Five Star Plumbing offers gas-leak detection services to our customers because we understand how dangerous leaking gas can be. Depending on the gas leak, you might end up with a fire and/or explosion or carbon monoxide, or CO2, poisoning. Let’s talk about carbon monoxide poisoning in this blog post because it’s common in the winter. If you know how carbon monoxide gets into your home, you can prevent it.
What Is Carbon Monoxide?
Carbon monoxide is a gas produced by fuel combustion. Anything that uses combusted fuel to power it generates carbon monoxide. Your car, your home’s gas furnace, your gas clothes dryer, and even tobacco smoke produces CO2. Even though it is common in our everyday lives, carbon monoxide is dangerous because the gas is invisible and odorless, which is why many people do not realize they’re inhaling carbon monoxide until it’s too late.
Carbon Monoxide Inside Your Home
As we said above, your home’s furnace and gas appliances produce carbon monoxide. This is why these appliances must be properly vented. The vents take the carbon monoxide produced by the appliance motors and route it outside so you don’t have carbon monoxide inside the house. Aside from the appliances mentioned above and tobacco smoke, carbon monoxide can also enter the home via
- Gas water heaters
- Boilers
- Gas-powered generators
- Gas and wood-burning fireplaces
- Gas grills
- Wood stoves
- Camping stoves
It’s important to keep things such as generators and gas grills and camping stoves outside. If you bring them into the house, you will end up with carbon monoxide poisoning. When you use your fireplace, make sure the flue is open until the fire is completely out; it’s best to keep it open until the next day. The only gas appliances you should have in your home are those that are safe and vented properly.
Why This Is Important
This is important because the CDC reports that nearly 400 people die in the United States each year because they’ve been exposed to CO2. This is why carbon monoxide detectors have become a code requirement in residential, commercial, and industrial properties. They alert inhabitants of dangerous carbon monoxide in the air that they would not otherwise see or smell.
If you’d like a gas leak detection test, call Five Star Plumbing. We service both the San Antonio, TX, areas, and we’d be happy to come to your home and ensure you do not have any dangerous gases leaking.
