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Although this post is a little dramatic, I mean it when I say you almost lost me last night - as in, my whole family and could have easily died.
Our whole house was filled with carbon monoxide at 2:00am.
Thankfully I was actually up and working on a deadline and didn’t sleep through the CO2 alarms going off - which we stupidly only had installed in the furthest-from-our-bedroom basement corner of our home.
PLEASE ensure you have CO Detectors (an affiliate link - but I would feel better if you got them now at a local store) installed and working in your homes today. According to our (wonderful!) local fire department:
If you start showing signs of Carbon Monoxide poisoning while you are sleeping, you can be guaranteed you won’t wake up.
The most important place to put a CO2 detector is near your bedrooms. We had dangerously high levels on the top floor of the house, but our CO2 detector that I placed on the middle floor never went off (because I didn’t trust the first reading from an older detector in the basement :: dumb).
Signs of Carbon Monoxide poisoning include nausea, headaches, vomiting and flu-like symptoms. The key difference between the flu and CO2 poisoning is that the whole family will come down with it at once - whereas the flu knocks over family members one at a time.
If your CO2 detectors go off, call 911 right away (though I have in the past turned them off and they didn’t go on again - I’m thinking that wasn’t the smartest move now…)
Here’s a link to the full Wikipedia article on Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
Please be safe and keep your families safe too. I was lazy and had 2 CO2 detectors sitting in the store bag for months. I assure you today they are working and in their proper places.
Do the same and make sure you have a CO2 detector for every level of your house. And SPREAD the word - having these detectors in your home is now a law in most states, anyway!
~
*Edit* For those of you who are curious, I am still sitting in a very cold house as I wait on the second professional to come out to our house and figure out what the problem is. The gas co. and fire department seemed pretty confident there was something blocking the flue. The hvac guy I just had out here wasn’t able to find anything in the flue, nor able to figure out a furnace problem without charging us a lot of $$. I’m now waiting for a chimney sweep to come out and check the flue more thoroughly…
The wonderful chimney sweeping company found two dead squirrels in the flue - we are all clean and finally safely warming up!
I am so happy and grateful, not much can bother me today 
OMGosh, I’m so happy y’all are ok. I’d miss you so much…
Thank you for that powerful reminder! It is just starting to get cold in so many places across the country and I’m sure we’ll hear more incidents in the coming weeks.
I think our detector is built in with the security system, but I think I will double check with hubby on that one.
Glad you are safe.
This is one of my fears. I’m so glad you came through it OK.
Oo, scary.
Last week 2 children from the UK died of CO poisoning while on holiday in Greece - and I thought at the time, oh yes, must get a monitor … and then it didn’t get on the todo list, so it hasn’t happened.
Guess what’s going on the list today? Thanks for the nudge, and glad to hear you all woke up OK.
Wow, what a scary experience! I’m glad everything turned out OK.
A great reminder that something as simple as a CO detector/alarm can save your life. I’m going to go check the batteries!
For those that use a central heating furnace (or gas fireplaces), check with your gas company. Our gas company here in San Diego has a free service where they come by your house and check the CO levels around the furnace and vents to see if any CO is being released into the house.
We do that every October before we start using it. Hey, it’s a free service, so you might as well use it.
On a side note, we recently had bees coming into the house, so we called a bee guy and he found that our dryer vent to the roof was completely full of lint. We later found through the gas company that this can be another source of CO intoxication and even fires.
I’m glad you were awake! The only place I have a CO detector is next to the furnace. You’ve convinced me to put them upstairs, too.
Wendy,
. I’m going to put it in the hall just outside our bedroom. A post that may save lives.
Thanks for this post. I didn’t have a CO detector, so I bought one today at ‘The Home Despot”
Thanks for the links on the MVP page
You rock!
Steve