My sister recently got on a safety kick and got my family all the same Christmas gift.
My good friend and I all got fire and smoke detectors and also a carbon monoxide detector.
I was lazy about getting them up until my sister hounded me; After my carbon monoxide detector went up it started right away letting me know something wasn’t right in my home. I apparently had dangerous amounts of CO2. This is a white, stinkless, and tasteless gas. It is also poisonous if you are exposed too long, then you could be hospitalized and die! So I right away called my Terrel, TX heating repair corporation to take a look at my heater. That was the only locale CO2 could be coming from. The heater tech found that my heat exchanger had cracked and started releasing the gas. Thankfully it was a small, simple to repair crack and was caught early. If I wouldn’t have caught it, not only would I be inhaling bad fumes but would have a crucial heater repair on my hands. Since it was a tiny one, I was able to pay money, but if I left too long, a cracked heat exchanger would need to be totally replaced. A new exchanger costs about the same as a heater. So I would have needed to buy an entirely new system. My sister feels so smug now that she saved me a ton of money and potentially my life. I can’t guess that a CO2 detector entirely ended up being a useful addition in my home. I am blissful that I got my heater repaired.