OT: public safety announcement - carbon monoxide detectors: OT

RRP

Twice a year the public is reminded to replace batteries in smoke detectors so that hopefully saves many lives! OTOH what about the back up batteries in electric carbon monoxide detectors? It never even dawned on me to check those! Case in point...our area had a wide spread power outage last night at 9:20 that lasted for nearly 3 hours. We decided to go to bed and surely by morning all would be back to normal. About 11 PM our dog woke us up and then we too could hear the CM detector alarm in the basement! Granted it's summer and our gas furnace is off, but the gas hot water heater is still operating! I immediately jumped up and opened the windows in our second story bedroom to get fresh air. Within 5 minutes time the 1st floor CM was also going off so I opened windows on first floor as well and then our 3rd CM in our bedroom started! By then common sense kicked in...these were not screaming due to carbon monoxide detection but because with the electricity having been off this time as well as 3 hours another time recently I bet the alarm was pending battery failure. What a relief that was when I took the flashlight and changed out all 3 9 volt batteries. That stopped the alarms. BTW yes I had installed all 3 detectors at the same time which explains why all the batteries were going bad at the same time. Rest assured I will be changing these batteries at least bi-annually or more often if we have more and more power outages! 

Jeremiah

I'm going to change mine now. 

Jeremiah

Done. 

gmac

Ron, great note.  Here in Ontario it is the law to have a CO detector.  We had a local police officer who died, and her whole family, due to CO poisoning.  This happens.  Take it seriously and change your batteries etc.  

Spaightlabs

Excellent PSA.  

RRP

Thanks, guys...I felt so dumb last night after I figured out the problem, but MORE dumb, but then thankful when I realized these electrical units had 9 volt batteries for back up protection which need to be replaced. 

MrCookingNurse

Thank you sir. got one wired in with our home alarm system and a battery one too. Glad yall were ok

GregW

I fear Carbon Monoxide more than fire. With a fire you at least have a chance to smell the smoke. With CO you don't have a chance since it is odorless.

I live near the Talladega Nascar track. There have been several people that have died over the years using charcoal to heat inside tents and campers.

I have also heard a report of an entire family dying due to a car left running in a basement. The story was the car was cranked by accident using a key remote with a start feature. This family was a coworker of my neighbor.

Thanks for the reminder about the batteries

RiverDoc

Great words Ron. It's important and people forget to change them or just take the batteries out. Thanks for bringing this up for all of us to read

Fred19Flintstone

I'm glad you're ok.  Great safety tip!

Grillin_beers

CO poisoning is no joke.   Great reminder for everyone.