Do we all have working carbon monoxide detectors?

My DS & DIL a couple of years ago bought a repossessed house. The fire gas was boarded up and the boiler switched off. As they were taking fire out they had left it boarded.
A central heating engineer checked and put the boiler back on.
The next day my son said he was sure he could smell a sickly smell. I told him to leave the property and call gas emergency.
Gas emergency said there was several tiny holes in the gas pipe.
That consensus of opinion was that they had probably been made by the previous disgruntled owner.
I have made sure all my family have CO2 detectors as well as smoke alarms.
Can I please add that the fire service will come out on request and check and install smoke alarms free of charge
My SIL wears hearing aids but does not hear a normal smoke alarm.
The fire service arranged a special one to be installed and a vibrating alarm for under pillow.
All free of charge

I wan't aware there was such an alarm, only smoke alarms. I don't even have my smoke alarm set up. I'll have to sort this out.

poly I've already pointed this out - or tried to!

Dont confuse CO2 carbon dioxide (more or less harmless) with CO (carbon monoxide) which is a deadly poison. The detectors are for CO not CO2.

Absam1. I echo Anyas words and thank you for the work you are doing.I live in the same town as Katie did and remember the tragedy well. I pass her house nearly every day and often think about her.We got our alarm as a direct result.

absam1 I'm so sorry to read about the loss of your daughter. Words are never enough

absam1 - you are doing wonderful work - a fitting way to remember your dear daughter.

I must thank OP and others for posting on this subject. We have an alarm but for some strange reason I have neve taken its use as seriously as the smoke alarms! From now on I most certainly will. Well done grannypiper he's a lucky brother!

absam so very sorry to read about the loss of your daughter. I'm going to take a look at your website.

Thank you all for spurring me on, i have been to visit my Brother today, i have opened the alarms, put the batteries in and placed one in the kitchen close to the boiler and one in the sitting room, i have warned him that if he has much as moves them an inch i will hit the roof, will now go out and buy another one for his bedroom too. You would think that by the age of 60 he would have some sense. Lloyds the chemist had some great deals on smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.

absam1 so sorry to hear of your loss. I have had a Carbon Monoxide Alarm since 2012, mine lives in the kitchen as I only have a gas boiler & gas hob. I do test mine, it is battery operated & when batteries need replacing it has a low beep which is impossible to ignore, I always keep spare batteries in the house. Mine also states on the back to replace Alarm 7 years after installation. When I had some work done on my boiler the Gas Engineer tested it as well. My smoke Detector is wired in to the Mains & is ear splitting when anything triggers it.

I had a really scarey experience last year (2016). I didn't have a gas detector at the time and when I was cooking one day I suddenly started feeling lightheaded and realised one of the gas rings wasn't lit but the gas was coming out. I quickly opened all the doors and windows and staggered outside breathing deeply and shaking. I felt very dizzy and couldn't understand how it had happened as I usually make sure all the gas rings are lit. It was quite a while before I felt sensible enough to phone the doctors and they told me to go to the surgery for tests. I did, and all was OK by then but I couldn't walk in a straight line and had to get my neighbour to accompany me. When I think of what could have happened it terrifies me.

I went straight on to Amazon and bought a gas detector. I haven't got it attached to the wall though and because it is on the worktop it sometimes goes off when nudged. So I tend to just reset it then and it's OK. Will have a chat with my boiler man later this month when he comes to service the boiler to find the best place to put it. PHEW.

Not just houses. I knew a lovely lady who was camping. They were cold so took the remains of a disposable BBQ into the tent. They died from CO2 poisoning.

A timely reminder to check our monitor, and I will remind all family to do so as well.

absam1 I only read your post after I had posted mine. I have just been on the website. I am so sorry for the loss of your beautiful daughter. It's wonderful that you are spreading awareness and helping others despite everything you are going through. I have made a small donation ( wish it could have been more) Best Wishes to you and your family x

We will be moving soon and though not due for boiler service I didn't want the new owner to encounter any problems especially in this cold weather. The plumber enquired how long I had the current CO2 monitor for. It's approximately 5 years old. He told me that even though it appears to be working e.g. Flashing & beeps when I use test button that CO2 monitors should be replaced every 7 years. I had never heard of this but I will leave a note on it for the new owner.

