What to do when your carbon monoxide alarm goes off...

[PrincessFiona]

It never occurred to us that this would actually...happen, so last night at 11pm when our CO alarm went off we had NO idea of what to do. I finally called our non-emergency police number and they came out....they had to call our energy company to send someone out and measure CO levels in the house. Here is what we learned before finally getting to bed at 1.30am.

1. If your monitor goes off, you are supposed to get everyone out of the house immediately and then call 911 or the non-emergency number.

2. Your CO monitor should be near the bedrooms where you are sleeping. Ours is located downstairs as a part of one of our fire detectors and we wouldn't have even heard it had we been up in bed.

3. Get a CO monitor with a digital readout of numbers so that you can read a 'level'.

4. Many things can set of a CO monitor even though there is no CO .... like plug-in fragrances etc.

Fortunately, we had no CO in the house. They suspect that the space heater that we were using 'fooled' the machine....

CO monitors and smoke detectors only go off late at night. And furnaces only break on the coldest days of the year.

Thanks for sharing those tips!

[DCJenn]

Our smoke detector/co monitor went off the first 15 minutes after I turned on the heat this year. I freaked. I opened every window and called the furnace guys (who thankfully live across the street) and they came right over. The guy told me that the alarms also often go off when you first turn on the heat for the year because all of the accumulated dust/pollen/ick from the summer has to burn off.

Jenn

[PrincessFiona]

Another tip, Jenn...

They also told us NOT to open up windows/doors...to just get out. They said that when emergency services arrive if your doors/windows are open they can't get an accurate reading and may miss your CO.

kris