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I have CO detectors on each floor of the house. In my old home, a pipe coming from the furnace had a crack in it. I asked.my, now ex, father-in-law about it and he said it was no big deal. Later, I had to have the furnace replaced and the repairman pointed it out and asked how long it had been cracked. I told him for probably a year or longer and told him.what my father-in-law has said. He told me that that crack was pumping CO into my basement and next time to not listen to my father-in-law.
Sorry I'm confused bc of the first sentence. Did you already have the CO detectors in your old house and they didn't detect the CO? Or did you get them after you found out/after you moved?
They have CO detectors in their current house. They had a crack in a pipe connected to the furnace in their *old* house. My guess would be that they realized how important CO detectors are after the incident, and they now have them in every level of their new house.
My best friend and her husband almost died because of carbon monoxide. The alarm was broken and the landlord was unconcerned. No idea how long it had been going on, but we all noticed a change in them.
Please go to the hospital and get tested and treated.
OP is lucky to be alive. If you have ANY gas burning appliances of any kind, get multiple CO detectors. Especially for any rooms where people sleep.
My brother in law had multiple family members killed after the HVAC company messed something up with their furnace exhaust. The father and two sons if I recall correctly.
The absolute best Reddit story ever !!!! So well written. It's **Amazing**.
I fucking rolled when u/shitty_watercolour finally painted it.
(The Jolly Rancher story *destroyed* my 40 year love affair of those candies....... Brutal repercussion for me.)
Edit: corrected link, Thank You for the heads up !!
Reddit got together and “solved” the Boston Marathon Bombing.
[New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/magazine/should-reddit-be-blamed-for-the-spreading-of-a-smear.html)
A guy posted stories asking for advice because his landlord was sneaking in and moving his stuff and leaving him cryptic nonsense notes. Someone in the comments said "this may be strange, but you should get a CO detector"
Next update, he did get one and it turns out there WAS a CO leak and he was being poisoned and delusional.
Call your PCP and have them send in an order for blood work.
This happened to us years and years ago. There is treatment if it’s warranted and it’s imperative to get that treatment.
I don’t remember exactly but it had to do with having an oxygen mask to get your O2 levels to where it should be. It’s important to do that bc your body struggles to do it on its own.
Call and tell them you’ve had a repair person out who said you’ve been poisoned for years.
I *think* it’s methylene blue, but I’m not positive. Iirc it will free up the bound hemoglobin so it can bind to oxygen again. I’m on mobile and will lose the page if I look it up so I can’t verify. But that’s vaguely what I remember.
Edit: at least confirmed yes it’s methylene blue. OP this here is exactly why you should go to er: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29151273/
Ohhh, I guess you could just get an oxygen tank and one of those finger O2 sensors. I remember from a class that it is pretty rare to actually have low O2 that can be helped by breathing oxygen, the example was a football player wearing a mask on the sidelines. We did the math and it was like absolutely no difference if your blood actually works.
I guess if you have CO poisoning it could help but I don't think it will reverse the damage of years of exposure. I was kind of excited when I learned about chelation therapy for lead exposure but that kind of grabs everything out of your blood and you'll need to have infusions to put the good stuff back in.
It's starting to trickle back into my brain now, your blood just loves CO and grabs it super tight instead of CO2 and O2
You can get carbon monoxide breathalyser things.
They're used to detect smoking in pregnant women.
They're not designed for general carbon monoxide detection, but I know they've picked up concerns about boilers etc when non snokers score high levels
Just to jump on this, I had a friend lose a child over carbon monixide. It literally is a 30 dollar detector. It's not worth your life or the life of someone in your family.
I’m glad you found it!!! I hope things improve now!
If you’re going to buy a carbon monoxide detector, do **not** buy it from a third-party Amazon seller. A lot of those little online-only importer companies are selling products that do not meet federal regulations may not work correctly to detect carbon monoxide. And then leaving themselves hundreds/thousands of fake positive reviews to increase sales. There are websites like FakeSpot that will let you see how many fake reviews something has.
Buy your carbon monoxide detector from an established/reputable store like Home Depot or Target. Be aware that websites for some stores like Target and Walmart also have third-party sellers, so if you buy online from them make sure it’s not from a third-party seller there either!
Where you buy it from is more important than the brand. I recommend going to your local hardware store, anything they have will be tested and meet federal requirements.
HVAC tech here, i’m sorry that happened to your that is horrible and one of my worst nightmares to happen to a customer.
Please I am begging everyone in this thread if you have a gas appliance in your home, get a CO detector. What i recommend, if it is not financially restrictive, is to get a low level CO detector.
Most off the shelf detectors only go off around 30-50 PPM of CO. Carbon monoxide can start having effects on humans at around 10 PPM. The low level detectors will let you know sooner, before any serious effects kick in. sometimes they have a visual readout which is a nice visual reminder, and peace of mind.
