Air vent in my living room is freezing !!

Bettie

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Yes i do simply becuase you are far more likely to have a fire than to suffer CO poisoning. Also,if the smoke alarm starts tooting,the chances are there is smoke/fire and it will be apparent whereas with CO,you are left in limbo unless you fork out ££££ and find a specialist with the right kit to give it the final ok as to your safety.

I can't agree. It is not hard to turn off the appliances and test them out one by one by switching them back on until one causes the alarm to go off.
Better that than be dead, or worse, cause the death of someone.

C_Mababejive

Bettie wrote: »

I can't agree. It is not hard to turn off the appliances and test them out one by one by switching them back on until one causes the alarm to go off.
Better that than be dead, or worse, cause the death of someone.

I can see your logic Bettie though CO alarms are not instant response devices. They trigger on cumulative effects over time whereas smoke alarms are snap devices i.e smoke>alarm.

sunshinetours

C_Mababejive wrote: »

I can see your logic Bettie though CO alarms are not instant response devices. They trigger on cumulative effects over time whereas smoke alarms are snap devices i.e smoke>alarm.

Indeed they go off as your rooms downstairs fill with CO gradually whilst you are asleep and you don't wake up.

Apparemtly about 50 deaths a year by accidental CO poisoning - very small compared with fire deaths I totally agree. Problem is with CO you don't know you have a problem until its pretty much too late

Still would rather spend £30 and get one fitted as a precaution for my family. As you say you wouldn't, which is fine for you

gas4you

Don't know if this will help in this 'debate', but I'll post it anyway.

BSEN 50291:2001 states perfromance requirements for CO detectors.

CO detectors have a built in delay, depending on the level of CO present. They will not normally activate until a level of 50ppm has been reached and a delay of 60-90 mins.

At levels of 100ppm the delay is reduced to 10-40 mins and if >300ppm it has to activate within 3 mins.

The thing is that if your co alarm goes off, it is unsafe to switch on any appliance to see which one has triggered it as one shouldn't be in the room at all due to the possible danger levels of CO present.

Amounts up to 300ppm (10%) will have no obvious symptoms on humans

CO detectors are not a replacement for regular and proper servicing of gas appliances.

A room test check for CO will be carried out over 15-30 mins.

The problem with CO is that you will not know it is there until it is too late, that is you possibly drift off to sleep, hence the audible warning to wake you up, hopefully.

Although every death or serious incident concerning co is tragic, I do get fed up with the prominence it gets in the press, when hundreds more die of other things, such as Radon gas poisoning, or old people, through lack of heat or food, but then these are not a 'trendy' subject to be aired publicly and attract votes, or funding.

Sorry if I have repeated anything previously posted, but have only come back to this at the end.

HTH

cyclonebri1

No, it's sound advice and negates the anti alarmists. I agree these things are not super sensitive they react over time, unlike me and you that at that moment are asleep, , :eek::eek::eek::eek:

Brian99_2

We have TOO MANY vents in our Barrett terraced houses. In winter the wind rushes under the houses, and once we had seriously frozen pipes. And...in summer the wasps love to make nests there.

So we have blocked up half the vents, and we are still alive with no CO problems and no boiler problems.

Building regulations are sometimes quite potty....must have over-reacted to one or two cases of CO poisoning

bloss0m

I wouldn't block air vents tehy are there for a reason to allow ventilation and to cut down on condensation/damp

By all means get some covers to cut down on wind you can get fine mesh to stop insects going in

Brian99_2

I agree we need SOME ventilation, and quite a lot if there are 30 people having a party; or if damp is getting in ; but mostly here it is just me, not emitting much water vapour, CO2, or farts, LOL