Carbon monoxide poisoning from a gas water heater. Carbon monoxide from a gas water heater - causes and consequences

All these amenities individually are harmless and do not pose a danger to humans. But when using electric fans in bathrooms or electric hoods in kitchens with closed windows together with working gas water heaters and boilers, a potential danger to health and life arises. There was a long period in Sevastopol when, due to improper use gas equipment two people died every year.

Before installing a gas water heater or boiler in an apartment, special services of Gorgaz conduct instructions, which people, as a rule, treat superficially. “This can happen to anyone, but not to me,” they think.

Why can a boiler with a column be dangerous?

“An apartment is like a vessel with air,” explains Igor Evgenievich. - If all the windows and doors are closed and the hood is running, where does the air that this hood pulled out of the apartment come from? Draft in smoke and ventilation ducts“overturns”, changes direction, and all channels begin to supply air from the street to the apartment. And if a water heater or boiler is running nearby, carbon monoxide begins to flow into the apartment along with the street air.”

Carbon monoxide It is colorless, odorless, and the primary symptoms of poisoning are similar to food poisoning. Pets and small children are usually the first to receive a dose of poisoning.

“Several years ago we had a poisoning,” says the manager. - The child and father died. The reason was that the gas boiler and hood were turned on and all the windows were closed. At first the cat felt bad and began to vomit. The animal was thrown onto the balcony without even thinking that these were symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. The child was the second to feel poisoned. He breathed this gas, received a critical dose and fell unconscious.”

A person can detect only the mildest stage of poisoning - general malaise, dizziness, nausea. The poisoned person cannot determine the next stages and their signs - the brain loses normal performance, becomes stupefied, and the person ceases to adequately perceive what is happening - he feels bad, but he does not know how to turn off the gas appliance and open the window.

“There was another case: two young people came from Kherson and rented an apartment. We arrived late at night and decided to take a shower. The result is two corpses. We walk in - the gas water heater is on, the windows are closed. A young girl is lying in the corridor and a guy is in the bathroom. The elderly owner of the apartment cries: “I told them, open the window!” And in the kitchen, the rules for using the speaker are written in huge letters,” said Igor Evgenievich.

Carbon monoxide kills a person quietly and imperceptibly: literally 10-15 minutes with its two percent content in the apartment - lethal dose.

“Several years ago, in a house on the street. Kievskaya, the body of a young guy was discovered. The cause of death was a lethal dose of carbon monoxide in the blood. The apartment has double-glazed windows, thick, rubberized metal Entrance door, when you turn on the light in the bathroom, a fan built into the duct turns on, sucking air out of the room. We conducted an investigative experiment in the apartment, repeating the conditions of what happened. At behind closed doors and windows, working ventilation in the bathroom, the draft in the smoke and ventilation ducts disappeared. The experiment showed that while using the gas water heater, the window in the kitchen was closed. This violation led to the guy’s death. By the way, he already died in the hospital, when they brought him, it turned out that they didn’t even have syringes, and, in general, the doctors didn’t know why he was feeling bad. If help is not provided in time, the result is the death of a person. And it all happened like this: the guy went to wash, turned on the light and, accordingly, the ventilation. Less than ten minutes had passed when the draft in the apartment's ducts changed direction and carbon monoxide began to flow into the apartment. After washing himself, the guy went to bed and never woke up.”

To avoid such cases, you need to follow a few simple rules:

1. Every day before using the boiler and the boiler, it is necessary to check the draft in the smoke and ventilation ducts.

This can be done by placing a piece of paper near the ventilation grille, lighting a match under the smoke eliminator hood of a gas appliance, or opening the ash pan - a technological hatch with a door for checking draft, which is located under the chimney and should be on every boiler. IN normal conditions it should always be closed.

If a sheet of paper sticks to the ventilation grille, and the flame of a match deviates towards the channel, then there is draft.

Please note: the draft in apartments in summer is much worse than in winter.

2. During operation of the boiler or column, be sure to open the window at least 2-3 fingers: for them normal operation there must be air flow. In an apartment with tight closed windows there is simply nowhere for air to come from. And if the window is open, there will be no danger.

3. Do not turn on the hood or ventilation at the same time as the boiler or water heater is running.

The electric fan in the bathroom works on the same principle as the hood: it also sucks air out of the apartment.

4. You can use the gas water heater for no more than half an hour. Afterwards, turn off the equipment for twenty minutes and you can turn it on again for half an hour if necessary.

“If a person fulfills all these requirements, then nothing threatening to health will happen even with old geysers that are almost 50 years old,” reports Igor Evgenievich.

