CO Detector Went Off!!!

Items sold directly from Amazon ship free if you spend $25. Decent detectors will cover it. I'm a huge fan of Amazon and use them from pretty much everything I would buy from a big box store if I can wait a few days for delivery. The only exceptions are if it is something I can buy from a locally owned merchant because I think it's more important to keep them in business. Sadly, those locally owned merchants are disappearing fast thanks to the Walmarts and Home Despots of the world.

I came home new years day to what I believe was a house full of CO. I over filled the stove the evening before (first time trying this) becuase I was leaving for work (6pm-8am) and my girlfriend was going to our friends house for the night. I knew she wouldn't be home till after 1pm the next day and I would be in a duck blind following work till god knows when. I arrived home around 2pm before her thank god and could sence something wasn't right. You could taste it in the air like when you sometimes get a hot wiff from an ash pan. I went down to check on the stove and it was smoldering along with alot of unburned coal still on top just slightly crusted. I opened the MPD and then checked the CO detector on the oposite wall. It wasn't beeping but the digital readout read 80 ppm. I don't know why it wasn't going off, I had just bought it a month before. The other CO dectector (not digital) wasn't going off either but it was taken off the wall two days prior while we stained the log walls, though it was laying on a table in the same room. I'll never over load the stove again just to save myself from re-firing.

Help me understand how the CO2 is getting in the house.

My stove is air tight and if I over fill it or smother out the fire it will just go out and get cold. I did this a few times the first year either by closing down the draft knob too far or by overloading and getting ash bound.

How is it that the co2 gets in to the room instead of the fire just dieing?

Gary

Gary L wrote:How is it that the co2 gets in to the room instead of the fire just dieing?

I don't think any stove is truly air tight & I'm guessing that when your fire is dieing, & your chimney temps drop (so there's little draft anymore) that any smoldering coal CO (not CO2) is no longer drawn up your chimney & out of the house, but instead seeps out of your stove/stove pipe...... INTO your house.
That's why CO detectors are so important!...(CO is colorless, odorless, undetectable ....& DEADLY!)

This has been an excellent topic. Too bad it was a close call that got it going but so glad that everything turned out OK!

I learned from these postings that CO detectors have an expiration....never knew that. Also went out and bought a third unit to put in the basement where my Hitzer is burning coal now on a continuous basis. This new one is a Kidde and actually has an "end of life" alert that should sound off in about 5 years. I still dated the back of it in magic marker.

I appreciate the tip on where (how high) to install. That science page was most interesting and I had my two upstairs CO detectors both ways, one knee high the other head high. The basement unit was knee high. I will move the low ones up to head high.....again, thanks for the great info and help on this forum!

As an aside to GaryL who put in his post he was up to 60 days with one fire....good for you! I am looking to get there, now in my 6th day....so I've got a ways to go but the folks on this forum got me going!

Mountainman37

Devil505 wrote:

Gary L wrote:How is it that the co2 gets in to the room instead of the fire just dieing?

I don't think any stove is truly air tight & I'm guessing that when your fire is dieing, & your chimney temps drop (so there's little draft anymore) that any smoldering coal CO (not CO2) is no longer drawn up your chimney & out of the house, but instead seeps out of your stove/stove pipe...... INTO your house.
That's why CO detectors are so important!...(CO is colorless, odorless, undetectable ....& DEADLY!)

Thanks Devil505! You are not the first to point out that my gas is wrong and Deadly!

Gary

I have been crazy busy the last few weeks but I finally got a break from work. I ordered 4 CO detectors from Amazon; 2-First Alert CO615 ($39.53 each) and 2-First Alert CO600's ($21.40 eac h). They plug into a 110v outlet and have a battery back-up in case of a power failure. The CO615 has a digital readout and audible alarm. The CO600 just has the audible alarm. Now I think I can more fully protect both my house and my mother's. I have been screening all the fines out of the coal that goes in my mother's stove. The fire is burning strong and is much more consistant. I knew the fines effected the fire but I didn't realize how much. Since the incident I have removed about 40 lbs of fines which I put in a bag. I don't know what I'm going to do with them. Maybe someone with a stoker can use them someday.

I put some hardware cloth in the bottom or a 5 gallon pail with the bottom cut out. The hardware cloth is secured with 4 2" selftaping hex head sheet metal screws with washers from the inside about 3 or 4 inches up from the bottom of the pail. I put some plastic tubing over the pointy ends of the screws where they protrude out of the side of the pail. That supports the pail with the screen when I sit it on top of a second pail to catch the "fines". At first I was trying to shake the pail but I found a short reversing rotary motion does just as well with less effort. I fill the screening pail with about 15lbs at a time and pour the "de-fined" coal from the screening pail directly into my coal scuttles (hods). It is a little extra work but it gives me piece of mind and the fire does burn better. My Warm Morning at my house doesn't seem to be as finicky as the Godin so I haven't start screening the coal for that stove but I'm not going to shovel the fines from the bottom of my pile (started out as 18 tons but I'm wittling it down) into my scuttles at home. Eventually I'll just bag them up for future disposal.

cokehead wrote:At first I was trying to shake the pail but I found a short reversing rotary motion does just as well with less effort.

