Title: Tis' The Season to Check your Carbon Monoxide Detector<br/>Author: Katherine Prybys<br/><a href='http://umem.org/profiles/faculty/121/'>[Click to email author]</a><hr/><p>
• Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless, tasteless toxic gas produced by incomplete combustion in fuel-burning devices and is a leading cause of poisoning morbidity and mortality.</p>
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• Symptoms can be easily misinterpreted (e.g., headache, nausea, dizziness, or confusion) thus victims may not realize they are being poisoned.</p>
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• CO detectors use an audible alarm and are effective in alerting potential victims of presence of CO. Some versions offer a digital readout of the CO concentration. Detectors are not a simple alarm level (as in smoke detectors) but are a concentration-time function.</p>
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• In the UL 2034 Standard, Underwriters Laboratories specifies response times for CO alarms:</p>
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70 ppm sounds alarm within 60-240 minutes</li>
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150 ppm sounds alarm within 10-50 minutes.</li>
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400 ppm: sounds alarm within 4-15 minutes.</li>
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Current Occupational Safety and Health Administration permissible exposure limit for CO is 50 parts per million as an 8-hour time-weighted average concentration.</p>
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• CO detectors have a limited lifespan of up to 7 years.</p>
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• Forty percent of residential detectors studied failed to alarm in hazardous concentrations, despite outward indications that they were operating as intended.</p>
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• CO detectors 10 years and older had the highest failure rates.</p>
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<fieldset><legend>References</legend>
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Night of sirens: analysis of carbon monoxide-detector experience in suburban Chicago. Bizovi KE, Leikin JB, Hryhorczuk DO, Frateschi LJ. Ann Emerg Med. 1998;31(6):737–740.</p>
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Residential carbon monoxide detector failure rates in the United States. Ryan TJ, Arnold KJ. Am J Public Health. 2011 Oct;101(10):e15-7. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2011.300274. Epub 2011 Aug 18.</p>
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Deaths from unintentional carbon monoxide poisoningand potential for prevention with carbon monoxide detectors. Yoon SS, Macdonald SC, Parrish RG. JAMA. 1998 Mar 4;279(9):685-7.</p>
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