“In Sevastopol, not a single fatal poisoning was recorded in an apartment where the window was open at the time of use of the gas water heater or boiler,” the specialist shares. “This is a very important condition.”

Do not rely on the automation of modern gas appliances: it does not recognize carbon monoxide, but reacts to changes in the temperature of the smoke returning back. And if it’s cool outside, the mixture of carbon monoxide with street air remains cool and the sensors do not detect an increase in temperature and do not turn off the gas appliance. The apartment begins to become saturated with carbon monoxide.

“Many people say: “Why a boiler then, if you open the window in the cold?” But this is how it should be, this is your guarantee against an accident.

There is nowhere to get air for burning natural gas except from the window. Carbon monoxide is an element of under-combustion, that is, natural gas in a gas appliance burns incorrectly. When natural gas burns normally, combustion products that are harmless to humans are released into the chimney - carbon dioxide and water vapor. But if there is not enough oxygen in the room, natural gas begins to burn incorrectly, releasing soot and carbon monoxide, which are very dangerous to life.

There were cases when people entered the apartment, wanting to provide help, began to pump out the victim without opening the window and also fell, having inhaled,” says Igor Evgenievich.

Why check traction?

It happens that pigeons and rats get into the canal, fallen leaves, and a package can fly in. It is quite possible that today the furnace service checked the draft in your apartment and found that everything is working normally, and tomorrow a foreign object will get into the chimney duct. This is all very serious: “There was a case when a rat built a nest in a warm place and completely blocked the chimney duct. People were only slightly poisoned from this, and, fortunately, no one except the rat was seriously injured. And if they had checked the draft before turning on the gas appliance, nothing would have happened.”

Igor Evgenievich said that in Lately appeared new type gas equipment - turbocharged. This gas appliances equipped with a closed combustion chamber, are modern and safe: all combustion products go outside through a pipe passing through outer wall Houses. Such equipment is usually installed in new houses. “When using it, you can turn on the hood, ventilation, and not open the window,” the specialist concluded.

What is carbon monoxide and where is it formed?

Carbon monoxide is formed during the incomplete combustion of various substances. Carbon monoxide has been an everyday companion of people for a long time. It is released into the atmosphere at large quantities vehicles, gas stoves, fuel heating systems, during smoking and even by the person himself when breathing.

Since this gas is odorless, it is almost impossible to detect its increased content in a room. According to statistics, carbon monoxide intoxication ranks second among the causes of death from toxic substances, second only to alcohol and its surrogates.

Why is carbon monoxide dangerous?

What happens when a person inhales air with a high concentration of CO? To do this, you need to remember what function the lungs perform. A person breathes to saturate all systems and organs of his body with oxygen, otherwise hypoxia and death will occur. Carbon monoxide combines with the main blood protein to form carboxyhemoglobin. This deprives red blood cells of the ability to deliver oxygen to blood cells, and, as a result, carbon monoxide poisoning occurs. The consequences vary depending on the severity of such intoxication. First, hypoxia manifests itself in the form of dizziness, weakness in the legs, and darkening of the eyes. If the concentration of carbon monoxide increases, confusion and death occur.

There are constant low levels of carbon monoxide in the air in every major city. Signs of chronic poisoning with this gas include causeless headaches, fatigue, weakness, irritability and sleep problems. Smoking residents of megacities and people forced to breathe tobacco smoke are especially affected. The carbon monoxide content in the lungs of these people exceeds the norm by forty times.

How to protect yourself from carbon monoxide poisoning?

To minimize the risk of toxicity from this substance, you need to know where its concentrations can be dangerously high. Carbon monoxide is always deadly in unventilated areas. Therefore, you should not turn on the car engine in a closed garage or box. Also, do not lock the damper in a room with a stove or other fuel heating. Cooking on a gas stove is a reason to open the window. There is a huge danger of getting caught in fires and explosions, so an attempt to save property when the fire is small can be fatal. Often people die in their sleep precisely because they did not feel sick in time due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Unfortunately, it is practically impossible to completely protect yourself from carbon monoxide in major cities. Getting carbon monoxide while smoking is voluntary, but it is better to protect yourself from passive smoking. Doctors advise against jogging or cycling near busy highways. By doing this you will do yourself more harm than good. For sports, it is better to choose a quiet park or alley, which are located away from places where carbon monoxide accumulates.

What we call carbon monoxide is the result of the most different types combustion - from a regular gas burner to car exhaust gases. At the same time, this gas does not reveal its presence in the surrounding space either by smell or color, which makes it especially dangerous. You will not notice any changes in the house until your health begins to give alarming signals.

