Save Lives With Carbon Monoxide Detection: What You Need To Know To Protect Your Family

Choosing the right Carbon Monoxide Detector to protect your family can save lives

. Here is some hard to find information to help you. Having the right information about carbon monoxide detectors will help you make the right decision for your family, and help save your lives if you have a home fire.

Choosing the right Carbon Monoxide Detector to protect your family can save lives from home fires. Here is some hard to find information to help you. Having the right information about carbon monoxide detectors will help you make the right decision for your family. Just like smoke detectors, not all carbon monoxide detectors are created equal. When it comes to detection devices that could save your life, many families do not get a second chance. You need to get this right the first time. This does not mean just buying the right detector and technology. It also means making sure you have the detectors in the right place.

The recommended location is one detector per floor of your home, but at the least you should have one on every floor of the home where someone is sleeping. You do NOT want to locate your carbon monoxide detector too close, 15 feet or less, to any gas appliance or fireplace. Many appliances will emit some small amounts of carbon monoxide every time they start; usually any appliance that has a pilot light, such as many furnaces, dryers, gas stoves, etc.

There are many differing thoughts as to where to locate the detectors in the room. I find it interesting, and possibly more than a coincidence, that many companies that have combination CO and smoke detectors, recommend them on the ceiling or high on the wall. And many that plug into a wall outlet recommend that they are mounted low on the wall. Convenient, huh? This is not all wrong, but I don't believe it is right either. Carbon monoxide has a consistency of about .97 at 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Normal air in our home is 1.00, so you can see it is almost exactly the same. While this does change slightly at different temperatures and humidity, it means carbon monoxide is not likely to go up or down. It will stratify, meaning it will likely follow the air currents as it travels through our home.

This makes placement something that should be given some serious thought, if not installed by professionals that are trained in knowing how to determine the likely air paths in your home. The air paths are usually toward doors or openings in the room, but that can change with open windows, ceiling fans and while your furnace or air conditioner is running. Getting this right can make a big difference. I recommend that you place them in the middle, which is on the wall about chest height. The best ones have a constant digital readout and this also makes it easy to keep an eye on your detector.

Then there is the technology to consider. The best technology today is the electrochemical sensors. They are much more accurate, able to read lower amounts of CO and will last much longer, giving you a better value. I also recommend that you make sure your detector has the new Figaro technology. Figaro's carbon monoxide sensor is a battery operable electrochemical sensor which offers several advantages over traditional electrochemical sensors: its electrolyte is environmentally friendly, it poses no risk of electrolyte leakage, it does not consume active materials or its electrodes during operation, and it has lower sensitivity to interference gases. With long life, good long term stability, and high accuracy, this sensor is an ideal choice for CO detectors with digital display.

Also, making sure your CO detector has a constant digital display is well worth the little extra you will spend, as it allows you to see at any time if there is a CO buildup. A few will also show you by the simple push of a button, if any CO has built up in the past 24 hours, alerting you to a potential problem well in advance of it becoming life-threatening.

Choosing a carbon monoxide detector with complete self diagnostics should be mandatory. No one is going to test their detector every day, so why not make sure you have one that will do that for you and let you know when something is wrong. That is really the only way you can be sure your detector will be in working order when you need it.

I recommend that you stay away from the gimmick alarms that claim they sense CO and smoke. I have never seen one that is the best at sensing either smoke or CO and as mentioned earlier, the proper and optimum placement of both is different, making it impossible if they are a combined unit. It sounds good on paper, but combination alarms are often a gimmick to make you think you are saving money; but this should be about saving lives!

by: Bill Driscoll

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