust from the car caused the problem. I mentioned to them that we have done this countless times and never had this happen before. They indicated that it was a still night , the air was heavy with the temperature hovering around zero C so the fumes stayed in the garage and during the evening seeped into the house through my back door. Because the engine was no longer running the co2 was not rising in the garage, but just the same the levels were high enough to make me ill if I was exposed to them for any length of time, as it was they were there for over 2 hours.
You may not have an old car, or your garage attached to your house, but all fossel burning appliances, create co2, and if not vented properly could cause serious problems.
Please, install at least one Carbon Monoxide detector in your home, push the "test" button each and every week, replace when instructions advise you to. When, or if your alarm is activated the sensor is saturated with co2 and your detector must be replaced.
Most important when alarm goes off, leave the house and call 911.
I am glad that I had one, listened to it, and did the appropriate actions.
Patricia
7 comments:
Oh my goodness, how lucky you were. It must have been a frightening experience but I for one am going out first thing on Monday and getting a Carbon Monoxide detector. We have a smoke alarm but that really isn't enough is it? Thank you so much for posting this and I am so pleased you are OK.
Wow. I'm glad you're okay!
(You are pretty clever in your title, too!)
Grins, pokey
Oh my goodness, what a shock for you, I have a CO2 monitor in the sitting room, some years ago OH was affected by the fumes from a gas fire, he did not go out side to pphone but stayed in the room, they had to break down the door to get to him........
That's a bit scary. We have a CO2 in our house, and are lucky that it's never gone off. Glad to hear you are ok.
So glad you are ok. Our garage is under our sitting room and my husband stores his 41 ford in there and he starts it up like that every once in awhile. I told him he could not do it anymore in the garage he had to pull it out if he was going to run it.
a very wise message, and we do have a CO2 detector in the house.....
Glad you are fine,
Gill
I'm so glad you have that detector. I agree every home should have one. Even with the natural gas fireplace I insisted we have one. I don't know much about gas but I figured if gas in a car can produce CO2 then maybe gas in a fireplace could too. Not worth taking chances.
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