I ask out of ignorance

Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:
On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 23:38:31 -0500, "Mayayana"
wrote:

Also, CO is carbon monoxide. It's not flammable.
CO is not the chemical formula for propane. Houses
don't blow up from high CO levels. But it does
displace oxygen in the bloodstream, so it can
kill quickly in high concentrations.

We have a CO detector in our house. It was free from British Gas years
ago. It did nothing for year but went off a few nights ago. The alarm
sound got very annoying. It was impossible to stop the noise. Even
when all the doors and windows were open to reduce the CO it wouldn't
stop. When I called the emergency phone number I got a message to do
what I'd already done. The day after I managed to get through a real
human. She said the alarms could not be reset and were disposable. I
smashed it to bits and threw it away. That stopped the noise!

Steve

That's the seven year expiry behavior.

The ten year battery operated ones, are supposed
to expire after seven years. One reason for having
a sealed battery, is so the user won't reset the unit
for another seven years of operation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide_detector

Some of the early ones were "not recommended" for active
testing. Releasing a cloud of CO next to the unit, to
test that it alarms, would basically ruin it. It's possible
that type would be the "opto-chemical" entry in the article.

I prefer the ones with a LED readout, if available. Not
a big fan of this sealed battery crap.

I noticed in the product reviews for one item, the users
had no idea what the unit was supposed to do. Two users
complained "they could smell gas, and the CO detector
didn't go off". They were smelling mercaptans in the natural
gas, indicative of a natural gas leak, and expecting the
CO detector to alarm. No, it doesn't do that.

And if you do decide to buy a combo unit, that does
detect CO as well as combustible gas, those are
flaky pastry and don't work well. If you need a CO
detector, just buy a CO detector.

Paul

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| She said the alarms could not be reset and were disposable. I
| smashed it to bits and threw it away. That stopped the noise!

Maddening, isn't it? They're doing similar in
the US. I had one expire a few months ago.
Built-in battery... Non-replaceable... People are
too stupid to be trusted with replacing batteries.
....So I had to buy a new one!

the one i have lasts 10 years on its battery, or just get one that
plugs in the wall.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| [There was a darkly humorous example awhile back.
| A couple of undisputable winners were flying their
| private plane to a private luxury cabin getaway, for
| a private, luxury, hunting cabin weekend. The
| cabin owner turned on the heat via his iPhone
| during the trip, so the cabin would be toasty when
| they arrived. Very slick. These are winners, after all.
| Their whole life is slick.They arrived at the
| cabin. Both were dead within minutes. A squirrel had
| set up house in the furnace vent and the CO alarm
| wasn't working. The two men were suffocated by
| high CO levels when they walked into the house,
| probably passing out before they even had time to
| think.]
|
| that story does not add up.
|
| Nor had the house blown up, which it probably would have if it had a
| running furnace inside with as high a level of atmospheric CO as
| implied by the story.


https://www.houstonchronicle.com/new...-s-defense-in-
2-deaths-animal-5603194.php

the problem was due to faulty repairs by an unlicensed contractor, not
that someone had a smart thermostat and remotely turned on the heat.

another problem was the lack of a co detector, which would have alerted
them to the high co levels.

I'm not sure if this is the same story, but it looks
like it. In any case, it's very similar and other such
stories can be found. It would have been easy
enough for you to check. But you'd rather heckle
from the peanut gallery.

there are very few such stories, none of which are due to smart
thermostats or other smart devices.

Also, CO is carbon monoxide. It's not flammable.
CO is not the chemical formula for propane. Houses
don't blow up from high CO levels. But it does
displace oxygen in the bloodstream, so it can
kill quickly in high concentrations.

http://www.iapa.ca/pdf/carbon_monoxide_feb2003.pdf
Carbon monoxide is flammable. Mixtures of carbon monoxide and air in
the flammable range will ignite if a flame or a spark is present.
Flammable mixtures containing carbon monoxide and other gases can be
ignited easily by heated surfaces, open flames and even by the
burning tip of a cigarette. The serious nature of the flammability
hazard is reflected in the extensive flammable range of carbon
monoxide in air (see Table 1, below).

https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chem...arbon_monoxide.
html
What are fire hazards and extinguishing media for carbon monoxide?

Flammable Properties: EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE GAS. Can easily ignite. Can
readily form explosive mixture with air at room temperature.

