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Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news

Posted By: D-Box

Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 02:33 PM

A co-worker of mine was killed over the weekend along with his girlfriend and father as they slept in an RV in Mason Co on a hunting trip. The details are not clear yet but it sounds like CO poisoning.

As someone who sometimes uses the built in propane heater in my RV at my property, I'll be checking the CO alarm next time out out. It was VERY cold over the weekend, so this could have been unrelated to the built in heater, like using the stove to heat or a small portable propane heater, but still a good reminder to be cautious when heating RVs.

Link to article
Posted By: Pope&Young

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 03:14 PM

Sad... Praying for their families
Posted By: Texas Dan

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 04:31 PM

Yes, theses detectors can be a true life saver.

In addition to CO, a butane gas detector should be in every RV to detect these leaks as well. It was my gas detector that alerted me to a leaking butane canister that I use in my portable heater.

Smoke and CO detectors mounted on the ceiling, while gas detectors mounted roughly 10 inches from the floor.
Posted By: KG68

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 06:22 PM

Article says trailer house not RV. confused2
Posted By: oldoak2000

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 06:32 PM

Originally Posted By: Texas Dan
Yes, theses detectors can be a true life saver.
In addition to CO, a butane gas detector should be in every RV to detect these leaks as well. It was my gas detector that alerted me to a leaking butane canister that I use in my portable heater.
Smoke and CO detectors mounted on the ceiling, while gas detectors mounted roughly 10 inches from the floor.


2x - plus detectors MUST be replaced (5-7 yrs); (co detectors 'wear out' after 5-7 years or so, and ones made before 2009 or so DID NOT have a built in warning beep (EOL end of life warning) to alert that the detector would no longer sense rising co levels, even if the battery is good ...)
https://www.fayengineering.com/articles/carbon-monoxide-has-your-carbon-monoxide-alarm-expired

in other words, if you co detector is older than 2010 - replace it NOW!
Posted By: ChadTRG42

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 06:44 PM

Sad news for sure. We use a Buddy heater on a large propane bottle for heat when our small electric heater can not keep up on the really cold nights. I've always been leary of these indoor propane heaters. I have woken up with head aches, and get outside and the head ache shortly goes away. The Buddy heaters say they are indoor safe, but are they truly indoor safe?
Posted By: justincorbell

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 07:04 PM

Terrible
Posted By: D-Box

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 10:24 PM

Originally Posted By: KG68
Article says trailer house not RV. confused2


The article says "Trailer house", others have here at work have mentioned an RV, but it could have been a mobile home. I assumed travel trailer. Like I said, the details are not yet clear.
Posted By: D-Box

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 10:30 PM

Originally Posted By: ChadTRG42
We use a Buddy heater on a large propane bottle for heat when our small electric heater can not keep up on the really cold nights.


I'd be very nervous about using a buddy heater in an RV. You probably need a lot of ventilation to make them safe, which means lots of cold air coming in.

I bought a $60 oscillating electric heater at Target recently with a built in thermostat and it works really well.
Posted By: Always ready 2 hunt

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 10:48 PM

Tragic. Buy both a CO and gas detector and use them. I'll be updating mine next trip.
Posted By: Creedmoor

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 11:30 PM

Originally Posted By: ChadTRG42
Sad news for sure. We use a Buddy heater on a large propane bottle for heat when our small electric heater can not keep up on the really cold nights. I've always been leary of these indoor propane heaters. I have woken up with head aches, and get outside and the head ache shortly goes away. The Buddy heaters say they are indoor safe, but are they truly indoor safe?


Chad, what you experienced was likely a lack of oxygen. Propane heaters and non-vented fireplaces can deplete a closed space of oxygen very quickly.
Posted By: Shane431

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/11/17 11:52 PM

Only use electric heaters in our RV!
Posted By: J.G.

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/12/17 12:21 AM

Terrible news! Sorry for your loss, and the loss of the families.




