- Hi, I'm Parris and yes, the groundhog saw his shadow
this morning, which means an early Spring,
but it's not only in the depth of the coldest winter
that you should consider having a carbon monoxide detector.
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I decided on this Kidde carbon monoxide alarm for our house.
It goes for about $30, and it is very simple to use.
It comes with a nine-volt battery.
You plug that in, you plug it into the wall,
and it's ready to go.
If you're interested in this particular model,
I have a link to it in the description box
down below this video, but you may be saying,
"Well, my house is full of smoke detectors.
"Why do I need another detector?" Well, smoke detectors
do what you can already do: they detect smoke.
You can see it and smell it but not
when you're asleep at night, so that's
when they're looking out for you.
The carbon monoxide detector does what you can't,
because carbon monoxide is odorless and invisible,
so it's able to pick up small amounts in your house.
I used to think, if you had a gas furnace in your house,
that's when you really needed a carbon monoxide detector.
But there are a number of things you can burn
that produce carbon monoxide, including coal and wood,
so your fireplace could actually be a source of concern
if it weren't properly vented,
and your other gas appliances in your house.
The stove in the kitchen if you have that, a gas drier,
and a gas water heater, and we have all of those here,
so we have really needed a carbon monoxide detector.
Let me show you the features of this
carbon monoxide detector, how to set it up,
and how it's even cooler, I think, than smoke detectors.
Here's the carbon monoxide detector
itself, out of the package.
Just a couple buttons on the front,
and there's going to be a readout here.
On the back, you can see how easy it is to plug it
into the wall, and if we slide this down...
and take it out...
You can see the core, so this transformer portion,
you can actually pull out of here...
and then take it, plug it into an outlet,
and mount this somewhere else on the wall.
On the other side...
This is where the nine-volt battery goes in,
which they include in the package.
You get a little beep when you first put the battery in.
I'm going to slide the back panel on here.
Now it's begun monitoring.
While it's just got the battery plugged in,
this display only stays on for a little while,
and then you just get a little red flashing dot
to save power, but when you plug it into a wall,
you'll see a number here all the time.
Hopefully zero, but if you see another number,
then you want to see what's going on,
and they give you a chart in the instruction booklet
that comes with it, to tell you how serious things are
depending on the parts per million
of carbon monoxide that's detected.
In the instructions, it discusses low, medium, high,
and dangerous levels of carbon monoxide
and what you should do if you get an indication
that you have that in your house.
It has a test button, so you can make sure
it's still capable of giving you that ear-piercing sound.
(alarm beeps) Okay.
This button is for the peak level.
That's the highest level of carbon monoxide
it's detected since you've plugged it in,
and when we press it here, it shows zero,
so there hasn't been any carbon monoxide detected,
which is good, but if something were to happen,
and there was some registered level of carbon monoxide,
but you weren't home, later on you could
come push the buttons, so even though
when you're looking at it when you get home it shows zero,
you could push that and see, hmm,
something happened while I was out.
Now, I wanted to see that it could detect carbon monoxide,
so I thought, "Well, where am I going to find some?"
I don't want to have any in my house,
but is there a place that it tends to happen?
They recommend not mounting this in the kitchen,
because, I guess if you have a gas stove,
you can get some transient carbon monoxide readings.
I plugged it in next to the stove and cooked something.
Still didn't change from zero, so I thought,
"Well, where else can I try to find some carbon monoxide?"
I did a little research on how to have some carbon monoxide
to test this out, and a cigarette supposedly does the job.
Fresh out of those, but they did say
that you can use an incense stick,
so I'm going to light an incense stick,
hold it in the vicinity of this and see what happens.
By the way, this is heliotrope.
I don't know if that makes a difference.
Okay.
Certainly a lot of smoke.
Don't know about carbon monoxide.
Smells kind of nice.
All right, let's look. Peak level.
Still zero.
Room's getting kind of smokey.
I've got a smoke detector here
I may have issue with, shortly.
No carbon monoxide.
Well, I found out that the display won't show you
parts per million of less than 30,
and the reason they do that is to reduce the number
of false alarms and calls to fire stations
and the gas company when it's really not something
they feel is critical, even though continuous exposure
to low levels of carbon monoxide is not good for you.
Anyway, the detector won't show you less than 30,
but the peak number when I came back after
taking the incense out there to the kitchen now reads...
40, so it actually did produce some carbon monoxide.
It just took a few cycles for it to register here.
Now, if it had gotten up to 70,
then the alarm could possibly sound if it stays
at 70 for a certain amount of time.
Here's the carbon monoxide alarm mounted in a hallway,
just down from the kids' bedrooms, and you can see
the zero now stays on it because it's plugged into the wall,
but as we found out, any carbon monoxide level lower than 30
won't change that from a zero.
It has to be 30 or above.
Carbon monoxide detectors don't last indefinitely.
They do wear out with use, and this particular model
said that it's good for 10 years
from the date you first turn it on.
I guess it keeps track of that, because at the end
of 10 years, it then gives you a code here and some beeps,
and tells you, "Time to replace me."
$30 for an easy-to-use carbon monoxide detector
with a more or less real-time readout.
You saw the trouble I had producing enough
carbon monoxide for it to detect anything.
If you have a fireplace, though, that you regularly use
or a wood burning stove, you might have the excitement
of seeing it change from something other than zero
on the screen, but for the most part that's not
an excitement you're going to want to have in your life.
For a number of years after we moved into this house,
having the smoke detectors all over seemed like enough,
but after learning about all the different ways in a house
that carbon monoxide can cause trouble,
I feel better having one of these plugged in that hole.
If you don't have a carbon monoxide detector in your house,
please give it some thought.
I'll be back soon with more reviews, safety and otherwise.
Speaking of safety, for other members of your home,
yes it's a real thing, it's the pet seat belt.
Gonna be trying this out soon.
You can keep checking back for that video,
or you can click that subscribe button down below.
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See you on the next review.
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