not to have a carbon monoxide detector?

[wolfhound]

There's a lot of stuff in the news about these at the moment. I don't have one. Maybe I should. Do you? Which one do you have?

check and see if the fire brigade will give you one, they certainly do brilliant fire alarms for free. i don't think i have an electronic cm detector but i do have one of those wee stickers near the boiler.

Yabu. of course you should have one. I'm not sure what make I have.

Unless you fancy dying then yanbu.

There is some question mark over how useful they are but we do have one downstairs because of the logburner.

lol at 'unless you fancy dying'. very MN.

I have an electronic one that cost £12 in asda, you really should get one especially if you have DCs as they would be affected quicker. I wouldn't want to be regretting not spending £12 to save my DDs life.

Do you need to put one by every gas appliance?

It's not necessarily about gas appliances in isolation. Like I say we have one because of our logburner. The rest of the property uses electricity. And you don't put them near appliances or on the ceiling.

More info here.

When we installed our new boiler the gas fitter said our detector wouldn't work with the type of boiler we have.

I would put one by every appliance, at the moment I have the old back boiler system in the living room with the boiler in behind the fire but I am about to upgrade to a combi boiler which will go elsewhere so I will keep the original alarm where it is for the fire and get an additional one for the boiler.

I have two. My mum was left brain-damaged by Carbon Monoxide.

I've had 3 - they have all been utterly useless! Even the one that cost £40.

They have all gone off resulting in my gas being cut off by Transco - when there was NO leak of carbon monoxide - we don't have gas central heating, just a cooker and hob (neither of which were being used at the time).

Both Transco and the Gas safe engineer found no problems with the one pipe we had and just reconnected us. But being disconnected for 24 hours/48 hours each time til I got an engineer was a pain in the arse.

I now just have a few of the little strips (no noise ones) around which I keep an eye on.

WTF - I'm so sorry about your mum.

Laurie - yes, that's a worry, ones that don't work properly. False alarms would be a complete pain.

Show - useful link, thank you. Trying to work out where to put them now. Head height is a bit awkward. I thought they'd go near the appliances, but that seems to suggest putting them in hallways. Maybe one downstairs and one near kids bedrooms, then.

Er...yes! You must get one, it will potentially save your life.

But PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - test the alarm every month and change the battery once a year (or check manufacturer's instructions.) Buy a perm marker pen and write on the unit when it's due a battery change.

Yes - two, an electronic one and a passive sticker one. I know someone who has been permanently disabled from carbon monoxide poisoning

Speak to your gas supplier - they should be able to recommend the correct one you need and perhaps there would also be a discount/incentive to buy from them ...

I come from a country that doesn't have central heating and piped in gas in the houses so I always err on the side of caution when it comes to gas safety so I am sure I am a dream client wrt selling useless safety gadgetry

I don't know why you wouldn't tbh. You can get them for about £20 now.

I went straight out and bought one when those two children were killed on holiday by a leak a few years ago

If you have a combi boiler, you don't need one (according to our corgi registered engineer) iirc it's because there's no naked flame. You might need one for a gas fire if you have one though.

presumably if your appliance needs one it needs to be near the appliance which is consuming gas ??

You should also get one if you live in a flat, or maybe even a semi-detached or terraced house. We had one in my student house that kept going off - our gas kept getting turned off and the detector still went off. It turned out it wasn't a faulty detector, but downstairs had a dodgy flue (sp? the chimney thing for their gas fire/oven) and it was leaking into our kitchen.

Ours was just an ASDA one, and it went off within 36 hours of buying it. My flatmates had mocked me, but I'm so glad I did.

Obviously people in detached houses need them too, but what I was trying (badly) to say was that even if you think you don't have any appliances that require one, you should think about your surroundings.

Yes you should - having been a victim of accidental CMP in my younger days I can't emphasise enough how important it is.

I lived in a ground floor flat & spent months feeling awful, headaches, dizzy tired all the time, GP couldn't work out why, neither could I - until a friend noticed the flue to my gas fire had been damaged, either by kids or by a motorbike falling onto it that was often parked there.

I had no idea about CMP back then & it really is odourless & colourless - I was lucky, it could have ben far worse,

I have health problems still & the same friend who spotted the damaged flue recently said he wonders how much of it is down to that CMP

GET ONE!!

I would recommend it, as someone who literally had to have her door broken down and dragged outside half dead.

We got one when we had a woodburner put in.

Oh that's interesting about combi boilers not needing one, I'm going to confirm that with the gas engineer when he turns up, would be chuffed to save money on an additional one if that's right enough.

I have a family member who died from CO poisoning.
We have one.

Really sorry to hear the tragic stories. Signet - glad that you were rescued in time.

I have just rung our plumbers to come and service the boiler and fit carbon monoxide alarms. So thank you all for prodding me into action. HeidiKat - I looked online and it said that although combi boilers shouldn't leak carbon monoxide (they are supposed to be a 'sealed system') it's not impossible and the alarms are still recommended.