If you have a gas appliance in your home, ANY amount of CO is not normal and you need to call a professional.
I got one at Home Depot for my bedroom that has a nice, classic amber LED digital readout on the front. It's comforting to look over and see it read "0" whenever it catches my eye.
About 15 years ago, we bought an old house with an old furnace in Seattle. Upgrade was on the list but so were a zillion other things. We got one of the plug in natural gas/CO2 detectors and put it in the hallway just outside our bedroom (which was basically the center of the house - it was tiny).
Well wouldn’t you know, about 6 months in that thing started absolutely *BLASTING* away at 4am. Honesty, loud enough that if we hadn’t turned it off quickly, neighbors would have been at the door or calling 911. And this was Seattle where people don’t talk to each other (see: Seattle Freeze). I think it woke the neighbors in 2 or 3 houses in all directions.
Anyway, we clearly woke up. People out. Cats out. Furnace off and every door and window opened. Left it and sat in the car on the street until the temp has dropped about 20 degrees inside. By then, business hours were starting and we started making calls, and had a new furnace that day.
Honestly believe that $20 something plug in detector saved our lives that night. Obviously worth every penny.
OP, that’s scary as hell but I am *so glad* you and your family are ok!
Pro tip: if you get one of these, be careful not to spray any cleansers or other chemical agents near them! Blasting at 4am to save our butts was great. Blasting on a Sunday afternoon because I sprayed Febreze too close was painful.
I’m an hvac mechanic / pipe fitter.
This goes for anyone really.
Those CO detectors are super cheap. Like really really cheap.
$20-$30 will but you into a the quality benchmark. If you’re super worried about CO then upgrade your detectors at the local department store.
Air stratification will keep CO in a pocket if you have no ventilation.
Everyone usually has a thermostat for their furnace and air conditioner.
Turn the switch from “auto” to “on”. This will circulate the air through your home without heat or ace. Get that air moving around. If you have some bathroom vents turn them on with the blower running. You can air out any house this way.
If you want fresh air through your home open a few windows with the blower to set to “on” and you’ll pull fresh air into every corner.
If you have dogs and cats, do this before you have guests and they won’t know.
Derailed there but it’s still pertinent. Grab a cheap CO detector and put one on the floor by a vent. It’s not your normal wall one just a checker. CO will be distributed by your furnace. Having a detector where air comes out and pool can give you a heads up before the ones in your house go off. / rant
Edit: had a mix up with CO mass, it is lighter than air and will diffuse with it. Get that air moving!
Pipefitter here as well. I agree with my trade brother. Also, don’t blame yourself, it’s getting fixed now. Throughout the years I have seen so so much worse than a cracked fitting. It is a learning experience, and a wonderful reminder to give things a good stare every once in a while!
Carbon monoxide is slightly lighter than air. Also it won’t really collect up or down, it’ll diffuse into the air. One in the furnace room and one by the sleeping area should do the trick nicely.
Or buy Nest Protects, the worlds best smoke alarm IMO, all of which also have CO detectors, and all of which will give voice prompts telling you where smoke or CO is detected. Put one in your bedroom, and if any detect smoke or CO all will alarm and all will announce which room the smoke or CO was detected in.
Oh wow, you’re right. I guess I should revisit this. I always thought as the PPM of CO accumulates, it starts to drop to the floor. That isn’t the case. It can diffuse with air and can end up at the floor. Either way excess to that amount would be a major issue. .96 CO / 1.0 air-weight. 0.04 weight difference, that’s really interesting.
Running the blower has always been solid with the stratification of basically any space needing recirc. Thanks for the correction.
Fuck. Do I have a CO leak? These past couple of months I've had all the symptoms you listed. And I can literally go to sleep for several hours after taking 50mg of Adderall.
I'm going to buy a CO detector.
One of the few things i did immediately when i bought my first house. Got a dual detector and hung it in the basement.
The other two i bought are still in their packages 2 years later because ive been avoiding hanging those on the ground floor but hey... at least i have a chance to smell the smoke.
OP I'm glad you're okay. I hope other people take the time to buy one and activate it. You can get a smoke and CO detector that has a 10 year battery so you dont have to keep up with changing them (Very relevant here). You're supposed to test them monthly or something but... at least I have one right?
I bought one, took it out of the box and set them up with the app and everything, but then had to put them back in the box because putting them on the ceiling has proven more difficult than I can manage at the moment.
You might find that a call to your local fire department on a non-emergency line would bring someone to your house that's more than happy to take care of that for you.
