Wednesday night we had a bit of excitement. The GF loaded the stove just before coming upstairs to bed. Some how she either left the stove door sitting open or didn't latch it properly and it sprang open later. I thought I smelled a bit of smoke and asked her, but she said it had just puffed a bit whle she was loading it (not unusual for that stove)
Fortuneately a few days ago, I had moved our one CO detector from the garage into a plug in the living room near the stove - this was a low cost unit that just has an alarm, but no readout for actual concentration.
About 2:00 AM the CO detector went off... Stumbling downstairs to investigate, I found the stove door open, and the room full of smoke. :gulp: I refilled the stove and closed the stove door, and opened the front and porch doors to get some ventilation. (Of course she has to do this on a night when it's 14* out, not when it was reasonably warm.... :roll: ) Then, after ripping the alarm out of the wall to make it shut the ..... up, I went back upstairs to let her know what the problem was and figure out what we should do,
I told her what I'd found and done, and pointed out that the normal advice when the CO alarm sounds is to LEAVE, quickly...
She didn't want to and pointed out that since I'd fixed the problem, and was venting the place, the CO level was going to be dropping. Also that neither of us seemed to be showing any signs of CO poisoning such as headaches, etc.
I still said that I felt we should leave, but agreed that it wasn't a real appealing notion to have to go $pend the re$t of the night in a motel.
She then suggested that I should move the alarm into the bedroom to see what the CO level was up there, and that if the alarm went off in the BR she would agree that we should leave....
Back downstairs, (Brrr... it's getting COLD down here....) grab the alarm, go back upstairs and plug it in. Alarm sounded once as part of it's self test, but didn't make any more noise, so we went back to sleep.
Obviously we are still alive, so in retrospect it was OK, but I'm still wondering if we did the right thing... Were we nuts to have stayed around? Should I have been more insistent on us leaving? As a side note, is there a "tolerable" level of CO that doesn't indicate that one should automatically run away?
BTW, the cheapo CO detector is still plugged into the bedroom wall. The next day I went to the local HW store, and purchased a Kidde Nighthawk CO detector with a readout so that I can get a measurement of the actual level if we ever have another problem.
(Smoked) Gooserider
Fortuneately a few days ago, I had moved our one CO detector from the garage into a plug in the living room near the stove - this was a low cost unit that just has an alarm, but no readout for actual concentration.
About 2:00 AM the CO detector went off... Stumbling downstairs to investigate, I found the stove door open, and the room full of smoke. :gulp: I refilled the stove and closed the stove door, and opened the front and porch doors to get some ventilation. (Of course she has to do this on a night when it's 14* out, not when it was reasonably warm.... :roll: ) Then, after ripping the alarm out of the wall to make it shut the ..... up, I went back upstairs to let her know what the problem was and figure out what we should do,
I told her what I'd found and done, and pointed out that the normal advice when the CO alarm sounds is to LEAVE, quickly...
She didn't want to and pointed out that since I'd fixed the problem, and was venting the place, the CO level was going to be dropping. Also that neither of us seemed to be showing any signs of CO poisoning such as headaches, etc.
I still said that I felt we should leave, but agreed that it wasn't a real appealing notion to have to go $pend the re$t of the night in a motel.
She then suggested that I should move the alarm into the bedroom to see what the CO level was up there, and that if the alarm went off in the BR she would agree that we should leave....
Back downstairs, (Brrr... it's getting COLD down here....) grab the alarm, go back upstairs and plug it in. Alarm sounded once as part of it's self test, but didn't make any more noise, so we went back to sleep.
Obviously we are still alive, so in retrospect it was OK, but I'm still wondering if we did the right thing... Were we nuts to have stayed around? Should I have been more insistent on us leaving? As a side note, is there a "tolerable" level of CO that doesn't indicate that one should automatically run away?
BTW, the cheapo CO detector is still plugged into the bedroom wall. The next day I went to the local HW store, and purchased a Kidde Nighthawk CO detector with a readout so that I can get a measurement of the actual level if we ever have another problem.
(Smoked) Gooserider