Smoke detectors, and CO detectors save lives. Any form of heater, and they need to be in service. We even used them in a wall tent, in Colorado elk hunting.
Posted By: sig226fan (Rguns.com)

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/12/17 12:45 AM

Knew some guys that died a few years ago, and two kids I coached in the late 80's died in Lubbock at College... I am a fanatic about CO sensors
Posted By: mustafa

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/12/17 04:23 AM

I'm nervous about running the rv heaters. Thankfully my old rv was small enough that a small heater would heat it
Posted By: tShawnB

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/12/17 02:03 PM

A reminder, though a tragic one, for me to replace our CO sensors ASAP in our house at the lease.
Posted By: sig226fan (Rguns.com)

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/12/17 02:26 PM

We only use electric while asleep. But gas heaters are used when it is real cold, just turn them off when we go to sleep.
Posted By: D-Box

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/12/17 03:54 PM

I've done a bit more reading on portable propane heaters and it looks like the "Buddy" type portable heaters are labelled as safe for indoor use because they are catalytic heaters that don't have an open flame and don't produce dangerous gasses. They do however consume oxygen, so can still be dangerous in a small sealed areas. Some have low oxygen cutoffs that attempt to eliminate this risk, but I'm not sure I'd want to count on that working.

I'm not finding any mention online about significant risk with using the built in RV propane heater which is obviously designed to vent to the outside. If anyone has any information to the contrary, please post.

Source Article
Posted By: HoldPoint

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/12/17 04:26 PM

Hits close to home - in our cabin on our deer lease we have a non-vented gas heater. It looks basically like a portable gas fireplace with logs. It scares the bejesus out of me for some reason. I finally broke down and bought a CO2 detector that shows you the digital readout. Basically it says 0-50 find the source, 50-100 get out, over 100 bad things happen. We were out there last weekend when it was extremely cold and the first night it started beeping around 3 am (right before we had to get up to duck hunt) and it said 57 on the readout. I got up, had a heck of a headache and opened the front door and fanned all the glorious 10 degree air in until it went back down. By the time we got up it was back to 41. We let it run all day and you could def smell the "gas" when you walked from outside into the cabin but the detector never went back off as far as I know. The next night I kept an eye on it and when it started creeping back into the 40's I just opened the bathroom window a bit and the alarm never went off. Unfortunately it was our only source of quality heat for as cold as it was so didn't really have an option. I do feel more safe with the detector now but I'm still not clear on what levels of CO2 are acceptable other than the readout being under 50.
Posted By: oldoak2000

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/12/17 05:51 PM

Originally Posted By: HoldPoint
Hits close to home - in our cabin on our deer lease we have a non-vented gas heater. It looks basically like a portable gas fireplace with logs. It scares the bejesus out of me for some reason. I finally broke down and bought a CO2 detector that shows you the digital readout. Basically it says 0-50 find the source, 50-100 get out, over 100 bad things happen. We were out there last weekend when it was extremely cold and the first night it started beeping around 3 am (right before we had to get up to duck hunt) and it said 57 on the readout. I got up, had a heck of a headache and opened the front door and fanned all the glorious 10 degree air in until it went back down. By the time we got up it was back to 41. We let it run all day and you could def smell the "gas" when you walked from outside into the cabin but the detector never went back off as far as I know. The next night I kept an eye on it and when it started creeping back into the 40's I just opened the bathroom window a bit and the alarm never went off. Unfortunately it was our only source of quality heat for as cold as it was so didn't really have an option. I do feel more safe with the detector now but I'm still not clear on what levels of CO2 are acceptable other than the readout being under 50.


SMALL levels (like '50') over LONG periods of time (like sleeping 6 hrs in it) = BAAAD !!
High levels (200+) over shorter periods of time is BAAAD too!

It (CO) accumulates in your blood and REDUCES oxygen-carrying capacity ; it only SLOWLY 'de-accumulates' when TOTALLY removed from source of CO -

Thats why SLEEPING with ANY source of (non-vented) open flame heat can KILL you (little bit of co over long time = ( X X ) !
Posted By: HoldPoint

