This time of the year, furnaces are being put to work, making the installation of carbon monoxide detectors just as important and smoke detectors in homes. Monmouth Fire Chief Casey Rexroat reminds homeowners that carbon monoxide detectors are to be placed within 15 feet of every sleeping area:
“If your furnace isn’t working right, sometimes you are not able to tell what is going on with it, but the carbon monoxide alarm will alert you to carbon monoxide in your house. Carbon monoxide is an odorless and tasteless gas in your home, and you may not even know it is there until you start feeling ill. It is actually a law that you have to have a carbon monoxide alarm within 15 feet of every sleeping area in your home. If you do have bedrooms on different levels of the home, you should put one on each level or if all the bedroom doors are near each other, you can put one carbon monoxide alarm near all those bedroom doors. Just a little bit of carbon monoxide though will make you feel not very well, give you a headache, make you feel nauseous. Too much carbon monoxide, and this is in extreme cases, it will actually make you dizzy, and you can become unconscious.”
