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Don't underestimate carbon monoxide risk
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Almost everyone knows carbon monoxide is an odorless, colorless gas. But many consumers incorrectly think they’re only at risk if they have wood-burning fireplaces.
Carbon monoxide is produced from improper combustion of just about any fuel, including natural or LP gas, kerosene, oil, coal, or wood. It’s a potential by-product of furnaces, stoves, fireplaces, clothes dryers, water heaters and some space heaters, as well as gasoline-powered engines, including cars and back-up generators running indoors.
David Penney, a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and founder of Carbon Monoxide Kills, calls it “the most commonly encountered and pervasive poison” in the environment. The gas unintentionally kills more than 500 people and sickens an average of more than 20,600 each year, the US Centers for Disease Control reports. The risk peaks in the winter, when furnaces and fireplaces are in use.
The gas is especially dangerous for the young, the elderly and those with existing health conditions. When victims inhale carbon monoxide, the gas enters into their bloodstream and mimics the behavior of oxygen without providing its benefits. The gas is transported through the body, gradually starving the body’s organs. This increases the victim’s need for oxygen, and the heart rate increases, which brings on poisoning at a more rapid pace. As poisoning continues, the victim can have difficulty breathing, heart damage, brain damage and coma. Without fresh air, the victim can die.
In other cases, people are gradually sickened over weeks or months by low-level exposure to the gas. At lower levels, carbon monoxide causes symptoms similar to the flu, experts warn. Recurrent headaches, fatigue and nausea, for instance, may be a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. Penney estimates only about one in ten cases are diagnosed. “Physicians are not trained to look for carbon monoxide poisoning. It’s often one of the last things they consider,” he says.
If you suspect carbon monoxide poisoning, get fresh air immediately. Leave your home or office and call for emergency assistance.
To prevent carbon monoxide poisoning:
- Make sure all fuel-burning appliances are in good working order. Have a qualified technician inspect the heating equipment, including the, chimney, flues and vents, each year. Part of the inspection should include a check for adequate ventilation to the appliances.
- Make sure chimney flues are unobstructed. Plants, bird nests and debris can block them.
- If you have gas appliances, check the color of the flame. If the flames are orange, you have a problem.
- Never burn charcoal inside your home or any other confined space; leave a car running inside your garage, even with the door open; use a gas stove or gas clothes dryer to heat your house; or use a back-up generator indoors.
- Invest in a carbon monoxide detector with a low-level indicator. They cost from $20 to $50. In some locations, state or local law requires them. All one- and two-family homes, condominiums and cooperatives sold in New York, for instance, are required to have at least one operable carbon monoxide alarm under state law and may be required to have even more than one under stricter local laws.
- In New York City, owners of all multiple dwellings and one- and two-family homes are required to provide and install at least one approved carbon monoxide alarm within each dwelling unit. The alarm must be installed within fifteen feet of the main entrance to each sleeping room.
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