We are going to need this on video.

Well, it happen again. 2 of the 3 CO detectors went off. 143 ppm CO at its peak. My mother showed no symtems of CO poisoning and we got the house aired out and the fire back up to temp and drafting properly. I'm sleeving the flue in the chimney today. I'm shoving 18 feet of 5 inch stove pipe down the chimney and sealing the opening with compressed fiberglass insulation around the pipe at the top of the chimney. I plan on making a sheet metal cap for the stove pipe to pop through to keep the rain and cold air out of the dead air space outside the stove pipe in the flue. It is a 6 x 12 flue which is oversize for the Godin. The coal I was burning was salvaged from a basement where it had been untouched for 35 years. It seemed to be good nut anthracite and I screened it all to get out all the small chips and sandy contamination. If sleeving the chimney doesn't stop the problem I'm going to yank the damn stove out. The chimney is about 20 feet tall measured from the thimble the stove pipe commects to. The house is fairly tight and it has a radon venting system installed. I'm not sure if the house has a negative pressure. It shouldn't because the unused fireplace upstairs has the damper closed but I'm sure there would be enough infiltration air from it to balance out the inside/outside pressure. When I put the liner in I wanted to extend it up a couple feet above the top of the masonary but my mother objected. I was wondering if the infiltration air could possiby have the CO in it coming down the fireplace flue which is next to the stove flue. I alreeady have marked out some sheet metal to make a cap (sealing) for the fireplace flue...just in case. The oil burner was turned on a short time before the CO detectors when off but I don't believe it is the culprit unless it is a make-up air issue. The house smelled like coal; not oil. If anyone has any ideas I'm listening!

Check to see if NOAA, National oceanagraphic & Atmospheric Administration.com has any info of the barometric presures in your area on this day.

My CO detectors have not sounded the alarms yet but there have been a few days that the stove had a real hard time burning. I am not sure of proper terminology here but I really think a down draft is the culprit.

Every now and again when I open the door I get smoke and smell inside the house. I also find that my stove burns and heats much better on the colder days with a light wind.

We had 50* here today but it was 15* this morning and should get down there again tonight. I have been fighting the stove all day long trying to keep the coals going for this evening.

Gary

If anyone has any ideas I'm listening!

If I had a 143 CO reading, I'd shut the stove down until I knew exactly why it happened. it's not worth it especially since you have another heat source.

If you are sure the oil burner is not causing negative draft, then the chimney liner should do the job.

Exhaust fans and clothes dryers are also suspect with negative draft.

Richard

I just got home from my mother's house. The house is back to 0 ppm CO. I have 18 feet of 5" stove pipe hanging in the chimney and lots of fiberglass stuffed around it to block off any cold air from getting into the flue. It is a little tricky to do alone. I kneeled on top of the chimney lifted 18 feet of pipe straight up and lowered it in. I thought the pipe would bind in the flue because it has a curve in it but I was wrong. While still kneeling on top of the chimney with the stove still running, holding the pipe from falling all the way down with one hand I got a key ring off my belt, threaded it through a hole that was there from a sheet metal screw (used ss pipe), openned my pocket knife, put it through the key ring, and rested the knife accross a corner of the flue. Then I got off the chimney and got some rope, rebar, 1/4" rod a tiny drill for pilot holes, hammer, punch, insulation, a 5/16" drill, and an egg beater type drill. (I should of planned better in the first place!) Basicly I drilled two holes in the top section of stove pipe 2 " from the top and put the 13", 1/4" rod through the holes which rests on the top of the flue. I could do most of that standing on the roof. Before the flue gases coming from the oil burner where about the same temp as those from the coal stove. After the temp of the gases from the coal was noticably warmer and I could not get a cotton ball size piece of fiberglass insulation to go down the 5" pipe. Too much updraft. Soon I will get a sheet metal cover made up to finish the job off. The 18' pipe ends in the chimney flue about one foot above the thimble that the stove is connected to. The high flue gas temps should mean more lift on a warm day. Shutting the stove down I thought would force more CO into the house as the fire went out for lack of O2 and the chimney cooled. I figured making the stove burn hotter and not add coal to it was the answer. I didn't want the fire "cooking out" gases that were not going to burn for lack of O2 but most of all I want the flue gases hot enough to ensure proper lift. I'm starting to ramble, sorry.

I had asked her about the exhaust fan because the CO detectors went off when she was in the shower. She said she had forgotten to turn it on so that ruled that out. I doubt she had the clothes dryer going but will ask her tommorrow. The oil burner was off all night. She had turned it on shortly before her shower for the domestic hot water. I think (not sure though) that the detector went off too close to the time the oil burner was turned on. All good points. She suggested that a window be left open a little. I'm thinking that might be a good idea. I'm not sure it will help but at this point I have to find the solution! I have a very drafty house and a slightly shorter chimney and I don't have these problems.

If the 1/4 inch rod is not stainless it will rust out and the liner will drop, and close off the opening at the thimble.

Would be good to also prop up the liner from the bottom when you shut down the stove, to be safe.

Richard