carbon monoxide detector

Your CO Detector Won’t Catch a Gas Leak. Here’s Why

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Your CO Detector Won't Catch a Gas Leak. Here's Why

I was called out to a home last winter for what the homeowner described as a “furnace smell.” She’d had the same CO detector on her wall for six years and felt confident her home was safe — it had never gone off, so everything must be fine, right? When I got there with my … Read more

CO vs CO2 at Home: The Mix-Up That Puts Families at Risk

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CO vs CO2 at Home: The Mix-Up That Puts Families at Risk

I want to start with a call I got on a Tuesday morning last February. A homeowner — let’s call her Karen — had just bought one of those popular smart air quality monitors. The kind with the sleek app interface that tracks temperature, humidity, VOCs, and CO2. She was proud of it. Said she … Read more

Cracked Heat Exchanger: What CO Detectors Won’t Catch

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Cracked Heat Exchanger: What CO Detectors Won't Catch

Last February, I got a call from a homeowner in a panic. A contractor had just told her she needed a new $6,800 furnace — same day, emergency replacement — because of a “severely cracked heat exchanger leaking carbon monoxide.” She was scared, her kids were home, and the contractor was pressuring her to sign … Read more

The CO Detector Mistake That Leaves Families Unprotected

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The CO Detector Mistake That Leaves Families Unprotected

I was called out to a house in late February — routine furnace tune-up, nothing unusual on the work order. The homeowner, a retired teacher named Carol, met me at the door and mentioned almost as an aside that her family had been having headaches all winter. Fatigue, too. She figured it was the dry … Read more