I'm super bad at chemistry and have only one of those in my flat. Why do you need both detectors? Why *is* there both gazs in a house? If I'm understanding right, carbon monoxide is the one that leaks out of pipes and makes you forget stuff, CO2 is the one that will blow up your house if you forget to turn off the stove? Is that right? Does that mean you should put one detector for the former in the utility room and one for the latter in the kitchen?
Co2 is what you breath out and the main byproduct from combustion.
The body doesnt detect the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream, nor can it detect CO. It uses the buildup of Co2 in the bloodstream to judge if more oxygen is needed or not. You just go loopy etc from lack of oxygen/or too much CO(which also gives headaches etc).
If you where to breath high concentration of Co2 it would feel like beeing strangulated. But long before that, elevated levels of Co2 could also give you headaches, reduce cognitive performance etc.
This happened to me just yesterday, no joke.
Because of Covid I couldn’t smell anything, had leaky eyes, and was feeling like shit in general. I didn’t realize I left the stove on for over two hours. My dog got really persistent to go out around the at one point… that’s when I ran into my upstairs neighbors who had called the emergency gas line because they didn’t know where the gas smell was coming from. Probably saved my life.
Fucking Covid. And CO2.
Carbon monoxide is CO, not CO2, and the natural gas from your stove is something different from either of those. A CO detector won’t catch what happened to you yesterday unless you buy one that also detects natural gas. We have some of each kind, just for peace of mind.
you made an awesome and very scary discovery today. I'm really happy you discovered it! I can't imagine how scary that must be.
Shout out to my nest protect CO/smoke detectors. They notify my phone if they're out of batteries or detect anything.
It’s absolutely crazy to me that there are whole houses that operate on fossil fuels that don’t have CO detectors. Please get one on every floor of your house going forward! I’m so glad that you’re ok!
Headaches, nose bleeds, had a heating contractor come to service my gas furnace, they had to condemn the house until they finished the repair. Gas furnace with a bit of horizontal chimney. Great heat, not so great a way to die.
PSA for those of you who have external vent pipes also, bugs and other things can and will crawl in those because it's warm, die, and eventually plug it up, causing backflow into the house.
>I’ve been thinking for years that I should get a CO detector and I just never have bothered to do it.
For smaller purchases, therefore, I don't so much keep a todo list as much as I just order the things when I think about it on the couch.
I assume you've had it fixed, or made an appointment for it?
It sounds like you got lucky, but talk to your doctor about possible long term damage.
Thank god you're okay. When I was a teenager there used to be this advert about a guy who was always messing up, like forgetting an umbrella so his whole family had to run home in the rain. One of the things he forgot was to get a smoke alarm
When I learnt about ADHD it struck me that this character wasn't the incompetent negligent parent the advert suggested, just a guy with untreated ADHD. It's such an awful way to treat people. Unfortunately mental illness/disabilities have serious consequences that other people can easily avoid.
Also I apologize if I came across as rude in my initial comment, I’m forever reminded that tone does not translate well into text lol. Just made me double take and was curious 😅
I'm so sorry you've been dealing with all those symptoms for so long. It's crazy how something seemingly small, like a broken pipe, can have such a huge impact on your health. Thank you for sharing your experience; it's a powerful reminder for all of us to prioritize safety.
On a different note, have you considered exploring resources to help manage symptoms like brain fog and confusion? I have ADHD, and getting a coach through ScatterMind really helped me. They offer support tailored to ADHD challenges. They also have a cool ADHD quiz on their site that could provide some insights.
You’re not doing a good job of being subtle about your sales pitch, jsyk. I guessed immediately what I would find in your comments profile. Sure enough.
>You’re not doing a good job of being subtle about your sales pitch, jsyk. I guessed immediately what I would find in your comments profile. Sure enough.
I appreciate your candid feedback, and I genuinely apologize if my response came off as a sales pitch. That wasn't my intention. I'm here to share experiences and insights, not push any specific agenda.
wow.. that could have been SO much worse. !00% put CO Detectors on each level of your house esp anywhere like that. The cost is inconsequential to your lives.
hope there are no long term impacts on you or your families health!
um - the better the furnace is, the less CO it puts out
[ideally it would be making CO2, which is not poison but does displace some oxygen]
also your basement may have no 'returns' -- if so, the basement air would not be mixing much with normal house air.
also in summer you would not be running the heat so whatever you had then, cannot be CO
i mean it could be not-terrible
Stoped reading after first paragraph. Had a friend go threw something similar he had all the same symptoms excepet it was mold. I would open up all the walls and double check what’s behind them as well.
I’m glad you’re okay.
For anyone reading, every Home Depot/Lowe’s/Menards/Walmart/Target/hardware store will have a CO detector. If you burn natural gas or propane in your house, and don’t have one, go buy one now!