Since my daughter Katie died in February 2010, two months after her wedding, we are continually trying to raise awareness of this 'silent killer' through The Katie Haines Memorial Trust. We advise everyone to have one carbon monoxide alarm (or more) on each floor of their home and for all carbon burning appliances, fires, cookers (including AGA, wood burning stoves regularly serviced by a registered engineer (NB. You must ask to look at the engineer's card, it will tell you that they are Gas Safe Registered and the card will also tell you what appliances they can work on. At a recent HSE meeting recently we learned that there are many cowboys out there). Also, chimneys must also be swept at least once a year by a registered engineer. As a charity, we give away CO alarms to other charities for their vulnerable clients and we make awareness films, which cost us quite a lot but bring home the message - have a look at our website. Most people have smoke alarms but it is not the same for CO alarms. I don't want others to have to go through what we did when we lost such a loving and beautiful daughter.

Thanks for the prompt. We needed a new one and I have just ordered two from Amazon, one for the utility room where the boiler lives and the other for the lounge which has a gas fire.

I was saved by a CO monitor. I thought I was going down with the flu then the monitor went wild. Opened the windows and doors and called the gas board. An engineer arrived within an hour and switched off the boiler. He also told me that you should change your alarms every so many years....should tell you on the back of the monitor.

PS. I meant smoke alarms.

One of the advantages of being a tenant with a decent landlord is that I have a carbon monoxide detector and fire alarms, which are checked every year, alongside the statutory gas check and an additional electricity check.

I wouldn't worry about carbon dioxide poisoning. CO2 is not toxic; CO (carbon monoxide) is.

Haemoglobin in our blood carries both oxygen and carbon dioxide but the carbon dioxide is carried on a different site of the blood cells from oxygen so it does not compete with haemoglobin's oxygen-carrying capacity.

Carbon monoxide prevents haemoglobin from carrying sufficient oxygen and so poisons us.

Carbon dioxide would have to be at levels seven to ten thousand times higher than it usually is to cause asphyxiation.

Carbon monoxide is, therefore, a poison to us and carbon dioxide can be an asphyxiant at very high levels. A stuffy room is nowhere near that dangerous but it might make you feel drowsy.

We have no gas but an oil burns g boiler so have a CO detactor for that

We have one in our living/dining room as we have a woodburner.

My OH (in his role as GP) was once phoned by some friends of ours to say the whole family were feeling very ill, sick, vomiting, giddy etc. Luckily my OH was on the ball and did not dismiss it as a bug - he straight away asked if they had a stove of any sort in the house and they did - a sort of small aga. He told them to open all the doors and windows and to go outside. By the time he got there they were feeling better and they put out the stove and presumably got it serviced. It makes me think about the 111 service and wonder whether CO poisoning is on their algorithm for vomiting - the clue of course was that all the family members became ill together.

Our whole family were saved in the night by a smoke alarm that detected that the flap in the flue for sweeping our stove. We would all have died in our beds without the alarm!

I only got one this summer when British Gas did annual check on boiler. I must check it & smoke detector !!

Holly that is interesting about the placement - the fire officer made a great point of telling me to put them low as they had been to a flat where a man was found dead sitting in his armchair and the detector was on the wall - it did go off but too late for the poor man. He also told me that they did not actually need to be fixed onto the wall but just be in the room.
Interesting too about smoke alarms - we had one we installed in an upright position on a wall and the same fireman put another one about two feet away on the ceiling - it was over the stairs which had allowed us to do the one upright but I must admit that one was going off at all times once the toaster was on!
We bought one recently here in France and the instruction is definitely to install it in an upright position.