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Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
Janimal
member
DMoney will be a kickass big sister
PSA: Carbon Monoxide Detector saved us!
Janimal
member
A couple years ago, DH had a coworker who passed out with her boyfriend in a hotel in LA because of carbon monoxide poisoning. They were lucky to have survived but the boyfriend still has lasting effects. So we bought detectors for each level of our house.
Last night, I got home with DD from daycare and DH was still working. I got her dinner going and was getting ours going when I noticed a faint beeping noise. I figured a smoke alarm battery was low. So I went about making dinner then turned my attention to the beeping. I saw by the oven timer it was going off 4 beeps every 60 seconds. So I ran upstairs right before. Not up there. So then I went downstairs to the basement. And it was the CM detector. I took it off the wall and read the back of it, and it said that after the initial alarm, it would go off 4 quick beeps every minute as long as dangerous levels exist. Yikes!
So I turn off the oven, and head outside with DD. I call DH and the fire department and wait. And of course freakout because I had DD in the house for 20 minutes.
The firemen head to our basement, and come back and say they get calls like this all the time, and most of the time it's nothing but this time we have a problem. A "normal" level in a home is about 15. Our alarms are set to go off at 25. Their fancy device that measures levels has a danger alarm at 35. The level they measured in our basement? 102! Apparently our furnace was leaking carbon monoxide. The rest of the house was between 20-30.
So we turned off that furnace, turned on the attic fan and opened windows and doors in each room and they stayed and checked the levels all over the house until they were safe 2-3. Good thing it was a mild temperature overnight or we would have gone to a friend's house to stay. We have another furnace in the attic but I was too freaked to have that one on!
I am SO GRATEFUL today that we have carbon monoxide detectors in our home. If you don't have them in yours, please get some and put them up.
DMoney will be a kickass big sister
This discussion has been closed.
Re: PSA: Carbon Monoxide Detector saved us!
Breleigh & Mason
How scary! I'm glad your family is okay. DH is a firefighter and has responded to CM events that didn't turn out well.
Wow! How scary! Glad you're okay! We have 2 in our tiny little house as well.
I'll also add that you're supposed to replace them every 2 (or something like that) years! They're not good after a certain amount of time. We had that scare when I was on maternity leave...
Thank goodness for the detector! I am glad you and DD are okay.
Does anyone remember the show Rescue 911...they always had people passing out from CM poisening. I was obssesed with this show and it was why I made sure we have a detector on each floor!
scary. even scarier is that we dont have ONE in our house.
guess what my project will be for today.....
thanks for posting!!!
(read it. you know you want to.)
anderson . september 2008
vivian . february 2010
mabel . august 2012
9/24/2011 Plymouth Firefighters 5k: 47:13
11/12/2011 Diva Dash 5k: 45:45
5/5/2012 STEM school 5k TBD Coming up in 2012:
6/10/2012 Walk to Remember SIDS foundation 5k
(in memory of a sweet baby boy)
11/10/2012 Diva Dash 5k
OMG. I am getting on DH today. When DD came, DOH did a home visit and came to check our home. They took down our smoke/cm detector to change the battery and broke it! Some funky NYC law doesn't allow the building owners or the super to fix it, so we've got to do something. It looks like they pulled wire loose or something, and I am always nervous about it. That's it. We're getting this done today.
Wow!! Good to hear everyone was ok.
Does anyone know if there is a specific place in the house you should position the detector? Ours is in our bedroom. We have a ranch with a basement.
When we bought our house I insisted that DH put CM detectors on every level. He still makes fun of me... lol. Everything in our house is electric! We have nothing that would leak CM.
I'm glad your family is okay!
Holy smokes! So glad you are ok. We just moved into a new house and there are hard-wired monitors everywhere, I need to look at them and see if they are CO monitors as well as smoke. How scary!
I am so glad your family is okay! How scary!!
Can anyone recommend their CO detector? We don't have any and have a gas furnace as well as gas appliances. I had totally forgotten about this and am now paranoid after reading this post! I looked online and there's a ton of different detectors and a HUGE price range. I don't want to spend more than I need to, but I want something reliable...
Thank you for posting this. We've been putting it off (DH somehow has managed to escape all knowledge of why we need them and I haven't pushed it hard enough), but I'm going out today to buy some.
Glad you're all ok!
We had 2 friends die on a houseboat because of carbon monoxide. The other 2 peopel on the boat lived but are still dealing with the effects. After that we bought detectors and have them both up and downstairs.
I'm so glad you had them and everyone is okay!
Nothing fancy. Don't get combo ones they don't work well. We just have a Kidde one and put it in the main hallway. Replace every 5yrs max. A good price to spend is around $40
9/24/2011 Plymouth Firefighters 5k: 47:13
11/12/2011 Diva Dash 5k: 45:45
5/5/2012 STEM school 5k TBD Coming up in 2012:
6/10/2012 Walk to Remember SIDS foundation 5k
(in memory of a sweet baby boy)
11/10/2012 Diva Dash 5k
Not necessarily... not all homes use gas. The house I was raised in was all electric. But I do believe they should be required in every house that uses gas.
That being said, OP I'm glad you and your family are safe! My house DOES use gas & it serves as a reminder that I need to purchase them this weekend. It's still beyond me why our builder didn't install them with the smoke detectors.
I actually keep a battery operated one that I take on travel with me. I bought one & expensed it at work (at the time I was traveling very often for work) after we had several cases of CO poisoning in our area at hotels.
One per level, usually in the hallway... But you can call your F.D. and verify that.
Wow! I am so glad that you had them. I will be checking on that today!