Several important things to remember about CO detectors. The amount of carbon monoxide is accumulative. CO is bound with the hemoglobin in the blood and will not allow oxygen to bind with the hemoglobin, thus basically one will eventually die from lack of oxygen. Several mentioned that about 10 years ago the federal standarsd for homes was raised, because of too many false alarms for the paramedic units. One can be exposed to a level over a peroid of time, have few symptoms except a headache and go to sleep---and die. I have seen a number of patients brought in comas from faulty exhausts. Cigarette smoking, lving near a major free way and industerial situations can also cause chronic CO poisoning. You want a CO unit which reads the concentration and addeds up the cummulataive amount of exposure against time. The Firemen put on O2 when every there is risk of CO poisoning--since it may impair their judgement--and again, its cummulative. Some standard numbers--30 ppm max permissiable over 8 hours 200 PPM maximum for acute exposure 800 PPM fatal in 2 hour exposure. Diesels will put out CO, but less than gas engines, propane burners, charcoal etc. There are documented deaths of CO poisoning from diesels. Bob Austin M D

Dr. Bob wrote: > Diesels will put out CO, but less than gas engines, propane burners, charcoal > etc. There are documented deaths of CO poisoning from diesels. To wit: http://www.uscgboating.org/news/alertsview.aspx?id=8 and http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4949a1.htm although these case histories are of poisonings from CO generated by _both_ gasoline and diesel engines. There has been a warning extant for several years now due to deaths as the result of "teak surfing" and the resultant class action suit being brought against several ski-boat manufacturers: http://www.uscgboating.org/news/boatingview.aspx?id=22 This is also a good read for background: http://www.boatwashington.org/carbon_monoxide.htm Regards, James