Carbon monoxide awareness week

Carbon monoxide awareness week begins on Monday (17 November) and the Health Protection Agency have released the following information and advice to ensure that Rochdale residents are safe in their homes.

Carbon monoxide is an invisible gas that has no taste or smell and people can not generally tell when it is in their homes, other than when it affects them.

The risk comes from impaired boilers or coal, gas, oil or wood burning appliances and from blocked flues.

To reduce the risk it is essential to have boilers and fossil (coal, gas and oil) fuel burning appliances regularly serviced by a registered engineer. Servicing should preferably be carried out before appliances are turned on again for the winter after a summer break.

In addition, the HPA is strongly recommending that people should buy a British Standards Kitemarked audible CO alarm. These need not be expensive.

However, installation of an alarm should not replace regular inspections and servicing of appliances and boilers by a registered engineer.

How can you tell when there’s a problem?

There are sometimes indicators that may suggest a fault with domestic boilers or flues. The signs of trouble are:

Black sooty marks on the radiants of gas fires.
Sooty marks on the wall around stoves, boilers or fires.
Smoke accumulating in rooms due to faulty flues.
Yellow instead of blue flames from gas appliances.

What carbon monoxide may do.

Carbon Monoxide starves the blood of oxygen, causing the body to suffocate from within. At high concentrations, carbon monoxide can kill.

People who are exposed to carbon monoxide may experience headaches, dizziness, nausea (feeling sick) and tiredness.

High concentrations can cause people to become confused, they may collapse and become unconscious. Exposure to lower concentrations of carbon monoxide for a longer period may affect young people’s school work and an adult’s ability to concentrate and think clearly.

These symptoms will begin to disappear when the patient leaves the gas-filled environment or is removed from it. However, if no action is taken, the gas will continue to accumulate in the blood, eventually leading to brain damage or death if no action is taken.

Anyone suspecting carbon monoxide poisoning should leave the area of risk immediately.

GPs and Accident and Emergency staff should consider the possibility of CO poisoning in the following circumstances:

More than one person in the house is affected.
Patients begin to recover when they leave the environment in which they became ill, such as their homes, holiday homes, caravans or hotel bedrooms.
The symptoms are associated with cooking, use of a stove, or when the central heating is switched on.
The symptoms are worse in winter when heating is in use.