There were several factors involved in this story.
One factor may have been a faulty furnace repair.
One factor was apparently squirrels nesting in the
vent pipe that blocked exhaust gas.

the cause was the faulty repair. everything else was a result of that.

But the point of
the story was the absurdity of unnecessary "smart"
devices.

nope. that was not the point at all.

in fact, the story did not even mention a smart thermostat, or any
thermostat for that matter.

the problem was that there was a faulty repair for which the contractor
refused to accept responsibility and tried to blame it on an animal.

it did not matter how they turned on the heat.

The men died in part because they turned
on the furnace remotely via cellphone. They thought
that was clever. But they were dead before they
were in the house long enough to ralize the furnace
wasn't working right.

nope. the smart thermostat had absolutely nothing to do with it.

if they had a standard thermostat and turned on the furnace after
arrival, the cabin would still have filled with carbon monoxide due to
the faulty repair, likely killing them while they slept.

however, if they had a co detector, they'd have known of the danger.

if they had a smart co detector which pushed an alert to a smartphone,
they'd have known in advance that there was a dangerous problem at the
cabin, possibly even early enough that they could have called someone
to investigate well before they departed to go there.

in other words, smart devices would have *prevented* the tragedy.

They might have still died if they hadn't been
such technophiliacs. But there's a good chance
they wouldn't have. By the time they arrived at
the cabin the CO levels were so high that they
were dead before they had a chance to feel sick
and get out.

not true at all.

no matter what type of thermostat they had, the cabin would have filled
with co. the only difference is it would have happened while they were
there rather than upon arrival.

"Wolf K" wrote

| Nor had the house blown up, which it probably would have if it had a
| running furnace inside with as high a level of atmospheric CO as
| implied by the story.
|
| I have a few collections of these stories, confess that when I was much
| younger I believed some of them.
|

There seems to be an epidemic of people who
think CO is an explosive gas... Did you not see
my link? You willingly accept that CO is explosive
on Eric's say-so, but believe newspaper articles
are mainly urban legends?

"Wolf K" wrote

| It's surprising but true that newspapers are sometimes taken in by these
| tales, especially if the purveyor has added plausible names and dates,
etc.
|

Before you embarass yourself further with your
glib cynicism and even more glib dismissals of others
as being liars or idiots, do a search on this:

Albert Senzatimore carbon monoxide

Numerous newspapers reported the story. The American
Bar Association also did a piece because there was a
somewhat unusual lawsuit involved.

http://www.abajournal.com/news/artic...onoxide_death/

Oddly, so far I haven't found a story about homes
being destroyed by exploding CO gas. Maybe you or
Eric could post a link to that one. Was it the case
of Elmer Fudd vs Daffy Duck, by any chance?

In article , Mayayana
wrote:


| Nor had the house blown up, which it probably would have if it had a
| running furnace inside with as high a level of atmospheric CO as
| implied by the story.
|
| I have a few collections of these stories, confess that when I was much
| younger I believed some of them.

There seems to be an epidemic of people who
think CO is an explosive gas...

perhaps that's because it *is* explosive...

https://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/0345.pdf
Carbon Monoxide is a FLAMMABLE GAS and a DANGEROUS FIRE HAZARD.

http://www.iapa.ca/pdf/carbon_monoxide_feb2003.pdf
Carbon monoxide is flammable. Mixtures of carbon monoxide and air in
the flammable range will ignite if a flame or a spark is present.
Flammable mixtures containing carbon monoxide and other gases can be
ignited easily by heated surfaces, open flames and even by the
burning tip of a cigarette. The serious nature of the flammability
hazard is reflected in the extensive flammable range of carbon
monoxide in air (see Table 1, below).

https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chem...arbon_monoxide.
html
What are fire hazards and extinguishing media for carbon monoxide?

Flammable Properties: EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE GAS. Can easily ignite. Can
readily form explosive mixture with air at room temperature.

Did you not see
my link?

your link described a faulty repair by an incompetent contractor.