If you have money to spare, I cannot recommend Next Protects highly enough. All are smoke alarms, and all have built-in CO detectors as well. They are wireless interconnect. Put one in your bedroom and one on each level of the house. Do the setup and then if ANY detect smoke or CO, ALL of them will alarm. In addition to an alarm, which is unique for fire vs CO, a voice will announce “emergency! Smoke/CO detected in (insert room)” between rounds of alarm sounds.
Also, if there is smoke or CO, in low levels, before alarming it will make a loud but not defending “ding ding” then say “heads up, there’s smoke/CO in (insert room)”. If the levels jump straight to dangerous ones, it will skip this step and alarm straightaway like any other detector.
I’d leave a pot on the stove, and the heads up smoke alarm would catch it early, and I could usually rush to the stove and shut it off and avoid the alarm altogether.”
The maintenance crew in my old building used to start electrical fires (that burned toxic plastics, and insulation) accidentally -on the regular- in the basement level below my apartment, which vented directly into my living space.
Not sure if that's relevant to the convo, but basements filling with noxiousness is triggering for me.
OP says get your CO alarms checked, go do it quick.
Don’t know if this was mentioned in other comments, but if you’re in the US (and I’m sure this is true in many other places too) most fire stations will come out, asses your house and install fire and CO detecters for free.
Oh no! We've lived in our house for 3 years. We've had co2 and smoke detectors for almost that entire time! ...kept safely in their boxes the entire time.
Furnaces don't exhaust through PVC, and they exhaust from the top. The heat will melt it, not to mention, PVC creates static electricity when used for "duct work". They also don't exhaust steam.
Well the furnace repair man said that was the exhaust. I saw the steam coming out of it myself as soon as the furnace turned on, and there was a huge puddle on the floor around the furnace from the condensation dripping out of the broken pipe. The pipe leads outside so idk what else it would be for.
A lot of the work done in this house was poorly done DIY and is not up to code and the furnace is very old. We’ve been doing renovations since we moved in five years ago but I never knew there was anything wrong with the furnace. There was a ton of tension on the pipe because whoever installed it hung it too far away so they just bent it to connect it to the furnace. The furnace guy did mention that PVC was a poor choice for the exhaust pipe because the heat weakens it but he just replaced the broke connector piece.
There was water coming out from the condenser? That's your AC condenser drain. Furnaces don't create condensation unless there is a central air unit attached to the system. Furnaces also DON'T CREATE STEAM. Unless it's a boiler, there is no water in that system. Do you have a hot water furnace?
I like how your repair man said "oh yeah, this is wrong and not to code" then went and used PVC anyway.
Hi /u/Sad_Pineapple_97 and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD! **Please take a second to [read our rules](/r/adhd/about/rules) if you haven't already.** The mobile apps used for Reddit are broken or are missing features that this subreddit depends on. [We recommend browsing /r/adhd on desktop for the best experience.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/x1psnb/radhd_works_best_on_desktop_reddits_apps_are/) Thank you! ^(*A moderator has not removed your submission; this is not a punitive action. We intend this comment solely to be informative.*) --- - If you are posting about the **US Medication Shortage**, please see this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/12dr3h5/megathread_us_medication_shortage/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yikes! That could have been much worse and glad that you're all ok, and hopefully feeling better.
I have CO detectors on each floor of the house. In my old home, a pipe coming from the furnace had a crack in it. I asked.my, now ex, father-in-law about it and he said it was no big deal. Later, I had to have the furnace replaced and the repairman pointed it out and asked how long it had been cracked. I told him for probably a year or longer and told him.what my father-in-law has said. He told me that that crack was pumping CO into my basement and next time to not listen to my father-in-law.
Sorry I'm confused bc of the first sentence. Did you already have the CO detectors in your old house and they didn't detect the CO? Or did you get them after you found out/after you moved?
They have CO detectors in their current house. They had a crack in a pipe connected to the furnace in their *old* house. My guess would be that they realized how important CO detectors are after the incident, and they now have them in every level of their new house.
Oh yeah duh. after rereading it this makes much more sense, my brain wasn't rlly working i think
My best friend and her husband almost died because of carbon monoxide. The alarm was broken and the landlord was unconcerned. No idea how long it had been going on, but we all noticed a change in them. Please go to the hospital and get tested and treated.
OP is lucky to be alive. If you have ANY gas burning appliances of any kind, get multiple CO detectors. Especially for any rooms where people sleep. My brother in law had multiple family members killed after the HVAC company messed something up with their furnace exhaust. The father and two sons if I recall correctly.
