Detectors Save Lives

[Ed Kennell 43,582]

Sorry for the long post, but this story needs to be told.

 

My oldest Grandson Reed has a fellowship granted for his Astro Physics PHD at Lehigh University.  He has been there for 2 years and has 2-3 years left.

Last year he got tired of paying the college town land lords rent and bought one of the row houses to house himself and a couple room mates.

His Dad Mike operates a HVAC/ Plumbing business so he installed a new gas furnace and a new Mini Split air/heat pump System.   The existing gas hot water heater was only 2 years old and tested good so it was not replaced.   Mike also installed smoke and carbon monoxide detectors as required for a rental property.

 

About two weeks ago a CO detector tripped.  Reed reset it and all was OK, but Mike sent him a second CO detector as a back up.

Friday when Reed came home the CO detectors were sounding and when reset they kept tripping.  He called his dad and Mike told him to disconnect the main breaker, open the doors, go out and wait in his car till he got there. Mike called the local fire company and left for the 2 hour trip to Bethlehem.  He suspected the gas hot water heater that he did not replace could be the problem.

 

When Mike got there, the fire company had allready checked Reeds house and appliances and could not find the source of the CO.

They went to the attached row house and  found  the house was filled with CO from a faulty furnace and the family of five were all sick with flu like symptoms.

Thankfully the loose stone basement foundation wall  allowed the CO to leak into Reeds basement and trip the alarms  and thankfully Reed did not come home for the weekend and was there to hear the alarms or the outcome would have been much different.   Per the fire company, the family would not have survived the night.

Sometimes we get lucky.   Don't rely on luck...install smoke and CO detectors for everyone you care about.

     

 

 

 

 

[SylvanLakeWH 29,697]

Wow...

 

All involved were very fortunate.

 

Past work life I was in many many rentals and it was routine to see smoke and co detectors disabled by tenants who got tired of the "chirps" and removed batteries instead of installing new ones... 

 

No excuse around here - many fire departments will provide them and install them free of charge.

 

I just replaced three new co detectors with digital displays near our three prime co sources. 

 

Edited 18 hours ago by SylvanLakeWH

[ri702bill 10,455]

Code here requires CO detectors on all floors, including basement. Smoke alarms outside each bedroom & kitchen. I like the 10 year LI style - can't steal the 9V battery for some kid's toy...

[Handy Don 15,007]

We are also conscientious about these and we replace them every few years, just because. Had the gas company put in a gas detector as well.

The most recent version of the combined smoke/CO alarm outside the bedrooms upstairs has a voice synthesizer as well as a beeper. Pretty cool that it announces “Battery Low -- Replace Battery Now” 😁

[Beap52 1,720]

Replaced the backup batteries in our detectors this afternoon.  

 

We replaced all of the detectors a couple of years ago.  The originals had aged out it seems they have a  ten year life.  I had to purchase on line because I couldn't find them locally and didn't want to have to re-hardwired new ones. 

 

My wife's parents lost two houses to fire when she was young.  They don't have many photos or memorabilia from her and her brothers growing up years.  Fortunately no one was injured but my wife insists on keeping our detectors in good shape. 

 

Thanks for sharing the story and the vivid reminder. 

[Ed Kennell 43,582]

Picture of the scene.    Reeds house is on the right side of the street out of the picture.

[Bar Nuthin 1,728]

We added CO detectors when my wife started having dizziness and balance issues.

Turned out to be an inner ear problem, but I realized at the time that it was stupid not to have a detector in the first place - as all of our appliances are gas.

Glad your Grandson was able to intervene and save everyone from grief!

Edited 8 hours ago by Bar Nuthin

[squonk 44,833]

16 hours ago, Handy Don said:

We are also conscientious about these and we replace them every few years, just because. Had the gas company put in a gas detector as well.

The most recent version of the combined smoke/CO alarm outside the bedrooms upstairs has a voice synthesizer as well as a beeper. Pretty cool that it announces “Battery Low -- Replace Battery Now” 😁

My mother and sister are both short. My mom decided to have this fancy fire alarm Co detection system installed in the house. When you test it it will beep and yell out " Fire Fire Fire get out of the house now!! "or " There are high levels of Carbon Monoxide! Get out now". We had Christmas there and I see this contraption high on the wall. " What on earth is that thing??" So my mom goes over to a sensor on the cellar stairs and hits the test button and this thing goes off like no tomorrow! 

 

Couple of years go by and one night about 2 AM this thing starts going nuts. Except the voice is all messed up " Fire out house get CO leave"  ect. Well they can't reset it as it's just going bonkers. So they try to knock the thing off of the wall as they can't reach it. They are throwing shoes books the dog anything they can find. They finally get it off the wall and disconnected. I wish I was there to see the mayhem. Must have been pretty funny like an episode of I Love lucy! 

 

As a joke the following Christmas I gave my mother one of those 2 step kitchen stools and since my sister likes candles I got her a fire extinguisher! 

Edited 1 hour ago by squonk

[cleat 7,868]

I have a combination co2 and fire alarm at the bottom of the basement stairs which is close to the pellet stove, a smoke alarm upstairs by the bedrooms, and a combination co2 and gas detector by the propane furnace.

Hot water  is electric.

 

Years ago I had an old Fisher wood stove in the basement and a couple of times it lost draft and filled the house with smoke through the night.

When this happened the smoke alarms never went off but the co2 detector (I only had one at the time) did.

That gave me more faith in them than smoke detectors.

 

[953 nut 62,823]

Ed glad to hear your grandson's experience saved lives. 

We built our home about fifteen years ago and installed hard wired CO/Smoke detectors throughout the house. The ten year battery units weren't available then but nine years ago I swapped out the old 9 volt units for the newer ones figuring the cost of batteries each year would save money in the long run. The first of the ten year battery life detectors began chirping a couple of days ago so all seven of them are going to be replaced this weekend.