CO detector at 3 AM

The other night at about 3 am the other half gets up to use the facilities and wakes me up,

"Hey, whats that chirping noise" ?????

Half awake I snoop around and at about 1 minute intervals is this chirping noise.

Further investigation reveals it to be coming from the CO detector by the big Whit in the family room.

OHHHHH !@#$%

Hmmmm, a true alarm should make noise more than once a minute.
Thinking maybe a low battery I install 2 new ones.

Nooooooooooooooo, not the cause.

Watching the little beast it soon became obvious that once a minute the LED that's normally red would go off and then flash 5 times quickly then solid red again, then flash 5 times.

Hmmmmm

Off to the net to scope this out.

Sure enough, after scaring up the owners manual online I find the scoop on the thing.

Areal alarm is 4 chirps, then 5 second pause then 4 chirps and on until silenced or the CO is cleared.

A single chirp once a minute is a bad battery.

3 chirps is a failure warning.

This one is chirping and blinking 5 times.

END OF LIFE SPAN MESSAGE.

All is well, no issues except ruining my sleep. (Better than a CO NAP)

Got a fresh unit today and tossed the old one.

5 years old now.

Seems a short life span, but oh well.

We bought the First alert plug in with 9 volt battery backup.

A smoke alarm making noises with no smell of smoke does not get me excited, but a CO detector doing anything other than silence gets me really excited right quick.

Never had any issues, and DON'T WANT ANY.

Stay safe, and be sure you detectors are in good order.

 

Mine did the same early this fall, didn't even have a fire going ................... replaced the next week .......checked my records, 7 years to the day from when I put it in

 

that's good that it gave the message that it was time to be replaced, I have had some that don't and even though I know they have a lifespan it slips the mind to check them.

 

A note of frustration for all of us. Living in so rural a place has its advantages and then some risks. We noted before moving here we read that so many fire calls here end in "it was fully involved when the fire department arrived and was a total loss. Our town doesn't have it's own FD, we contract with a neighboring town. Which adds more time because of the mileage and the volunteer FD. It's a very dedicated FD, that's not the issue. It's the balloon construction of ancient houses with no fire hydrants. So I installed firebreaks within the walls, with FireCode sheet rock, firecode spray foam all passages and cracks etc, and tons of alarms all wired together. One by one the units go off now as they have reached their life expectancy. It never seems to happen while we're awake.

 

So true, they have a way to reach us

 

Isn't it strange that when these units fail or the batteries die....it's almost always in the middle of the night when you are in a deep sleep

 

Every time! . Mine got me back in october sometime around 2am. I ran around opening windows before I even remembered the stove wasn't even on.

 

Kind of like oil furnace problems lol

 

Installed these in every floor of the last house near bedrooms and heating units. The low battery "beep" goes off well before the battery actually is dead, so you still have protection. Not cheap, but well worth the piece of mind. Great for multiple floor homes......you can be on top floor bedroom, and still get alarm from basement, kids rooms, kitchen, etc.
7 yr. warranty too.

Battery -

 

Right, not cheap, but peace of mind.... with some sound sleep.......,

at least for seven years, then a few months of incidental insomnia .

 

Cheapest I've found is at HD:

First Alert Battery Operated Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm with Voice Alert-SCO7CN - The Home Depot

 

I'm a light sleeper so i wake up if a mouse farts. That intermittent beep gets me every time. Half the time i think I'm hearing things.

 

Yeah buddy.

A screwy smoke alarm is an easy one.
If ya don't smell smoke it's just an annoyance.

This is the first CO unit we have had, and I have had the misfortune of getting bombed once in an enclosed garage by CO.

Cold weather and a fresh concrete floor.
No roll up yet and we tarped the door opening and lit off a torpedo heater.

I went in the next day to swap the propane bottle and almost did not get out.

That stuff can take you out quickly when its in high ####'s

Took an hour to feel ok again.
I have great respect for that stuff.


Installed the new one yesterday and no more worries.

Just cleaned the big whit and got the fire back up.

Snowing off and on and just raw out.

Baffles were full of fly ash and firebox was full to the point of the stuff falling into the pot and smothering the fire.

The "Weee Whit" in this weather just slows down the time it takes for the house to get cold, so getting things cool enough to clean tries my patience.

The shells leave a buttload of fine gray ash about 2-3 times what pellets do, so cleaning is a once every two weeks thing.

The Weee Whit needs the works nearly every week if its running 24/7

Buttttt, its warm and CHEAP.

 

Three of us almost bought the farm upta camp a number of years ago. It was November and we were deer hunting. It was unusually warm and we didn't light the stove at all. We just kept the windows closed and the heat from cooking and propane lights kept the place warm. Hunting isn't allowed on Sundays in Maine, so on Sunday we spent the day drinking. Monday AM we got up and all of us felt horrible and could barely function. We didn't hunt but we didn't drink either. When Tuesday AM arrived, none of us felt any better. We finally figured out the OLD propane refrigerator was killing us. Once we opened windows and getting some fresh air in the place we started feeling better. We now have an electric refrigerator and run a generator.

 

Yeah buddy

That stuff is nasty.

Here a few years ago a good snow and power outages hit here and a family was found dead from CO poisoning.

Running a kerosene heater in a closed house. (Small rooms too)

Bum deal, but it happens all the time when these storms hit and folks are not on top of whats safe and whats not.

Another time a family bought it trying to heat their living room with a charcoal BBQ grill.

Dumb

Might as well build a fire in the center of the room and let it rip.

 

Very similar issue with our crushed olive pits. How we fix the problem is to run the stove a little harder on the low setting to make sure we are getting a good natural draft which drags the bulk of the ash out. It is still not much but you dont want it building up if you can avoid it.
We always have a smartburn in on the pits so the chimney itself doesn't soot up and everything else stays pretty clean. At the very first sniff of restriction I hit the stove with the shopvac. 2 minutes and it is good for a few more weeks.

 

I'm a old fool who believes in multiples. Multiple detectors that is. Like two in one room. Not taking a chance in failure when it is so cheap to buy protection.

 

the more detectors the better.

As far as the ASH goes.

Every other full cleaning the stoves get the leaf blower suck on the high setting.

I just disconnect the pressure/vacuum switch hose from the switch to be safe, then let it rip.

I will clean the primary ash traps by hand then let the 200 mph wind from the leaf blower finish the wee nooks and crannies.

The burn temps are good, with the outer skin of the vent running at 150 F

The inner pipe stays a nice dry gray color too with no buildup of any creosote type stuff.

Our Big Whit has nearly a 4 foot horizontal run, so it will see some "silting in" of ash over the course of the cleaning cycles.

No worries, just have to clear it every two weeks.

 

Murphy's Law.

 

Those things are fickle buggers to say the least. My wife works from home and last week, I get a frantic phone call that the CO detector is going off. Mind you, it is less than a month old. I tell her to open the windows, turn on all exhaust fans and I leave the office to go home and check things out. Upon getting home, I go looking for possible sources. Boiler is off and water lines are cold. Haven't lit the Ideal Steel in weeks. Gas range is off and she hadn't used it. No lit candles, pilot lights, nothing. This is known as a false-positive and concern for a false-negative led me to throw the thing in the trash and buy another one (different brand)