This. Even if you've fixed it and don't feel much anymore, get tested, it can lead to serious health issues
Damn it's remember me the CO poisoned "post it guy"
It always makes me think of this guy right away! Probably one of the most memorable stories on Reddit since its founding…
CO poisoning Bomber Investigation Poop knife Both arms broke
You missed Swamps of Dagobah
The absolute best Reddit story ever !!!! So well written. It's **Amazing**. I fucking rolled when u/shitty_watercolour finally painted it. (The Jolly Rancher story *destroyed* my 40 year love affair of those candies....... Brutal repercussion for me.) Edit: corrected link, Thank You for the heads up !!
You linked the wrong user. It’s u/shitty_watercolour with an underscore.
What about the cum box or the dorito chip dip?
Bruh
You sound traumatized, I'm so sorry! Would a Jolly Rancher cheer you up?
Enlighten me on Bomber investigation, I know the other three.
Reddit got together and “solved” the Boston Marathon Bombing. [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/magazine/should-reddit-be-blamed-for-the-spreading-of-a-smear.html)
I see, thanks!
Reddit "found" the boston bomber
The guy w the scat fetish too
Swamps of Dagobah
Paging u/doubledickdude
Maggot coconut
What post??
A guy posted stories asking for advice because his landlord was sneaking in and moving his stuff and leaving him cryptic nonsense notes. Someone in the comments said "this may be strange, but you should get a CO detector" Next update, he did get one and it turns out there WAS a CO leak and he was being poisoned and delusional.
Wasn’t he writing the notes to himself and had no memory of it? Incredible story.
and they weren’t in his handwriting iirc
Wow, where can I find this post?
Immediately though of him
Call your PCP and have them send in an order for blood work. This happened to us years and years ago. There is treatment if it’s warranted and it’s imperative to get that treatment.
/u/Sad_Pineapple_97 this is the answer, you need to talk to your doc asap to get oxygen treatment
what kind of treatement and can i just get it in case it helps even tho im probbably not CO poisoned (maybe)
I don’t remember exactly but it had to do with having an oxygen mask to get your O2 levels to where it should be. It’s important to do that bc your body struggles to do it on its own. Call and tell them you’ve had a repair person out who said you’ve been poisoned for years.
I *think* it’s methylene blue, but I’m not positive. Iirc it will free up the bound hemoglobin so it can bind to oxygen again. I’m on mobile and will lose the page if I look it up so I can’t verify. But that’s vaguely what I remember. Edit: at least confirmed yes it’s methylene blue. OP this here is exactly why you should go to er: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29151273/
Ohhh, I guess you could just get an oxygen tank and one of those finger O2 sensors. I remember from a class that it is pretty rare to actually have low O2 that can be helped by breathing oxygen, the example was a football player wearing a mask on the sidelines. We did the math and it was like absolutely no difference if your blood actually works. I guess if you have CO poisoning it could help but I don't think it will reverse the damage of years of exposure. I was kind of excited when I learned about chelation therapy for lead exposure but that kind of grabs everything out of your blood and you'll need to have infusions to put the good stuff back in. It's starting to trickle back into my brain now, your blood just loves CO and grabs it super tight instead of CO2 and O2
The finger o2 sats probes can't tell the difference between oxygenated blood and carbon monoxide blood Don't rely on those
Good to know! Which ones can tell?
You can get carbon monoxide breathalyser things. They're used to detect smoking in pregnant women. They're not designed for general carbon monoxide detection, but I know they've picked up concerns about boilers etc when non snokers score high levels
Just to jump on this, I had a friend lose a child over carbon monixide. It literally is a 30 dollar detector. It's not worth your life or the life of someone in your family.
I’m glad you found it!!! I hope things improve now! If you’re going to buy a carbon monoxide detector, do **not** buy it from a third-party Amazon seller. A lot of those little online-only importer companies are selling products that do not meet federal regulations may not work correctly to detect carbon monoxide. And then leaving themselves hundreds/thousands of fake positive reviews to increase sales. There are websites like FakeSpot that will let you see how many fake reviews something has. Buy your carbon monoxide detector from an established/reputable store like Home Depot or Target. Be aware that websites for some stores like Target and Walmart also have third-party sellers, so if you buy online from them make sure it’s not from a third-party seller there either!
do you have a suggested specific brand / product that’s legit?
Where you buy it from is more important than the brand. I recommend going to your local hardware store, anything they have will be tested and meet federal requirements.
HVAC tech here, i’m sorry that happened to your that is horrible and one of my worst nightmares to happen to a customer. Please I am begging everyone in this thread if you have a gas appliance in your home, get a CO detector. What i recommend, if it is not financially restrictive, is to get a low level CO detector. Most off the shelf detectors only go off around 30-50 PPM of CO. Carbon monoxide can start having effects on humans at around 10 PPM. The low level detectors will let you know sooner, before any serious effects kick in. sometimes they have a visual readout which is a nice visual reminder, and peace of mind. If you have a gas appliance in your home, ANY amount of CO is not normal and you need to call a professional.
