[ICEBALL585]

(A few of you have me as friends on FB so you've already read about my crazy weekend)


So my family had a very interesting New Years weekend. My wife called me at work Friday morning stating that the CO detector was going off. I had my wife call the Fire Dept just to make sure nothing was wrong. Fire Dept shows up and finds that there is definitely CO in our house. Our first and second floors had detectable CO levels but was still semi-safe. However our basement was reading extremely toxic levels which would have seeped into the rest of the house given enough time. The level of CO that starts affecting humans is 70ppm and the levels in our basement were over 3000ppm. The gas company came and shut down our boiler and they figured it was just blocked which caused the CO buildup in our basement. We were lucky enough to find a heating company to come out that night who determined that our boiler and venting was completely rusted out (there were actual little pin holes in several places in our venting). They said it's probably been a problem for sometime now but it somehow hadn't affected us yet. We spend the night out at my dad's because our house had no heat. The heating company came back on Saturday morning and spent 7 hours installing a brand new boiler and venting so that we had heat again by Saturday night.

Another crazy part of the story is that the night before all this happened I was down in our basement messing with our clothes dryer that wasn't working correctly. While I was messing with our dryer my nose started bleeding a lot which is very odd for me. We realize looking back that I was probably starting to feel the effects of CO poisoning but didn't realize it.

In the end our family is all safe and warm but wow what a crazy way to end our 2017.

 

[jstuhlman]

glad y’all are OK!

 

[Adventurous]

Damn dude, glad to hear!

We only had the CO detector go off once, and it was because I prematurely shut the flue after the fire in our wood burning fireplace died. Good thing the fire was the only thing that died that night.

 

[Nick]

I haven't, but I will be!
Glad you and the family are safe.

 

[KenW449]

Glad yall are safe!

 

[Westy]

My house came with one. but the only thing I own that burns oxygen is my bong and I meticulously maintain it.

 

[Westy]

These folks did not check their CO detector



http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/03/arizona-family-found-dead-in-cabin-after-significant-failure-heating-system.html

 

[Toshi]

How does one go about checking their CO detectors?

 

[Westy]

How does one go about checking their CO detectors?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=How+does+one+go+about+checking+their+CO+detectors?

 

[rideit]

I turned mine off...all of the ringing gave me a headache

 

[jonKranked]

i thought this was going to be about colorado detectors.

 

[Toshi]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=How+does+one+go+about+checking+their+CO+detectors?

Didn't click, too lazy

 

[Westy]

Didn't click, too lazy

That is a sign of CO poisoning.

 

[jonKranked]

That is a sign of CO poisoning.

shed poisoning?

 

[CBJ]

Scary. We have warm water heating supplied by the city so only my wood burning fireplace burns oxygen and no bong.

 

[StiHacka]

(A few of you have me as friends on FB so you've already read about my crazy weekend)


So my family had a very interesting New Years weekend. My wife called me at work Friday morning stating that the CO detector was going off. I had my wife call the Fire Dept just to make sure nothing was wrong. Fire Dept shows up and finds that there is definitely CO in our house. Our first and second floors had detectable CO levels but was still semi-safe. However our basement was reading extremely toxic levels which would have seeped into the rest of the house given enough time. The level of CO that starts affecting humans is 70ppm and the levels in our basement were over 3000ppm. The gas company came and shut down our boiler and they figured it was just blocked which caused the CO buildup in our basement. We were lucky enough to find a heating company to come out that night who determined that our boiler and venting was completely rusted out (there were actual little pin holes in several places in our venting). They said it's probably been a problem for sometime now but it somehow hadn't affected us yet. We spend the night out at my dad's because our house had no heat. The heating company came back on Saturday morning and spent 7 hours installing a brand new boiler and venting so that we had heat again by Saturday night.

