Last year, I published an article about a young Wokingham resident who tragically died on 18 February 2010 from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Her family has now set up a new charity, the Katie Haines Memorial Trust which has raised a considerable sum of money in an effort to raise awareness of carbon monoxide and to try to persuade people to buy an audible carbon monoxide alarm. Carbon monoxide has no taste or smell and is difficult to detect, meaning that these alarms can be life saving devices.
To find out more about the work of the charity, please visit the website at: www.katiehaines.com.
June 24, 2011
It is important to understand the difference between room sealed and other gas appliances. Most boilers are sealed to burn air from outside the building and discharge any burned gases outside. The only way that these can be dangerous is in cases where the combustion chamber seal is not refitted properly after servicing. I have witnessed this when an engineer serviced our boiler and put back an old broken seal. So , in this case, the check made matters worse.
In the case of open appliances, these can be lethal and not only gas burners but solid fuel. Gas cookers are an obvious possibility for malfunction. In the vast majority of cases there is no problem, but a CO detector is essential if anyone is staying in a sealed room with an open appliance.