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/12/17 07:19 PM

Originally Posted By: oldoak2000
Originally Posted By: HoldPoint
Hits close to home - in our cabin on our deer lease we have a non-vented gas heater. It looks basically like a portable gas fireplace with logs. It scares the bejesus out of me for some reason. I finally broke down and bought a CO2 detector that shows you the digital readout. Basically it says 0-50 find the source, 50-100 get out, over 100 bad things happen. We were out there last weekend when it was extremely cold and the first night it started beeping around 3 am (right before we had to get up to duck hunt) and it said 57 on the readout. I got up, had a heck of a headache and opened the front door and fanned all the glorious 10 degree air in until it went back down. By the time we got up it was back to 41. We let it run all day and you could def smell the "gas" when you walked from outside into the cabin but the detector never went back off as far as I know. The next night I kept an eye on it and when it started creeping back into the 40's I just opened the bathroom window a bit and the alarm never went off. Unfortunately it was our only source of quality heat for as cold as it was so didn't really have an option. I do feel more safe with the detector now but I'm still not clear on what levels of CO2 are acceptable other than the readout being under 50.


SMALL levels (like '50') over LONG periods of time (like sleeping 6 hrs in it) = BAAAD !!
High levels (200+) over shorter periods of time is BAAAD too!

It (CO) accumulates in your blood and REDUCES oxygen-carrying capacity ; it only SLOWLY 'de-accumulates' when TOTALLY removed from source of CO -

Thats why SLEEPING with ANY source of (non-vented) open flame heat can KILL you (little bit of co over long time = ( X X ) !


Duly noted - I'm just curious as to the design of the unit. You can tell it is not designed to be vented to the outside. I wonder if it doesn't burn as clean as it should because it's running on propane instead of natural gas. No idea what it was designed for, it was there when we got on the lease.
Posted By: Sidebuster

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/13/17 04:04 PM

I have a 2014 RV and have never used the gas heat. I use a oil filled electric heater and don't have to worry.
Posted By: D-Box

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/13/17 05:32 PM

Is there really anything to worry about with gas heat from the built in furnace? I couldn't find anything online saying there was. There are downsides of course, they are loud and burn a lot of propane.
Posted By: Stub

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/13/17 05:43 PM

Originally Posted By: Pope&Young
Sad... Praying for their families
angel
Posted By: Dalroo

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/13/17 05:49 PM

Like others here, I use only 1000/1500 watt electric heater in my camper. The house heater hasn't been run in a couple of years. My situation is a bit different because I keep my camper inside my insulated (unheated) barn, so just running the house heater, especially while asleep, concerns me some.

The good news, the electric heater is more than enough, even on very cold nights, and aided by the camper being out of the wind. To about freezing, anything more than the lowest setting is too warm for sleeping.

The other benefit, the electric heaters are relatively inexpensive, and even in a large camper, two would be more than sufficient, much safer, and less of a hassle with propane refills, etc.

Good reminder though, I think my CO sensor is ready to be replaced, so will do so soon.
Posted By: DocHorton

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/13/17 09:32 PM

The only time I use a propane heater is in my deer stand with the windows open. My cabin uses two electric space heaters and they work just fine....too many stories of people not waking up with the gas heaters.
Posted By: Marc K

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/14/17 09:50 PM

Electric heaters are great - as long as you are plugged in somewhere!

The issue is that many times 120v isn't available....... it ain't gonna happen on battery.
Posted By: TackDriver

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/15/17 04:59 AM

I removed the gas heater out of my camper because a mouse built a nest in the blower wheel, so upon opening the furnace to clean it out, I saw a tank where the heater burns the propane and its rusty, imagine a pin hole in that rusty tank, propane can leak through rust spots on a tank in a furnace. After cleaning the furnace, I bagged it with and all lines and parts that came with it and put them in the attic. Even pulled out the propane line through the floor and capped the hole with Brillo, and capped the propane heater line that runs under the camper to the main line to the propane tanks. I use the electric heater now and I only run a stove, a fridge plus a water heater ( all propane ) out of the camper. I have a electric mini stove on the side when I don't want to use the gas stove. If I use the gas stove, I open the vent with fan in the bathroom on the ceiling and open the vent in the front of the camper ceiling to draw fresh air and push the carbon monoxide out through the bathroom vent. I don't like the smell of the CO.
Posted By: NDN98

Re: Check your CO alarms in your RV's...sad news - 01/15/17 01:54 PM

sad
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