Life savers: carbon monoxide detectors offer peace of mind for homeowners and are mandatory for some builders - Carbon Monoxide Detectors

Building Products, Sept-Oct, 2003 by Sharon O'Malley

For the past seven years, Amedore Homes in Albany, N.Y., has mounted two battery-operated carbon monoxide detectors in each of the 100 semi-custom homes it builds annually. The devices are part of a safety package that comes standard with each Amedore home and also includes a tire extinguisher, outlet covers, cabinet locks, a rechargeable night light, and a security system.

"It's the way that we can give back to our customer," says vice president George Amedore Jr.

And now it's the law. New York has joined Rhode Island, West Virginia, New Jersey, and about two dozen cities and counties in requiring home builders to install carbon monoxide detectors in every new house.

Unless they build in areas with codes requiring them to install the detectors, however, most home builders don't, say manufacturers of the devices, which warn occupants of the presence of carbon monoxide (CO), an odorless, colorless, tasteless gas that forms when an appliance fails to fully burn the natural gas or other fossil fuel that runs it.

"Builders want to save as much money as they possibly can, so they are not going to spend an extra $530 unless they are forced into it," notes Bobbie Gee, chief executive of Vancouver-based Senco Sensors, which produces CO detectors. She admonishes builders: "If the home is not 100 percent electric, they need to be aware of the amount of people who are sickened by carbon monoxide every year. Then, if they're smart, a CO detector only costs $50 for a good one."

THOUSANDS SUFFER

Estimates of the number of carbon monoxide victims vary: Some say tens of thousands suffer annually from low-level exposure to the invisible gas but don't seek treatment because the symptoms--which most often strike during heating season--mimic the flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 2,000 people die from carbon monoxide exposure every year, and that the gas, which can come from a furnace, stove, water heater, fireplace, generator, or even a barbecue grill used indoors, is the leading cause of accidental poisoning.

Manufacturers say both home builders and buyers are largely unaware that so many common appliances can poison a home's occupants if they malfunction, or that a simple alarm can warn them when the so-called "silent killer" has invaded their indoor air.

"It's a tragedy-driven business, hand-in-hand with a legislation-driven business," says Jeff Smith, vice president of sales and marketing for Ontario-based NADI Distribution, which sells American Sensors. In Canada, cities have mandated the installation of carbon monoxide detectors largely in response to local deaths caused by the gas, he says.

In the United States, the issue made headlines in 1994 when tennis ace Vitas Gerulaitis died while at the New York home of a friend whose swimming pool heater malfunctioned, leaking carbon monoxide inside the poolside bungalow where he was sleeping.

Many credit his death for the launch of the carbon monoxide detector industry, whose members estimate the devices, similar in size and appearance to smoke detectors, grace the walls of fewer than 20 percent of American homes. "That means [many] households are unprotected," says Dan Johnston, director of commercial marketing for U.K.-based manufacturer Kidde.

SLOW TO CHANGE

Like smoke detectors two decades ago, CO alarms have been slow to penetrate the market; indeed, manufacturers admit it will probably take legislation to force builders and homeowners to embrace the devices. "People have the mindset that 'It's probably not going to happen to me, so I don't need to buy a CO detector,'" notes Johnston.

Phil Fingerhut, senior director of product development for Taylor-Morley Homes in St. Louis, says the builder's reluctance is well-founded: "We have reservations about the dependability and reliability of them," says Fingerhut, a member of the local Home Builders Association code advisory committee. "We're waiting for the [National Association of Home Builders] and larger powers-that-be to tell us that the detectors ate dependable, low-maintenance ... that they've been perfected and ate good, life-saving appliances. Then, at that point, we would say they should be installed"

The builder's concerns reflect some of the available research. For instance, according to a 2002 study for the Gas Research Institute performed by Mosaic Industries, many CO detectors ate unreliable. Of the 70 alarms from 10 brands tested, only three brands always alarmed in the presense of dangerous CO levels and didn't produce False alarms.

Taylor-Morley is installing CO units only in the dwellings it builds in St. Louis, where code requires them, but not in the surrounding suburbs.

And the builder's customers aren't asking for them. Taylor-Morley's design gallery, which showcases a high-end Honeywell model, has not sold any, Fingerhut says. Customers who want one, he notes, buy inexpensive battery-operated of plug-in models from the local home store.

HOW THEY WORK

Carbon monoxide detectors measure the amount of CO in the air and how long it has been present. They are designed to sound an alarm before the level of the toxic gas becomes unsafe.