You willingly accept that CO is explosive
on Eric's say-so, but believe newspaper articles
are mainly urban legends?

it *is* explosive, and not because eric said so. see above.

nospam wrote:


http://www.iapa.ca/pdf/carbon_monoxide_feb2003.pdf
Carbon monoxide is flammable. Mixtures of carbon monoxide and air in
the flammable range will ignite if a flame or a spark is present.
Flammable mixtures containing carbon monoxide and other gases can be
ignited easily by heated surfaces, open flames and even by the
burning tip of a cigarette. The serious nature of the flammability
hazard is reflected in the extensive flammable range of carbon
monoxide in air (see Table 1, below).

https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/chem_profiles/carbon_monoxide.html
What are fire hazards and extinguishing media for carbon monoxide?

Flammable Properties: EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE GAS. Can easily ignite. Can
readily form explosive mixture with air at room temperature.

But this is well outside the domain of use expected.

The range of danger to humans is measured in ppm. On
devices where CO is a byproduct of regular combustion,
and not the principle reason for running the device.

Normal combustion processes don't produce pure CO.
The percentage is much lower.

If you run certain kinds of chemical reactions, you
could probably manage to make CO in a range suitable
for flammability or exploding it by mixing with O2.

This is a pretty stupid demo to be putting on, but
it shows a lab way of making CO at sufficient concentration
to support a flame. Even done in a fume hood, this
isn't very clever. This definitely isn't "Here, hold my beer"
material.

https://eic.rsc.org/exhibition-chemi...020038.article

Paul

SilverSlimer wrote:


Whereas *I* brought up that there is overwhelming evidence that the
"more than half" that voted for Hillary, in the popular vote, were not
even people who were allowed to vote in the country in the first place.

Which is nothing more than a persistent right-wing LIE. There is no
evidence for such a thing.

--
Tim Slattery
tim at risingdove dot com

"Wolf K" wrote

| There seems to be an epidemic of people who
| think CO is an explosive gas... Did you not see
| my link? You willingly accept that CO is explosive
| on Eric's say-so, but believe newspaper articles
| are mainly urban legends?
|
| I accepted nothing, I merely commented.
|

Yes, you commented implying that myself and even
the news media were either liars or idiots. It seems
common courtesy, and common sense, to check
the details for yourself before making accusations.

| BTW, here's a link that gives lower and upper explosive limits for CO:
|
|
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/e...its-d_423.html
|
| CO is certainly flammable (gas generated from coal has a large
| percentage of CO, which is one of the reasons gas stoves were handy
| suicide tools basck in the day).
|

Interesting. I didn't know about the flammability.
But gas stoves were used in suicide without the
flame on. (One of my grandmothers did that. The
gas never lit. In other words, she was killing herself
with gas, not CO. My grandfather discovered her with
her head in the oven. Even natural gas needs a high
concentration to ignite.)

And the sources I find say CO is only explosive
at concentrations above 12%. It kills at 4+% and
it's given off by fires. So the chance of blowing
up a house are higher than I realized, but they're
still slim. But I would be interested if you manage
to find a case. I suspect it requires a very specific
scenario. Something like a very faulty furnace
venting for a long period into an enclosed space,
followed by a door suddenly opened by a smoker.

Mayayana wrote:
"Wolf K" wrote

| There seems to be an epidemic of people who
| think CO is an explosive gas... Did you not see
| my link? You willingly accept that CO is explosive
| on Eric's say-so, but believe newspaper articles
| are mainly urban legends?
|
| I accepted nothing, I merely commented.
|

Yes, you commented implying that myself and even
the news media were either liars or idiots. It seems
common courtesy, and common sense, to check
the details for yourself before making accusations.

| BTW, here's a link that gives lower and upper explosive limits for CO:
|
|
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/e...its-d_423.html
|
| CO is certainly flammable (gas generated from coal has a large
| percentage of CO, which is one of the reasons gas stoves were handy
| suicide tools basck in the day).
|

Interesting. I didn't know about the flammability.
But gas stoves were used in suicide without the
flame on. (One of my grandmothers did that. The
gas never lit. In other words, she was killing herself
with gas, not CO. My grandfather discovered her with
her head in the oven. Even natural gas needs a high
concentration to ignite.)

And the sources I find say CO is only explosive
at concentrations above 12%. It kills at 4+% and
it's given off by fires. So the chance of blowing
up a house are higher than I realized, but they're
still slim. But I would be interested if you manage
to find a case. I suspect it requires a very specific
scenario. Something like a very faulty furnace
venting for a long period into an enclosed space,
followed by a door suddenly opened by a smoker.