Don't forget to open the fireplace damper

Cozy in the house - wonderful remedy both from dampness and cold. But fireplaces and stove heating also represent an increased source of carbon monoxide in the room. A sign of the absence of carbon monoxide in the stove will be an even bluish flame, but if the wood in the fireplace begins to smoke, a reddish tint appears - this indicates the appearance of carbon monoxide.

A common mistake is to close the damper prematurely. Believing that the fuel has completely burned out, stove owners often close the chimney damper to conserve heat. Smoldering coals with a lack of air form carbon monoxide, which penetrates into the room through leaky areas of the stove structure. If there are several unburned firebrands left in the firebox or stove, it is better to extinguish them or allow them to burn out completely. When the coals darken and there are no flames above them, after about ten minutes the valve can be closed. You should stop using the fireplace or heating the stove 2 hours before bedtime.

Use electric heaters indoors more carefully

Even a regular electric heater can pose a serious health challenge. It would seem that they turned it on to warm up for just a couple of hours, what could be dangerous here? Various models of electric heaters are regularly tested, and the results make you think twice before turning on such a device for a long time. For example, after just half an hour of operation of a spiral heater, the humidity in the room decreases by 3%, and the oxygen content in the air - by 3%. And if such heating works in a room for longer, for example from evening to morning, or all day, then after just a few hours people may become ill. If this type of heater can be used, it is only for a short time.

The ceramic electric heater showed the best results - after half an hour of operation, the humidity in the room dropped by only 1%, and the oxygen concentration by 0.1%. Such a device can be used for 3-4 hours, but then you still need to ventilate the room.

Grilling indoors is a risk factor

Modern equipment allows you to install a grill indoors, but you shouldn’t limit yourself to this. If you use an open fire in the kitchen, be sure to combine the grill with a powerful exhaust system. Carbon monoxide must be quickly removed from the room through the ventilation system so that it does not spread from the kitchen to other rooms.

Avoid using a gas stove or oven for heating

Warm up the apartment a little using regular gas stove– seems like a simple and cheap option. But, unfortunately, this is precisely what very often leads to carbon monoxide poisoning. There is very little heat generated from the gas burner; you will have to keep the fire on for a long time. With poor access of oxygen to closed kitchen Incomplete combustion occurs, resulting in the formation of CO from carbon compounds contained in natural gas.

Use proven heating systems

Any heating system in the house requires preparation for a long cold season. The efficiency of heating the house and a favorable atmosphere in the rooms depends on good draft in the system. If the chimney is dirty, foreign objects have gotten into it, cracks and destruction have appeared in the masonry - all this leads to a violation of draft. Gas combustion products enter the house and poison you with carbon monoxide. Any deterioration in the weather - freezing of the heads, strong wind or fog may become additional factors and reduce the draft level in the chimney to a critically low level.

Air CO level sensor

An indispensable assistant keeping the air in your home clean, especially if you use a fireplace, grill, or stove heating, it will become a simple device - a sensor for the level of carbon monoxide in the air. Such a device constantly monitors the level of CO in the air and will give an alarm at any time of the day if the concentration of carbon monoxide in your rooms is too high. If there is a leak, carbon monoxide, which is lighter than air, rises to the ceiling of the room. Therefore, a carbon monoxide alarm is installed in the upper part of the room. The device is installed 5-15 cm below the ceiling, at a distance of at least 1-2 m from a potential source of carbon monoxide.

Be aware of the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning

Depending on how much time a person spent in the room with high level carbon monoxide, he may first feel tired, weak, and then dizzy. You should not wait for more serious symptoms; at the slightest discomfort, it is best to immediately ventilate the room and remove the source of carbon monoxide, for example, turn off the heater.

If measures are not taken, more serious manifestations of carbon monoxide poisoning may occur - nausea, redness of the skin, convulsions, even loss of consciousness and coma. This is explained by the oppression of the human respiratory center and cardiovascular system by carbon monoxide.

Prolonged exposure to small doses of carbon monoxide is also very dangerous, which can occur even in an ordinary kitchen, during cooking on a gas stove without ventilation. Pay attention to headache, especially if it occurs simultaneously in several people in the room.

I’ve had the “manual on firing stoves” for a long time now.

Correct me, colleagues, if something is wrong...

