britishexpatlady

I very much doubt theve ever heard of that !!! lol

bil

Fair enuff. We were members in the UK. It was very interesting to meet sweeps from all over, and a bit sad to see how far we were behind the Germans. As you'd expect, there 'You Will have zer chimney svept', but equally they don't suffer much from monoxide poisining either.

paintermujer

Do you think the smoke like chimney cleaner like Leroy Merlin sells works.

We have tried it but couldnt say whether it works or not. It is a real concern when you light the open fire every day during the winter months.

No sweeps here either.

britishexpatlady

Hi there, you definatly still need to sweep the chimney regardless just to make sure its not blocked, so that can be your first job this spring when you no longer have to have your fire on every day? if there is no sweeps in your area, look on Ebay and buy a set of brushes with rods, the rods are bendable and extendable, hope this helps you need to stay safe.x

bil

Yep, those chems are dubious at best. In 30 years, I never came across one that I could honestly say did what it was supposed to, and some that actually made things worse.

Sweeping is all.

angiescarr

Been listening to you Bil! Yesterday I drilled holes under my front balcony window and added a pair of ventilation grilles. As we're building more interior walls, the area where our stove is had become a bit of a dead spot air-flow wise. keep up the good work!

bil

Thanks for the kind words.

Be careful where you put the ventilation holes, least you get an artic blast into the room.

It will sound silly, but there is a device in the UK called a draught master, that goes in the wall high up, and introduces a blade of cold air that fans across the ceiling. Normally introducing cold air high up would cause a turrent of cold air to fall on you which is most unpleasant. This however exploits some nifty physics. The fan of cold air sticks to the ceiling and presses the warm air down, which makes you fee warmer instantly. It warms up fast, being sandwiched between the warm air and the warm ceiling. Finally when it does fall, it falls in a way described (I think) as a Rayleigh discontinuity. Instead of falling as a torrent, it falls in small clusters like autumn leaves falling.

scampicat

We've been listening too! We've made sure we have enough ventilation and are going to put a CO alarm in the room where the woodburner lives (our existing one is near the gas water heater and the room where we use the calor gas fire).

Downstairs we have a calor gas cooker, but the builder made a hole of drainpipe size in the wall near the floor by the front door especially for the purpose of ventilation. It is covered with wire mesh on both sides, but is otherwise open. There is also an open chimney in this room.

Ordering my CO alarm at this minute!

Thanks again for this useful information.

bil

With CO alarms, be careful. The cheap ones are sometimes worthless, and pay careful attention to where you should situate them.

I think you need to treat it as a heavier than air mixture, but check the wording on the packet.

With the level of ventilation you have, you are far less likely to need an alarm than people who desperately try to seal the room in order to conserve heat.

scampicat

Thanks yes.

Our last CO Alarm came with instructions to mount it at eye level and also gave instructions of where to site it in relation to the source of combustion in the room. It does work Ok, (as evidenced by the racket it kicked up when the wind blew the calientador fumes in its direction).

This new one I have ordered is the same model but is for a different room.

We do have enough ventilation I'm sure (old house with loads of draughts!) but thought it was better to be safe than sorry. We also have six smoke alarms (at least one on each floor and in the bedrooms).

In our UK house we have four smoke alarms and two CO alarms, and also a fire blanket and fire extinguisher in the kitchen and a fire escape ladder for the attic room. The bedroom windows open very wide (one of them onto a flat roof) so that people can get out. I don't want my son, his girlfriend and the lodger burning or suffocating in their beds!


This is the CO alarm I have ordered:

http://www.safelincs.co.uk/Carbon-Mo...idde-900-0259/

bil

That looks like a reasonable spec one. I'm impressed with your precautions. Were everyone in the uK half as cautious, there would probably be no monoxide deaths.

fionamw

One observation, one question. Though lacking the CO alarms, we actually had similar smoke alarm coverage in our (old, three-storey, largely timbered) house in the UK up to and including fire blanket, extinguishers on every level and axe/ladder in the attic. At the moment given we only have a fire in one room of the house, and that room (well mentioned in previous threads about lack of heating!!!) has a double front door, two doorless arches, two windows and a windowless gap between rooms, I hope I'm not being flip when I say I doubt there's not too much chance of CO poisoning.
However. In the kitchen we have a calor oven and were advised to put a drainpipe sized hole in the wall at floor level with unsealable vent cover thingies. (there is a vent above the cooker, not a proper hood) We haven't yet done so because of the thickness of the wall and the draughts in the house. Just HOW dodgy is our thinking?

scampicat

See my post above! here is a copy

We've been listening too! We've made sure we have enough ventilation and are going to put a CO alarm in the room where the woodburner lives (our existing one is near the gas water heater and the room where we use the calor gas fire).

Downstairs we have a calor gas cooker, but the builder made a hole of drainpipe size in the wall near the floor by the front door especially for the purpose of ventilation. It is covered with wire mesh on both sides, but is otherwise open. There is also an open chimney in this room.

Ordering my CO alarm at this minute!

Apparently we would not have been given our gas contract without it.

scampicat

Thanks for that! My husband thinks I'm a bit over the top about it, but goes along with it and installs all the alarms for me.

My friend (who hasn't got any sort of alarm anywhere in the house), thinks I'm totally barmy.

I'm used to that though!

jdr

When I was Corgi reg years ago, kitchens for some strange reason were the only place where you needed no ventilation despite the amount of cookers and hobs being used, also the rooms where balanced flue boilers were installed were exempt from ventilaion rules too.

PS Ascot bathroom water heaters were just vented into the roofspace at one time, gas pipes were drilled and teed into live in the roads, testing for leaks was done with a match.