I went to the Chickasha (Ok) swap meet on Saturday. while there, I heard lots of buzz, and inquired at a booth. A father and son from out of state had died Friday night, in their sleep, due to Carbon Monoxide poisoning. They had a closed trailer with just a small opening where they ran propane through and ran an heater inside.
No sensor in the trailer, and so both are now dead.
Incredible tragedy, and something that lots of guys need to be aware
now is the time we will start using heaters in our shops. Be aware of carbon monoxide and always vent your shop.
I certainly don't want my loved ones selling my toys 'cause I'm not around to enjoy them anymore.
Let's be careful out there!
It'll get worse - Lets just hope it'll be a mild winter.
October 19 2008, 8:17 AM
Carbon monoxide is odorless, colorless - even worse, if there are any open fires in a closed space - its insidious. Once asleep, your chances of noticing anything or waking up is pretty much zero.
The more aerodynamic the car the bigger chance that air inside the car is not going to be exchanged with outside at a rate high enough to prevent the effects of Carbon monoxide collecting in the driver compartment.
When I was in any number of foreign countries - every winter you expected to read about whole families being found suffering from carbon monoxide effects or wiped-out from leaving a fire going overnight.
With the cost of energy where it is(OK, not as bad as it was last summer), people being tighter with money (using space heaters instead of turning on the furnace at night and houses being built "tighter" and more energy efficient, its even more important to vent any closed in space when no one is up to tend an open fire.
That old military rule about Fire watch is/was in place for a reason, it wasn't just about enemy attack.
Carbon soot is unburned fuel, carbon monoxide is half-burned fuel, carbon dioxide is fully burned fuel. If your tailpipe is black, you are generating notable levels of carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide is created in small levels in automobile engines. It is generated in larger quantities in engines which run rich, as there is more fuel than air in the mix.
Thermactor air pumps help combust some of this half burned and unburned fuel in FE engines. Thermactor-equipped FE engines have richer calibrated carburetors than the same FE engine without Thermactor. Thermactor was available as an option on some FE engine models, but was mandatory in California and New York on hot-cammed FEs starting in 1966, and nationally on all hot-cammed FEs starting in 1968. Interestingly, in 1966-67 the emissions laws were written only for single carbed engines, so twin carbed FEs remained unregulated. In 1968 the 427 engine needed both a hydraulic cam and Thermactor to pass federal emissions, and at least 500 cars needed to be built to homologate the 427 to run in NASCAR that year.
When idling or running a car inside a garage, even with the door open and tailpipe sticking out, some exhaust gets blown back into the garage and is mixed with air and ingested by the carb. This ingested exhaust contains no oxygen, but your carburetor doesn't know this so it pours just as much fuel as ever into the engine. This enriches the fuel/oxygen ratio further and a larger portion of the fuel finds no oxygen to properly burn. This results in more unburned fuel exiting the exhaust and lots more carbon monoxide exiting the exhaust.
When you breathe carbon monoxide your body treats it like oxygen. The lungs transport it to the hemoglobin in your red blood cells, where it attaches as if it was oxygen. Problem is the carbon monoxide cannot detach the way oxygen does and it disables that red blood cell until your body eventually replaces it, in days or weeks. If too much hemoglobin is disabled, you suffocate for lack of oxygen in the bloodstream.
A pure oxygen tent allows the few functioning red blood cells to readily find oxygen and transmit it through the blood, allowing life to be sustained until the body gradually replaces more red blood cells. If too-few red blood cells remain functioning, an oxygen tent will not help.
Just so you know, CO detectors will pick up the gas vented off of charging car batteries. I have to charge a marine battery every night for a GPS base station I use at work. The first time I charged the battery in the garage, which is below the bedrooms of our home, the hard-wired detectors all went off at 3:00 am, so I got the Mrs., and my son out of the house, vented the house,shut off all gas appliances, and closed the gas meter valve. Went off again at 5:00, WTF? Had the home " sniffed " the next day, nothing, and that was with all gas appliances up and running. Next night, yep, again, went off, so I started thinking what is different at night versus day? The only thing I could come up with is that charging battery in the garage. Took a wall plugged CO detector into the garage, plugged it in, and it screamed.... Took the battery outside, and have charged it out there ever since, and guess what, no more alarms. I would still get the hell outta the house if for any reason the alarm sounds, but JFYI, that is my experience with CO alarms.
