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Healthy
Homes - Indoor Air Quality
Indoor
Air Quality Awareness Month
submitted
by Lorene Bartos, Extension Educator
This article appears in the September
26, 2004 Lincoln Journal Star Newspaper.
Winter's
coming, bringing with it snow, warm sweaters, snuggling
in front of the fireplace, carbon monoxide...
October
is National Home Indoor Air Quality Action and Awareness
Month. Carbon Monoxide Action & Awareness Week is October
3-9. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a lethal gas produced whenever
any fuel such as gas, oil, kerosene, wood or charcoal is
burned. You can’t see or smell carbon monoxide. Hundreds
of people die each year from carbon monoxide poisoning.
By knowing how to prevent CO poisoning and recognizing the
symptoms these types of deaths can be prevented.
To
prevent CO poisoning: have your fuel-burning appliances
inspected and serviced by a trained professional every year.
These inspections not only make equipment use fuel more
efficiently and save you money, they also find things like
cracked heat exchangers or blocked chimneys before they
let carbon monoxide build up in the home. Make sure these
appliances —furnace or boiler, gas stove or dryer, wood
stove or fire place—are vented to the outdoors and chimneys
and vent pipes are not blocked. The following precautions
should be taken to avoid CO poisoning—never sleep in a room
where an unvented heater is burning, never use a gas stove
to heat a room, never idle a car in a garage, even if the
door is open, and don’t use a gasoline-powered engine in
an enclosed space. Never burn charcoal inside a home or
any enclosed space. Make sure flues are open when using
a fireplace.
Know the symptoms of CO poisoning: low levels of
CO cause shortness of breath, mild nausea, mild headaches
and long-term health effects. At moderate levels, CO causes
severe headaches, mental confusion, nausea and fainting.
High levels kill. If you experience symptoms you think could
be CO poisoning; get fresh air immediately—open doors and
windows, tun off combustion appliances and leave the home.
Go to the emergency room and tell the doctor you suspect
CO poisoning which can be diagnosed with a blood test.
Install a carbon monoxide detector in your home. CO detectors
are available in many stores. For maximum effectiveness,
these should be installed close to sleeping areas. They
should not be used as a replacement for proper use and maintenance
of fuel-burning appliance. Detection devices in CO detectors
eventually wear out, so make sure the one you buy sounds
an alarms when it no longer works. Choose one that alerts
you to both low and high CO levels.
Keep your family safe from dangerous pollutants by regularly
maintaining your heating system. Also if your gas, oil or
wood-fired space heating and water heating systems haven’t
be serviced for this heating season, schedule it now.
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