Family Safety and Carbon Monoxide: What You Need to Know

You may have heard of the dangers of carbon monoxide, but there is some important information on the subject that you may not know. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a largely preventable situation, and being armed with the right information can save you and your loved ones from this deadly gas and its tragic effects. That’s why the professional heating experts at Masters Heating & Cooling include checking for this on their heating system maintenance visit.

Carbon monoxide has no color, no odor, and no taste. Lethal amounts of carbon monoxide (CO) can accumulate when fuel is not burned properly, resulting in incomplete combustion of fossil fuels such as gas, oil, coal and wood that are used in boilers, engines, gas fires, water heaters, solid fuel appliances and more. You will not be able to detect CO in your home by smelling or seeing.

It’s critical that your home has good ventilation, your appliances are properly maintained at all times, and that you ALWAYS have working detector alarms installed. Many fire alarms and smoke alarms also will detect for carbon monoxide, but not all of them. If yours doesn’t or you aren’t sure whether yours do or not, strongly consider replacing them with new ones that do detect the deadly gas. They will send out visual and audible alarms when there is a build-up of CO to dangerous levels.

Carbon monoxide produces severe effects to people exposed, including: severe headaches, dizziness, nausea, convulsions, loss of consciousness and finally, death. This is all within a few hours of high exposure levels. Carbon monoxide poisons a person by entering the lungs via normal breathing and displaces oxygen from the bloodstream. With this interruption of normal oxygen supply, the functions of the heart, brain and other vital organs suffer critically.

Each year, nearly 5,000 people in the country are treated in the ER for poisoning. It can kill without warning, while families sleep. It is a silent killer. Also, since so many carbon monoxide deaths occur as the result of defective heating devices, the gas has been called the “silent cold weather killer”.

To protect yourself and your family, it is crucial to maintain your appliances and check-ups and tune-ups are crucial, especially for your furnace, boiler, heat pumps or geothermal system. It’s recommended that you have an experienced Decatur heating repair service perform preventive maintenance once per year on your HVAC system. Make sure ventable appliances actually are vented properly. Never leave your car running in a garage with the garage door down. Keep chimneys and fireplaces clean and always make sure your carbon monoxide alarms are properly working and batteries are not low. Never use charcoal grills indoors, and never use an unvented combustion heater overnight or in a room where you are sleeping.

Contact Masters today to schedule an appointment for a professional cleaning and tune-up on your heating system to ensure your unit is operating safely and properly. We proudly serve Decatur, Fort Wayne, Angola, Indianapolis and all surrounding areas. Masters Gets There Faster!