Carbon Monoxide

plainsie

Watching the program Watchdog last night about the rogue gas engineer. The expert of the program said the boiler was producing high levels of Carbon Monoxide even when it was switched off. I thought that when boiler was off it could not produce CM or did he mean that it was residue from when it was switched on?. Any advice please.

C_Mababejive

There is a lot of paranoia and mis informed pap about Carbon monoxide and a lot of it is promulgated by journalists who should know better and ensure they are better informed.

First of all,gas appliances do not produce CO in appreciable amounts when they are working properly.

There is a misapprehension that all gas appliances produce CO all the time..not so.


Generally,appliances can be made to produce CO under a number of conditions..

Typically this would be a lack of combustion air

Obstruction of primary air ports on a natural draught burner

Contamination of combustion air with products of combustion

Any kind of flame impingement by a nearby service or object

A maladjusted forced draught/premix burner of the type now commonly used on modern condensing boilers

IMHO the biggies for CO are..

Gas fires that have not been serviced correctly or for some time or have not been installed correctly

Boiler cases that are leaking due to dodgy seals/poor fitment


Fanned warm air units especially with dodgy /faulty return air supplies

Maladjusted premix burners on high efficiency boilers ..often due to a lack of understanding and technical competence of the service engineer.



Many CO alarms are not fitted correctly as per the instructions.

Many people rely on the alarm as a substitute for investing in timely servicing/maintenance

1984ReturnsForReal_2

You misheard the programme.

It didn't produce CO when off. However the gas stays about & doesn't just disappear the moment the appliance is switched off. It will only disperse with ventilation.

gas4you

All gas appliances will produce some CO when in operation.

Boilers, depending on make/model/design etc, can produce anything between 10ppm and around 120ppm when in operation.

Many manufacturers state that anything below 200ppm is ok, but personally I think this is way too high.

Most I fit produce around 40ppm-80ppm when set up correctly and running flat out.

cajef

C_Mababejive wrote: »

First of all,gas appliances do not produce CO in appreciable amounts when they are working properly.

The boiler in question that they were saying was producing high levels of carbon monoxide was actually an older oil fired boiler.

plainsie

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

You misheard the programme.

It didn't produce CO when off. However the gas stays about & doesn't just disappear the moment the appliance is switched off. It will only disperse with ventilation.

Thanks for the reply. I've just looked at the Watchdog website and read the story that was on TV last night and I quote " When Mike (expert) put the flue gas analyser into the boiler the reading showed the amount of carbon Monoxide was 1000 parts per million and that's with the boiler still turned off " So I'm confused now

1984ReturnsForReal_2

plainsie wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I've just looked at the Watchdog website and read the story that was on TV last night and I quote " When Mike (expert) put the flue gas analyser into the boiler the reading showed the amount of carbon Monoxide was 1000 parts per million and that's with the boiler still turned off " So I'm confused now

Thats just the CO hanging about from when it was on.

d.ross_2

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

You misheard the programme.

It didn't produce CO when off. However the gas stays about & doesn't just disappear the moment the appliance is switched off. It will only disperse with ventilation.

Actually I've just watched the program again, and it quite clearly says that oil fired boiler was turned off, and had been for 4 months.

C_Mababejive

plainsie wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I've just looked at the Watchdog website and read the story that was on TV last night and I quote " When Mike (expert) put the flue gas analyser into the boiler the reading showed the amount of carbon Monoxide was 1000 parts per million and that's with the boiler still turned off " So I'm confused now

So he put the analyser probe into the boiler flue of an old oil boiler and got a residual 1000 ppm..well send for the fire brigade and ambulance straight away...what did he measure in the room?

d.ross_2

C_Mababejive wrote: »

So he put the analyser probe into the boiler flue of an old oil boiler and got a residual 1000 ppm..well send for the fire brigade and ambulance straight away...what did he measure in the room?

I'm no gas engineer, but if you go to bbc iplayer you can watch it and see if I missed something.

gas4you

I watched this, and was also confused by this statement. I can only possibly assume that this was an old Kingfisher that had a pilot light, and the pilot light was burning so badly that it was this that unbelievably was causing the CO.

Although these type of programs generally show up cowboys, I also find they show themselves up, and their so called experts, to be right unprofessional idiots a lot of the time, relying on mis-information and exaggerated facts to 'make a good story' and shock the public.

I recently went to a new customers flat, tested the boiler, 4 years old, and it was producing in excess of 12,000ppm CO.

I condemned it, reported it to the landlady, worked out a price to fix, and realised it would have been a lot less cost for her to call Baxi in to fix it on a one off repair, so advised her this.

What thanks did I get? Only an email saying I didn't know what I was doing, and she wanted someone who would inspect and fix her boilers. I bet she would have moaned if I had charged her £400/£500 when Baxi was only £299.

I replied stating I was just trying to help save her money. You really can't help some people.