Protect Your Home from Carbon Monoxide
When it comes to protecting your home, you want to ensure that you have every safety measure in place. You may have an alarm system for intruders, a smoke alarm to alert your family in case of fire - but what about protection from things you can’t see?
We’re not talking about ghosts, but something that is even scarier: Carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a by-product of combustion, present whenever fuel is burned. Prolonged exposure can lead to lasting health problems and even death.
Since carbon monoxide is virtually undetectable, carbon monoxide poisoning is quite common. In fact, the CDC estimates that more than 20,000 Americans go to the emergency room each year due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Monitoring carbon monoxide emissions in your home is so crucial to your family’s safety. CO cannot be seen or smelled, which means every homeowner should invest in CO detectors to protect their family.
By the time you start experiencing symptoms of CO poisoning - like lightheadedness, nausea or dizziness - it could be too late. In many cases, the children or smaller members of your family will start showing signs of CO poisoning before anyone else.
For optimal monitoring, you should have CO detectors installed in at least three areas of your home:
- Your hallway by your bedrooms
- Living room or family room
- Close to your furnace 0B
If any of your detectors go off, you should act fast and not take the warning lightly. Immediately turn off your furnace or any other devices that could be giving off CO emissions (like your gas oven, hot water tank or gas dryer). Open any windows to help ventilate the house. Don’t be afraid to contact your local fire department - most will take a free CO reading for you.
Hopefully, they won’t detect any emissions, which could mean you have an old or faulty detector that needs to be replaced immediately. However, if they detect high readings, you may be referred to an HVAC company to further investigate where the emissions are coming from.
We take carbon monoxide poisoning very seriously, which is why we test for CO at the furnace and in the main living areas during every furnace tune-up. We use a combustion analyzer to tell us the exact CO reading in the area. Our goal is to get zero parts per million.
In most residences, you can have up to nine parts per million - but that is only if you know where the source of the carbon monoxide is coming from. Even then, it’s still a risk, so we settle for nothing higher than zero.
We perform routine furnace check-ups for our customers before every heating season, taking time to ensure that your furnace is safe to use when you are ready. If you think you need to get your furnace checked, or to learn more about our services, contact Forquer Heating & Cooling today!