I live in vegas and in the winter it dips into the 20's at night but during the day its still mid 50's so we dont really think about stuff like that most houses dont have furnaces they have AC my house was built in the 30's and does not come with heat at all (dont need it) but out west we dont ever hear of stuff like this good to know I guess.
Burners and boilers have fresh air inlets nowadays.
October 20 2008, 6:25 AM
I'm getting ready to toss out my big old inefficient boiler that draws air in from the basement and exhausts it out the chimney. Nowadays all new boilers and furnaces have a plastic pipe that draws fresh air in from the outside and blows warm exhaust air out another plastic pipe. This eliminates the carbon monoxide issue related to proper functioning home heaters, except when the boiler or furnace rusts through and neesds replacement. I look forward to sealing off my chimney as soon as I replace the old boiler and not worring about heat going up the stack.
Since I'm in the middle of adding modern windows and doors, and have insulated the walls (even interior walls and floors for noise), I am worried about gas stoves, dryers, and water heaters (plural because this house is a duplex). I like gas appliances, but I worry that a cold MInnesota winter day in a sealed house, combined with running the stove, hot water heater, and dryer, may generate carbon monoxide problems. I'm switching to electric dryers for sure, but expect to switch to electric water heaters and stoves, though I much prefer gas stoves over electric.
you might want to look into the 'tankless' water heaters, especially in places like bathrooms and kitchens. Ther further away from the water heater, the better tankless heaters work, instead of heating (and wasting water) in a long run from the water heater to distant locations in the house. A "tankless", on demand heater heats the water as it goes to the faucet. No more need to let the water run for x time before it get hot or worry about having to insulate 50 - 100 ft of pipe as it snakes through the walls, floor or ceiling.
Personally, I have always perferred gas. The next tornado, 'brown-out' or downed power line is all it takes to remind us that being connected to the grid is sometimes overrated. The next house I build or remodel; I'm going to put in at least a minimum level of solar panels. Enough to run a few lights (yes, even without batteries, having lights, a few appliance and the big inch TV - even in the case of armagadon I expect to watch it on TV ... despite what we used to say in the 60's and 70's - I expect the revolution "Will be" Televised. Besides,on judgment day - having a little electricity in the house might make things a little less primative.
Weil McClain has 90 % plus efficent boillers ...........
October 20 2008, 6:03 PM
Look into Weil McClain boilers. They have 90% plus efficent boilers that can also serve your hot water needs.
I installed a few when I worked Hvac for a short time. They work great!
Ed Jenkins
Ford Galaxie Club of America member #3350
1966 Galaxie 500 Convertible built in Chicago Illinois, has low milage 1969 390. 780 Holley?, built C6, Crites Aluminum radiator, and a rust free frame from the south. Work continues.
freaked me out. When I lived in Chicago we'd hear of these tragedies all winter long. When I moved here (Phoenix) gas was not the norm and most homes are all electric. My means of heating is a heat pump which is basically your A/C compressor running backwards. I know that sounds unefficient but my highest total energy bill is in Augest and this year was $197 for 1600 sq. ft.
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FE's, Thunderbolts and single malt scotch.
carbon monoxide is some scary stuff. i remember years ago at a local drag strip, sleeping overnight in a van. we'd had a bbq, and the temperature was dropping quite fast. one of us had the bright idea of putting the still red hot bbq in the back of the van to keep warm... you can guess the rest. it just sucked all the oxygen out of the van, filled it with CO, and i'm sure we were lucky to get away with our lives. we all slept really heavy, and woke with the mother of all headaches. the sunday was not good, the top-fuelers were just torture. we were just lucky to be there. we all looked at each other for the rest of the day without saying anything, but we all knew how lucky and foolish we had been. very very dangerous stuff.
my thoughts are with the rest of the family. that's a big loss.
...never ever never paint a galvanized vent pipe. I had a friend that had a natural gas water heater with the vent pipe painted "to look nice". It had rusted out, underneath the paint, and tiny pin-holes allowed CO to seep into the house. They were all getting headaches from the poisoning, and could have died.
This message has been edited by FE4RD on Oct 21, 2008 4:32 AM
Besides,on judgment day - having a little electricity in the house might make things a little less primative.
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