Another crazy part of the story is that the night before all this happened I was down in our basement messing with our clothes dryer that wasn't working correctly. While I was messing with our dryer my nose started bleeding a lot which is very odd for me. We realize looking back that I was probably starting to feel the effects of CO poisoning but didn't realize it.

In the end our family is all safe and warm but wow what a crazy way to end our 2017.

My steam boiler mechanic discovered a pinhole in the crown sheet during the annual service, above the water line. It will have to be replaced sooner than later, hopefully when the winter is over. I am looking at $8-$10k bill - but I also want to change from oil to natural gas fired one so this is roughly aligned with my long term plans, just a little accelerated.

Speaking of crazy, the fresh NWS Boston's forecast is calling for 12-18" of heavy snow and 50MPH winds tomorrow.
New generator is sitting in the basement, I cannot deal with a couple of -30F winchill nights/days without heat.

 

[jonKranked]

Speaking of crazy, the fresh NWS Boston's forecast is calling for 12-18" of heavy snow and 50MPH winds tomorrow.

hope you have enough beer and your shed is stocked

 

[johnbryanpeters]

My steam boiler mechanic discovered a pinhole in the crown sheet during the annual service, above the water line. It will have to be replaced sooner than later, hopefully when the winter is over. I am looking at $8-$10k bill - but I also want to change from oil to natural gas fired one so this is roughly aligned with my long term plans, just a little accelerated.

Speaking of crazy, the fresh NWS Boston's forecast is calling for 12-18" of heavy snow and 50MPH winds tomorrow.
New generator is sitting in the basement, I cannot deal with a couple of -30F winchill nights/days without heat.

What did you get for a generator?

 

[StiHacka]

What did you get for a generator?

https://www.ryobitools.com/products/details/2300-starting-watt-bluetooth-inverter-generator
Our power outages are very rare but I want to retain heat and internet connection (winter) or fridge + internet connection (summer) when that happens. As such, I can deal with a few extension cords and one or two of these instead of connecting it to the main panel or backfeeding: http://ezgeneratorswitch.com/

 

[johnbryanpeters]

https://www.ryobitools.com/products/details/2300-starting-watt-bluetooth-inverter-generator
Our power outages are very rare but I want to retain heat and internet connection (winter) or fridge + internet connection (summer) when that happens. As such, I can deal with a few extension cords and one or two of these instead of connecting it to the main panel or backfeeding: http://ezgeneratorswitch.com/

Rational, but I finally gave up with that last year.

 

[StiHacka]

Rational, but I finally gave up with that last year.View attachment 127478

8kW or more? Nice!

 

[johnbryanpeters]

12 KW. Kohler 12 KW RESV-D running on propane, Kohler RXT 200 Ampere automatic transfer switch.

Controller natters on the internet so I get alerts on phone whenever anything happens.

 

[boogenman]

Rational, but I finally gave up with that last year.View attachment 127478

How much does one of those set you back?

 

[boogenman]

We just moved into a new(new for us, built in 1993) with a brand new furnace. We do have the original hot wanter tank which makes me nervous with CO at times. Also have a gas dryer in the basement. The bank requires CO detectors to close so hopefully we are good.

ICEBALL did you switch over to high efficiency? Is there such thing with a boiler?

 

[johnbryanpeters]

How much does one of those set you back?

About $9,000 installed.

 

[ICEBALL585]

We just moved into a new(new for us, built in 1993) with a brand new furnace. We do have the original hot wanter tank which makes me nervous with CO at times. Also have a gas dryer in the basement. The bank requires CO detectors to close so hopefully we are good.

ICEBALL did you switch over to high efficiency? Is there such thing with a boiler?

We got a brand new boiler for the reasonable price of $7000 which is good for a Lochinvar (from what I'm told). Not really sure if it's considered high efficiency but it definitely works way better than our old one. We also bought 2 new CO detectors so we put one upstairs to replace our old one and we put the other new one in the basement right next to the new boiler. After living through that situation I don't want to take any more chances like that again.