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Carbon Monoxide

Any appliance that burns fuel can produce carbon monoxide when combustion or venting goes wrong. A boiler burns fuel, which puts this page ahead of every other page on this site.

In brief

CPSC describes carbon monoxide symptoms as resembling flu without the fever, and recommends alarms on every level of a home and outside sleeping areas. A fuel-burning heating system is one of the sources, which is why annual professional inspection is recommended.

Source: US Consumer Product Safety Commission, Carbon Monoxide Fact Sheet.

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If a CO alarm sounds

CPSC’s instruction is short: immediately move outside to fresh air, then call your emergency services, fire department or 911. Do a headcount to check that everybody is accounted for, and do not go back inside until responders have given you permission.

Not to open windows first. Not to look for the source. Outside, then call.

Source: US Consumer Product Safety Commission, Carbon Monoxide Fact Sheet.

Why it is missed

CPSC describes low to moderate poisoning as producing symptoms "similar to the flu (but without the fever)" — headache, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea and dizziness. At higher levels: mental confusion, vomiting, loss of muscular coordination, loss of consciousness and ultimately death.

Flu without a fever, in winter, in a house with the heating on. That is why it is missed, and it is why the alarm matters more than the symptoms.

Where the alarms go

CPSC recommends battery-operated CO alarms, or alarms with battery backup, on every level of the home and outside sleeping areas. It specifically does not recommend installing them in kitchens or above fuel-burning appliances.

That last point catches people out: the instinct is to put the alarm next to the boiler, and that is the one place CPSC says not to.

The service that prevents it

CPSC is direct about this: "Have the heating system professionally inspected and serviced annually to ensure proper operation." Combustion and venting are what a service checks, and they are what fails.

On an oil system the annual visit happens anyway because the burner needs it to keep running. On a gas system nothing forces the appointment, which is exactly why it gets skipped.

The scale of it

CPSC puts it at more than 200 deaths a year in the United States from CO produced by non-automotive consumer products. Heating equipment is one source among several, and it is the one that runs unattended all winter.

A boiler is not a furnace, and the person you want knows the difference.Tell us it is a boiler, tell us what the gauge reads if you can see it, and we will route you to somebody in your area who works on them. You are never charged. Boilers give this site its name and not its limits.

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