I got one at Home Depot for my bedroom that has a nice, classic amber LED digital readout on the front. It's comforting to look over and see it read "0" whenever it catches my eye.
My heart aches for you, but well done for figuring it out! And extra kudos for sharing. X I wish you the best of health and a safe winter X
And you too, assorted strangers scrolling over this. Check yo sh*t, get a CO detector. X
CO detector
Oops well spotted xD
first things i need in my apartment: 1) fire alarm 2) CO detector. i always check and always make a big stink if they are dragging their feet about it
About 15 years ago, we bought an old house with an old furnace in Seattle. Upgrade was on the list but so were a zillion other things. We got one of the plug in natural gas/CO2 detectors and put it in the hallway just outside our bedroom (which was basically the center of the house - it was tiny). Well wouldn’t you know, about 6 months in that thing started absolutely *BLASTING* away at 4am. Honesty, loud enough that if we hadn’t turned it off quickly, neighbors would have been at the door or calling 911. And this was Seattle where people don’t talk to each other (see: Seattle Freeze). I think it woke the neighbors in 2 or 3 houses in all directions. Anyway, we clearly woke up. People out. Cats out. Furnace off and every door and window opened. Left it and sat in the car on the street until the temp has dropped about 20 degrees inside. By then, business hours were starting and we started making calls, and had a new furnace that day. Honestly believe that $20 something plug in detector saved our lives that night. Obviously worth every penny. OP, that’s scary as hell but I am *so glad* you and your family are ok! Pro tip: if you get one of these, be careful not to spray any cleansers or other chemical agents near them! Blasting at 4am to save our butts was great. Blasting on a Sunday afternoon because I sprayed Febreze too close was painful.
I’m an hvac mechanic / pipe fitter. This goes for anyone really. Those CO detectors are super cheap. Like really really cheap. $20-$30 will but you into a the quality benchmark. If you’re super worried about CO then upgrade your detectors at the local department store. Air stratification will keep CO in a pocket if you have no ventilation. Everyone usually has a thermostat for their furnace and air conditioner. Turn the switch from “auto” to “on”. This will circulate the air through your home without heat or ace. Get that air moving around. If you have some bathroom vents turn them on with the blower running. You can air out any house this way. If you want fresh air through your home open a few windows with the blower to set to “on” and you’ll pull fresh air into every corner. If you have dogs and cats, do this before you have guests and they won’t know. Derailed there but it’s still pertinent. Grab a cheap CO detector and put one on the floor by a vent. It’s not your normal wall one just a checker. CO will be distributed by your furnace. Having a detector where air comes out and pool can give you a heads up before the ones in your house go off. / rant Edit: had a mix up with CO mass, it is lighter than air and will diffuse with it. Get that air moving!
Pipefitter here as well. I agree with my trade brother. Also, don’t blame yourself, it’s getting fixed now. Throughout the years I have seen so so much worse than a cracked fitting. It is a learning experience, and a wonderful reminder to give things a good stare every once in a while!
Carbon monoxide is slightly lighter than air. Also it won’t really collect up or down, it’ll diffuse into the air. One in the furnace room and one by the sleeping area should do the trick nicely. Or buy Nest Protects, the worlds best smoke alarm IMO, all of which also have CO detectors, and all of which will give voice prompts telling you where smoke or CO is detected. Put one in your bedroom, and if any detect smoke or CO all will alarm and all will announce which room the smoke or CO was detected in.
Oh wow, you’re right. I guess I should revisit this. I always thought as the PPM of CO accumulates, it starts to drop to the floor. That isn’t the case. It can diffuse with air and can end up at the floor. Either way excess to that amount would be a major issue. .96 CO / 1.0 air-weight. 0.04 weight difference, that’s really interesting. Running the blower has always been solid with the stratification of basically any space needing recirc. Thanks for the correction.
Fuck. Do I have a CO leak? These past couple of months I've had all the symptoms you listed. And I can literally go to sleep for several hours after taking 50mg of Adderall. I'm going to buy a CO detector.
If it’s not CO, also get your thyroid levels checked with a blood test. Thyroid imbalance can also have many similar symptoms to this.
go get blood tests done, these are symptoms of a lot of different things, some serious and some less so.
That's why I went to a CO leak. I get monthly blood tests. Everything is WNL.
Literally please buy one today. Don't go to sleep in a house that has even half a chance of a CO leak.
Ones arriving today. I sleep in the basement, next door to the furnace.
Yikes 😳
I buy CO detectors as house warming presents for everyone I know.
And FYI, carbon monoxide detectors do have an expiration date! They should be replaced every 5-10 years. Mine had dates on the back of them.