How does the combustion process only run partially,
without filling the house with natural gas ? I don't see
how you get to 12% CO this way ? There's likely a house-full
of natural gas which would explode nicely for you.

https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/pdf...s_furnace4.pdf

"The current ANSI Z21.47 standard (1998) requires that an
air-free flue gas sample of CO not exceed a maximum of
400 ppm (0.04 percent) when a furnace vent is either
partially or completely blocked.

When Furnace #4 was operated continuously, the air-free
flue gas sample of CO increased from 59 ppm to more than 3400
ppm, exceeding the measurement range of the CO analyzer,
as the firing rate increased from 100,000 Btu/hr to 128,000 Btu/hr.

Many of the air-free CO concentrations exceeded the 400
ppm maximum limit specified in the ANSI Z21.47.2 standard
(1998) when the furnace was operated *above* the manufacturer’s
specified input rate.
"

Apparently this is adjustable.

http://www.whirlpoolcomfort.com/Upload/46924D003.pdf

"Adjust the Furnace Input Rate (if required)

For altitudes 4,500 to 7,500 feet above sea level...
"

So it is possible for the installer to foul up.

On the first document, their measurement instrument couldn't
measure CO properly above 3.4%. So it's not clear how
a blocked furnace with too much gas entering, what limit
it would have on CO.

Paul

On 11/24/18 7:38 AM, Mayayana wrote:

[snip]

But the alarms were designed to
beep about every 3 minutes when the battery got
low. Only a dead person wouldn't have known to
replace the battery.

If you have multiple such devices (that beep like that). It can take a
good while to find the one beeping. The beep is very short and I need
several to locate the source. Same thing with a phone (lost cell phone
with missed call beep every 5 minutes).

[snip]


--
31 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2018 12:00:00 AM for 1
day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more
abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in
hell." [Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Summa Theologica]

On 11/24/18 10:16 AM, Mayayana wrote:

[snip]

Interesting. I didn't know about the flammability.
But gas stoves were used in suicide without the
flame on. (One of my grandmothers did that. The
gas never lit. In other words, she was killing herself
with gas, not CO. My grandfather discovered her with
her head in the oven. Even natural gas needs a high
concentration to ignite.)
Also, natural gas is not poisonous. The problem with a gas-filled space
is lack of oxygen.

[snip]

--
31 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2018 12:00:00 AM for 1
day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more
abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in
hell." [Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Summa Theologica]

"Paul" wrote

| How does the combustion process only run partially,
| without filling the house with natural gas ? I don't see
| how you get to 12% CO this way ? There's likely a house-full
| of natural gas which would explode nicely for you.

Good question. I don't know. In the case we're talking
about, it was running for 2 hours before the men arrived.
But the article(s) seem to say that the high CO output
was caused in part by bad combustion due to blocked
intake. I'm guessing that means the gas burned but
didn't burn well. Which would be different from gas just
not lighting. Just as a poorly tuned car makes for nasty
exhaust, but not spilled gasoline.

It's an odd case. The animal nest. The bad contractor.
Faulty or lacking CO detectors. Faulty or lacking furnace
sensors. And a man turning on his furnace remotely via
cellphone. All were possible factors in the deaths.

"Mark Lloyd" wrote

| Interesting. I didn't know about the flammability.
| But gas stoves were used in suicide without the
| flame on. (One of my grandmothers did that. The
| gas never lit. In other words, she was killing herself
| with gas, not CO. My grandfather discovered her with
| her head in the oven. Even natural gas needs a high
| concentration to ignite.)

| Also, natural gas is not poisonous. The problem with a gas-filled space
| is lack of oxygen.
|

Grandma must have timed it well to be gone
just around the time Grandpa came home. He
was a heavy cigar smoker. I always wondered
whether she understood the risk she was imposing
on others. But she had late-stage breast cancer
and in those days there was nothing to be done.
I assume she *thought* she was saving everyone
a lot of trouble.
Maybe natural gas is an easy way to pass out
without struggle? I don't know.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

It's an odd case. The animal nest. The bad contractor.
Faulty or lacking CO detectors. Faulty or lacking furnace
sensors. And a man turning on his furnace remotely via
cellphone. All were possible factors in the deaths.

all but the last one are factors.

the smart thermostat had absolutely nothing to do with it.