Not sure where else to post this....

Do you think placing a smoke/fire alarm above or around a gas furnace is a bad idea... nuisance alarms??

Do you have a smoke detector in your furnace room?

 

^Should be okay. Use the photo-electric type -> supposed to be less prone to false alarms.

If you've got a natural draft furnace or water heater, you should put a co alarm in there to get an early warning. A blocked chimney is all it takes.

 

I wouldn't put it right over the furnace. Nearby is ok.

My gas furnace, gas water heater and gas dryer are in the basement and I have a smoke detector there. You go up three steps to the lower level in a split level house and I have a smoke and a CO detector there.

 

Most manufacturers of smoke and CO alarms specifically state to NOT install their products near a furnace. If you have an alarm system in the house I would suggest a combination fixed temperature and rate-of-temperature-rise detector connected to the alarm system.

 

Just add one to the return duct

 

What Furd said. In our equipment room/area I used a fixed temp rate of rise detector. Outside the equipment room (thru a door and about 20' from the furnace/water heater) I added a CO detector and a normal smoke detector.

I dont have a link but Im pretty sure you can Google around and find the UL "rules" for an alarm install. And Im pretty sure it will lay out that you cant use a smoke within X feet of a combustible appliance.....the rules are geared towards preventing falses. Do the same in a kitchen if you have an oven....heat detector only, so the fire department doesnt show up because you burnt your TV dinner

 

CO alarms can be placed safely beside a combustion appliance without false trips.

The alarms are time weighted and don't go off below 70 ppm -> you're not even supposed to have that in the exhaust.

 

With my wifes cooking, I had to resort to one of these.

 

Residential CO alarms are, in my opinion, only slightly better than useless. With their insensitivity to low level concentrations and the time-weighting prior to alarm they give a false sense of security.

 

Furd, I realize it's your opinion, but coming from you as a respected contributor in this form I wish you did not state that. Since Amanda's law was enacted the household CO2 detector has saved hundreds of lives. In fact I can make attest to that fact. They may not be perfect but they do the job as needed. They don't need to be super accurate. When the fire Marshal came to my son-in-laws house in answer to the CO alarm going off, his monitor showed a high ppm reading. However, when the gas company came a few minutes later as an emergency call, their high end meter went off the dial and the company immediately shut of the gas supply and put a seal on it. Accuracy is not important as much as detection at some level. Agreeded, I wish they were more sensitive, but then cost would rise and people would not be as quick to buy them in spite of the law.

The point being is that the situation existed for years prior with the previous owner but did not manifest itself until a unique set of weather and window openings combined to cause enough concentration in pmm for the farthest alarm in an upstairs bedroom to trip. It was becoming a slow killer. Those cheap household CO2 detector saved my family.

BTW... the cause of the problem was a faulty furnace exhaust install by previous owner and was not evident on inspection. Cost $1500 to correct!

 

You have used CO detector and CO[SUP]2[/SUP] detector/alarm interchangeably, the are NOT the same.

How about this: The common residential CO alarm will NOT alert to a low level, but still dangerous, accumulation of carbon monoxide but it will eventually alert to higher levels. Having a residential CO alarm device is ALWAYS better than no CO alarm but you CAN suffer from low-level CO build up with no warning so don't assume that you are safe just because you have a CO alarm you bought at the local big box mega-mart homecenter.

For whatever it is worth, I DO have a consumer grade CO alarm in my house. I just don't trust it to keep me alive.

 

By the time a UL CO alarm goes off, you've already been poisoned.

I want to know that there's a problem before I get poisoned, but alarms which make noise below 70ppm fail UL's tests.

 

I have a digital readout model by my thermostat and press the peak button regularly.

I'm sure it is not as accurate as my $400 Bacharach but I think every house should have at least one.