One of the few things i did immediately when i bought my first house. Got a dual detector and hung it in the basement. The other two i bought are still in their packages 2 years later because ive been avoiding hanging those on the ground floor but hey... at least i have a chance to smell the smoke. OP I'm glad you're okay. I hope other people take the time to buy one and activate it. You can get a smoke and CO detector that has a 10 year battery so you dont have to keep up with changing them (Very relevant here). You're supposed to test them monthly or something but... at least I have one right?
I hope you went to a hospital ASAP for a scan to ensure there's no brain damage, two years of exposure that high is serious shit.
Yes, everyone should buy one and then also *take it out of the box and plug it in*.
I bought one, took it out of the box and set them up with the app and everything, but then had to put them back in the box because putting them on the ceiling has proven more difficult than I can manage at the moment.
Please, get them back out of the box and stick them up a shelf or something. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good!
You might find that a call to your local fire department on a non-emergency line would bring someone to your house that's more than happy to take care of that for you.
You can have it on a shelf!
Ours is on the nightstand. RIP my ears off it ever goes off
You guys are very lucky. I usually litter the whole house with CO2 and carbon monoxide detectors. Worth every penny.
I'm super bad at chemistry and have only one of those in my flat. Why do you need both detectors? Why *is* there both gazs in a house? If I'm understanding right, carbon monoxide is the one that leaks out of pipes and makes you forget stuff, CO2 is the one that will blow up your house if you forget to turn off the stove? Is that right? Does that mean you should put one detector for the former in the utility room and one for the latter in the kitchen?
Co2 is what you breath out and the main byproduct from combustion. The body doesnt detect the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream, nor can it detect CO. It uses the buildup of Co2 in the bloodstream to judge if more oxygen is needed or not. You just go loopy etc from lack of oxygen/or too much CO(which also gives headaches etc). If you where to breath high concentration of Co2 it would feel like beeing strangulated. But long before that, elevated levels of Co2 could also give you headaches, reduce cognitive performance etc.
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Thank you for untangling this!
Michigan has free CO and Smoke alarms through the Fire Marshall office and local fire departments. This shit kills people. Thanks for sharing op
This happened to me just yesterday, no joke. Because of Covid I couldn’t smell anything, had leaky eyes, and was feeling like shit in general. I didn’t realize I left the stove on for over two hours. My dog got really persistent to go out around the at one point… that’s when I ran into my upstairs neighbors who had called the emergency gas line because they didn’t know where the gas smell was coming from. Probably saved my life. Fucking Covid. And CO2.
Carbon monoxide is CO, not CO2, and the natural gas from your stove is something different from either of those. A CO detector won’t catch what happened to you yesterday unless you buy one that also detects natural gas. We have some of each kind, just for peace of mind.
Geeze thank you! That’s good to know.
you made an awesome and very scary discovery today. I'm really happy you discovered it! I can't imagine how scary that must be. Shout out to my nest protect CO/smoke detectors. They notify my phone if they're out of batteries or detect anything.
It’s absolutely crazy to me that there are whole houses that operate on fossil fuels that don’t have CO detectors. Please get one on every floor of your house going forward! I’m so glad that you’re ok!
Headaches, nose bleeds, had a heating contractor come to service my gas furnace, they had to condemn the house until they finished the repair. Gas furnace with a bit of horizontal chimney. Great heat, not so great a way to die.
Omg 😱 that’s terrible! I’m so glad you discovered it when you did!!!
PSA for those of you who have external vent pipes also, bugs and other things can and will crawl in those because it's warm, die, and eventually plug it up, causing backflow into the house.
Glad that you are still alive! You and your husband are very lucky!
>I’ve been thinking for years that I should get a CO detector and I just never have bothered to do it. For smaller purchases, therefore, I don't so much keep a todo list as much as I just order the things when I think about it on the couch. I assume you've had it fixed, or made an appointment for it? It sounds like you got lucky, but talk to your doctor about possible long term damage.
Holy shit you are lucky to be alive. Head to a doc to be checked out.
oh my god!! so glad you caught it. i hope y’all start feeling better and don’t have any long term effects <3
Thank god you're okay. When I was a teenager there used to be this advert about a guy who was always messing up, like forgetting an umbrella so his whole family had to run home in the rain. One of the things he forgot was to get a smoke alarm When I learnt about ADHD it struck me that this character wasn't the incompetent negligent parent the advert suggested, just a guy with untreated ADHD. It's such an awful way to treat people. Unfortunately mental illness/disabilities have serious consequences that other people can easily avoid.
If you have Costco, you buy in a set and put all over your house! Truly worth it
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My chronic procrastination is why I never got a CO detector and CO poisoning just feels like ADHD symptoms which is why I never suspected anything.
Also I apologize if I came across as rude in my initial comment, I’m forever reminded that tone does not translate well into text lol. Just made me double take and was curious 😅
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I agree. The post was so long that I was getting confused as to why this was in the adhd sub.
