With temperatures cooling off, homeowners in the Indianapolis area will soon be firing up their furnace or lighting up their fireplace for heat. Before the heating season starts, it’s important to make sure the carbon monoxide detectors in your home are working properly.
Dangers of Carbon Monoxide
Carbon monoxide is invisible to the human eye, and you can’t smell it or taste it in the air either. It’s normally produced by furnaces, water heaters and gas stoves, but it usually vents outside your home. When this gas leaks into your home, it only take small amounts of it to put your health at serious risk. Exposure to carbon monoxide can cause your body to become starved of oxygen, leading to permanent brain damage or death. Mild carbon monoxide poisoning causes symptoms such as nausea, headaches and shortness of breath, while serious cases cause lightheadedness, debilitating headaches and confusion. Without treatment and with continued exposure to this gas, fatalities can occur.
Purpose of Carbon Monoxide Detectors
These devices work in a similar manner as smoke alarms. They sound a loud alarm when carbon monoxide is detected in your home. These detectors are designed to alert you before carbon monoxide become dangerous enough to cause even mild symptoms. In order to make sure that these devices are able to protect you and your family, it’s essential to test them every so often. Most detectors come with a feature that allows you to test it by pressing a button. This also lets you know how loud the alarm will be if carbon monoxide is detected. While checking your detectors, make sure they’re placed in effective places, such as on the upper part of a wall or ceiling. Carbon monoxide tends to be higher in rooms than other gases. You should also have one detector on each floor of your home, with one placed close to the main sleeping area.
If your furnace or heat pump needs maintenance or repairs, contact Mowery Heating, Cooling and Plumbing. We offer dependable HVAC services for homeowners in the Indianapolis area.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Brownsburg, Indiana and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).
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