Furnace firebox
Heating of stoves depends on the condition of the stove, fuel, and the ability to properly heat the stove. The stove should be systematically maintained, i.e. cleaned and sealed, even the smallest cracks that can lead to the formation of condensation. For example, through a 2-mm crack around the perimeter of the valve frame, up to 15 m3 of air leaks within an hour, which, heating up to 80...100 ° C, will carry away heat, and this accounts for 10% of its losses.
When excess air is supplied through the ash pan, the heat loss is 15-25%, and if combustion occurs with the combustion door open, the heat loss reaches 40%. The stove is cleaned and repaired once or twice a year. summer time. Smoke pipes cleaned two or three times during the heating season.
The heating of the furnace walls primarily depends on the state in which they are located. If there is a lot of soot and ash on the walls of the stove or in the chimneys, then they heat up weakly and much more fuel and time have to be spent on the firebox. A layer thickness of 1-2 mm significantly impairs the perception of heat by the walls.
Before the firebox, clean the grate and remove all ash. This ensures free passage of air to the burning fuel. The fuel is prepared in advance so that it is dry. Chopped firewood is considered dry only a year after it has been placed in a cage and kept outside under a canopy.
Only dry fuel should be used. When raw fuel burns, the moisture in it turns into steam, which, passing through the furnace channels, cools them, and when it hits the cold walls of the pipe, it settles on them, turning into drops, which, flowing down, mix with soot, forming condensation.
The calorific value of fuel varies. Let's take dry firewood for example. different breeds. For example, 3/4 m3 of oak firewood is equivalent to 1 m3 of birch, 1.2 - alder, 1.2 - pine, 1.3 - spruce, 1.5 - aspen. Firewood should be chopped into logs with an average thickness of 8-10 cm. For the firebox, logs of the same thickness should be selected, which is important for uniform heating of the stove.
Peat can burn in almost any stove, but for this you need to increase the draft. For peat, it is best to install stoves with an appropriate firebox.
The duration of firing furnaces is on average 1-1.5 hours. After firing, the surface of the furnace should be heated to a temperature of 70...80°C, in rare cases to 90°C. With more high temperature dust on the surface of the oven burns, releasing bad smell. Therefore, the front walls of the oven should be systematically cleaned by wiping off any accumulated dust with a dry cloth. This must be done especially carefully at the beginning. heating season. The oven should not be overheated. This can lead to cracks and damage to the stove masonry. Large ovens, which are heated after 1-2 days, are not always good: firstly, they take up a lot of space in the room, and secondly, due to the strong heating of the room, you often have to open the windows for ventilation, which leads to excessive fuel consumption.
The amount of firewood that is necessary for normal heating of the stove is immediately placed in the firebox. Place firewood in cages or in rows with gaps between logs of up to 10 mm, so that all logs begin to ignite at once from all sides, creating as much heat as possible. In this case, the wood stack should not reach the top of the firebox by at least 20 cm. Under such conditions, small particles of fuel and various flammable substances burn in the firebox before they enter the chimneys. First, it increases the temperature of the oven. Secondly, when unburned particles get into the chimneys, they clog them, and they absorb less heat. For kindling, place the driest logs under the bottom row, and under them dry wood chips, splinters, and paper. It is strictly forbidden to use kerosene, gasoline, acetone and similar explosive substances.
In order to prevent the stove from smoking, first they burn paper, thin splinters, and shavings, filling the chimneys warm air, and then heat the oven. Firewood (or peat) is laid so that it lies in an even layer on the grate or on the stove floor, closer to the fire door.
When the stove is melting, the combustion door, dampers, valves and views are opened completely. After kindling, as soon as the wood flares up, the firebox door is closed and the ash chamber is opened. The draft in the furnace is regulated blower door, latch or view.
Typically, the draft force is determined by the color of the flame: if the flame is red with dark stripes, and brown or black smoke comes from the chimney, then there is not enough air and its supply must be increased; if the flame is golden yellow, the air supply is considered normal; if it is bright white and a humming sound is heard in the furnace ducts, this indicates that there is an excess of air and its supply needs to be reduced.
During fuel combustion, the firebox doors cannot be opened, since the cold air entering the firebox cools the furnace channels.

So, based on the above, the following rules can be formulated.
1. As the fuel burns out, it is necessary to close not only the firebox door, but also partially the view or valve.
2. You can stir (stir) the firewood only after it has burned well and large voids have formed between the logs, through which air begins to flow in excess, cooling the stove.
3. If firebrands remain, they are collected in the center of the firebox (furnace hearth) or grate and covered with brightly burning coals. Burning coals and firebrands should lie in the path of air movement to the firebox. The flow of excess air is undesirable.
4. When the coals burn out (that is, the blue flame disappears, indicating that carbon monoxide is being released), they must be leveled over the grate or firebox bottom, closer to the door, and closed tightly. It is recommended to leave the pipe open for another 5-10 minutes to prevent carbon monoxide residues from entering the room, which can lead to poisoning and even death. (With)

Everything ingenious is simple!

It's easy to rush. Fill half a bucket of water and shovel the coals from the firebox into a bucket until the firebox is clean. If there is a remaining unburned stubborn firebrand there, then that too. Do the same with the blower. And calmly close the valve.