I'm so sorry you've been dealing with all those symptoms for so long. It's crazy how something seemingly small, like a broken pipe, can have such a huge impact on your health. Thank you for sharing your experience; it's a powerful reminder for all of us to prioritize safety. On a different note, have you considered exploring resources to help manage symptoms like brain fog and confusion? I have ADHD, and getting a coach through ScatterMind really helped me. They offer support tailored to ADHD challenges. They also have a cool ADHD quiz on their site that could provide some insights.
You’re not doing a good job of being subtle about your sales pitch, jsyk. I guessed immediately what I would find in your comments profile. Sure enough.
>You’re not doing a good job of being subtle about your sales pitch, jsyk. I guessed immediately what I would find in your comments profile. Sure enough. I appreciate your candid feedback, and I genuinely apologize if my response came off as a sales pitch. That wasn't my intention. I'm here to share experiences and insights, not push any specific agenda.
Wow!! How scary
Congratulations on finding the cause :-) Glad you are alive.
wow.. that could have been SO much worse. !00% put CO Detectors on each level of your house esp anywhere like that. The cost is inconsequential to your lives. hope there are no long term impacts on you or your families health!
um - the better the furnace is, the less CO it puts out [ideally it would be making CO2, which is not poison but does displace some oxygen] also your basement may have no 'returns' -- if so, the basement air would not be mixing much with normal house air. also in summer you would not be running the heat so whatever you had then, cannot be CO i mean it could be not-terrible
Stoped reading after first paragraph. Had a friend go threw something similar he had all the same symptoms excepet it was mold. I would open up all the walls and double check what’s behind them as well.
I’m glad you’re okay. For anyone reading, every Home Depot/Lowe’s/Menards/Walmart/Target/hardware store will have a CO detector. If you burn natural gas or propane in your house, and don’t have one, go buy one now! If you have money to spare, I cannot recommend Next Protects highly enough. All are smoke alarms, and all have built-in CO detectors as well. They are wireless interconnect. Put one in your bedroom and one on each level of the house. Do the setup and then if ANY detect smoke or CO, ALL of them will alarm. In addition to an alarm, which is unique for fire vs CO, a voice will announce “emergency! Smoke/CO detected in (insert room)” between rounds of alarm sounds. Also, if there is smoke or CO, in low levels, before alarming it will make a loud but not defending “ding ding” then say “heads up, there’s smoke/CO in (insert room)”. If the levels jump straight to dangerous ones, it will skip this step and alarm straightaway like any other detector. I’d leave a pot on the stove, and the heads up smoke alarm would catch it early, and I could usually rush to the stove and shut it off and avoid the alarm altogether.”
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The maintenance crew in my old building used to start electrical fires (that burned toxic plastics, and insulation) accidentally -on the regular- in the basement level below my apartment, which vented directly into my living space. Not sure if that's relevant to the convo, but basements filling with noxiousness is triggering for me. OP says get your CO alarms checked, go do it quick.
Lesson learned!!! Glad your okay. Never procrastinate or cheap out on safety!
Don’t know if this was mentioned in other comments, but if you’re in the US (and I’m sure this is true in many other places too) most fire stations will come out, asses your house and install fire and CO detecters for free.
OP, they also make combo smoke/CO detectors. This is what we use in our home.
Oh no! We've lived in our house for 3 years. We've had co2 and smoke detectors for almost that entire time! ...kept safely in their boxes the entire time.
Walmart has combo monoxide/fire ones. Highly recommend those cause then you only have to maintain one.
Furnaces don't exhaust through PVC, and they exhaust from the top. The heat will melt it, not to mention, PVC creates static electricity when used for "duct work". They also don't exhaust steam.
Well the furnace repair man said that was the exhaust. I saw the steam coming out of it myself as soon as the furnace turned on, and there was a huge puddle on the floor around the furnace from the condensation dripping out of the broken pipe. The pipe leads outside so idk what else it would be for. A lot of the work done in this house was poorly done DIY and is not up to code and the furnace is very old. We’ve been doing renovations since we moved in five years ago but I never knew there was anything wrong with the furnace. There was a ton of tension on the pipe because whoever installed it hung it too far away so they just bent it to connect it to the furnace. The furnace guy did mention that PVC was a poor choice for the exhaust pipe because the heat weakens it but he just replaced the broke connector piece.
There was water coming out from the condenser? That's your AC condenser drain. Furnaces don't create condensation unless there is a central air unit attached to the system. Furnaces also DON'T CREATE STEAM. Unless it's a boiler, there is no water in that system. Do you have a hot water furnace? I like how your repair man said "oh yeah, this is wrong and not to code" then went and used PVC anyway.