Last year as the weather turned colder, we had a scare with carbon monoxide in our house. Because it’s that time of year again, I wanted to republish this post to remind everyone to please check that your carbon monoxide detectors are properly placed in your home and are working - I would hate to lose any of you to such a preventable disaster!
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 
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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,
Thanks for this post. I didn’t have a CO detector, so I bought one today at ‘The Home Despot” :-). I’m going to put it in the hall just outside our bedroom. A post that may save lives.
Thanks for the links on the MVP page
You rock!
Steve
Oh my gosh! How scary! We will get those when we head into town again! Was the co2 build up from the heater or the wood stove/fireplace?
I guess I need to read up about this topic. I’m realizing I don’t know exactly how it happens.
Squirrels in your flu? Oh my goodness!
The buildup was from our furnace - two squirrels fell down the flue and blocked the “exhaust” from the furnace, so it was getting trapped in the basement.
Flue’s are normally sealed off from ‘intruders’ but we had lived in this house less than a year at that point and didn’t know the chimney was in poor condition.
Glad to hear you will be safe!
We had two teenagers at the end of my street die from CO2 poisoning recently. It is a very real and very scary thing that, up until then, I never really thought twice about.
Glad yours was a happy ending (well, except for the squirrels
) and you and your family are all ok.
Thanks for the reminder just in time for Daylight Savings Time, which is when we are supposed to change the batteries in our smoke and CO2 detectors. Great timing!
Wow that is scary — glad everything turned up OK. I guess there are advantages to working late after all…
We have a Carbon Monoxide detector that also checks for explosive gas. The problem with it has been that it seems so sensitive that I get so many false reads — like picking up fumes in an open window from a car driving by, or fruit in the fruitbowl that has, well, “overipened”…
You’ve inspired me to try to find how to get this thing properly situated as it isn’t doing me much good hidden in a corner at the moment.
Thanks for the reminder. I also need to change the battery in my smoke detectors (I haven’t kept up with changing them at daylight savings time).
I’m so glad everyone is ok! That’s such a scary experience.
Last month we had our furnace tuned up and had CO2/smoke detectors installed on every floor of our house. They’re hardwired in with battery backup power. Ours actually announces the problem and then beeps when something is detected or the batteries are going low. There’s a voice that says “Warning! Carbon Monoxide! Warning!” and then it’s a really high pitched beep. And when one starts to go off, they all go off.
Thank heavens you and your family are all right.
Glad to hear you are ok, scary! We have two in our house, no chances!
Yikes! I’m really glad that you and the family are okay. We do have a carbon monoxide detector in our house and a smoke detecter.
Good to hear you’re all okay.
that is tremendously frightening — wow.
I am relieved that all of you are OK
when i was little a house had carbon monoxide poisoning and it stirred up the whole neighborhood, noone had ever heard of that before
amazing to think the detectors are only recently mandated
funny story: next door to the home that was evacuated was a very eccentric woman –by day she listened to harry belafonte blasted - like really really loud, while she danced and dusted, she wore very very tight jeans on a not so perfect body. the night the police and the fire trucks were assisting this family during their near death experience she strutted out in a sheer hot pink negligie ( sp? it’s late ) complete with foo foo slippers, foo foo robe with feather boa and offered the fire men cookies - you could ” see” everything through her nightie - my father could not stop commenting on how grossed out he was and who the heck gives fireman cookies during a call ??
I haven’t thought about my old block in a long time
Mother Earth aka Karen Hanrahan
http://www.bestwellnessconsultant.com
Wow,
I am so glad you and your family are alive and well. What you are talking about is so foreign to me- furnaces etc
I now realize how cold it is going to be when we are on the east coast
Working late does have it’s virtues
Wendy,
WOW - so glad to hear you are all OK. What a powerful reminder to all of us to check those devices, and take them seriously when they go off.
Sandy
Wow–what an amazing story. That’s something about the squirrels–and a reminder that this could happen to anyone at any time. By the way, one of my clients is a search site called Kudzu.com that is now nationwide (had they’re giving away free profiles through all of 2008, by the way, for anyone who has a service business). You can look up local service pros and see reviews written by customers. I check it before I hire any chimney sweep, HVAC or other service company for the first time.
Our CM detector went off in the middle of the night last night - just a dead battery, fortunately. Your story has given me the chills - I’m glad everyone was all right!