CO Monitor Alarm Review

Ah, Carbon Monoxide detectors; the scourge of middle-of-the-night engine call.
Its easy to get complacent about these calls since the majority are false alarms but the truth is, with fire prevention safety measures in place,  these calls are our bread and butter. More importantly, CO is pretty hazardous to people's health when it actually does pop up. So here's some review on the subject and how we can best handle it.

Here's some quick facts;
1. CO is about the same density as air and will pretty much move with air current throughout your home. If there's no smoke involved, its colorless and odorless.

2. It comes from partial or incomplete combustion. Think of the things at home that make flames... stoves, water heaters, and furnaces.

3. Its a gas that binds to the hemoglobin in your blood 100 times more than oxygen. The problem is that once its there in large amounts, it stays. To get oxygen back into your blood, you need a pressurized oxygen chamber to clear things up. It has to due with pressure gradients and all sorts of medic school jargon.

4. When you breathe this stuff in, it gives you flu-like symptoms. Think of it starting with a headache and becoming more intollerable with more exposure. Its likely that children and pets will have symptoms first. Any symptoms need transport to a hospital for further evaluation.

When it comes to monitoring with the ITX, here's some numbers to keep handy;
-Less than 9 ppm is considered background CO and once you find the source and remediate the situation, evacuation is not necessarily warranted.
- Between 9 ppm and 100 is not acceptable in a home (up to 35 ppm is acceptable in the workplace) so get people out, ventilate the area and fix the situation using your monitor. If its the furnace or the stove or the water heater, turn it off and get it serviced before it can be turned back on.
- 1500 ppm is an IDLH environment.
And while we're on the topic of an ITX...
- Keep it calibrated.
- Zero it out from outside the home.

If all else fails, follow your SOG's and treat the symptoms of occupants.

So when you get this call in the middle of the night, remember how hazardous CO can be and even if the call turns out to be nothing, its a good chance to meet the public we all ultimately work for.