Thanks. I've always been a strong supporter of these products and didn't realize that the standards were so lax.

Yeah, I was about to have one installed, I think I will stick with the standard fire/smoke detector instead. Maybe in 2008 it will be a good idea. . .is there a place we can take one to have it tested after we buy one? The article mentions a gas detection expert, can we find and utilize one? Hmmmmm. It's late so not tonight but I'll see what I can find tomorrow.

I have a plug-in model that is very sensitive to any CO - it went off once. We have a wood burner going so we have two CO detectors - one plug in and one battery. I am counting on at least one of these working.

Rainidame - I am upset that you took this news story to mean that you should forego a CO detector. Installing a fire/smoke detector should not be in "instead" as you put it. You should have BOTH. For the safety of you and your family. I think the major gist of this news story is that you need to replace them every two years, because their detection ability fails as they get older. I believe the year of manufacture is printed on the back of each detector.

akchicago, I understand your intent, BUT the fellow being quoted specifically says he has no idea if they EVER worked. . .so if I can't prove to myself it works when I buy it, I will wait till they have some regulations so I will have confidence from a different perspective. Also I have lived in this house a LOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGG time before CO monitors were even available, and I don't think anything has changed over the years to put me in any grave danger.

Furthermore I always sleep with my window cracked, so I think I can hang tight till 2008. Thank you for caring enough to be concerned for me. I really do appreciate that.

There was a Dr on Long Isand NY that disconnected his in the morning when it was alarming, before going to work. He came home to find his family dead! I have two, to reduce questionable readings. One is digital.

gzec, IF your story is true, I don't see how an extra one will help. Sounds like the Dr's was working but for reasons we don't know he ignored it. . .I am guessing that he had been accustomed to getting false alarms, and felt he had good reason to disable it and go to work.

BUT it still points to the problems of buying something that one has no way of evaluating whether it works correctly or not.

I don't see how having two would have made any difference in the story you present. . .if only one was going off, he would probably have done the same thing. . . . it would only help if one COULD BE SURE BOTH worked properly.

Another thought is what the heck are you supposed to do if you have one going off, and it IS for real. . . Obviously the first thing is to open windows and get outside. . . but it isn't like a fire where you can locate it and put it out. Sooner or later you have close the house and go back inside. Since CO can occur for such a wide variety of reasons, how would one locate the problem, if there is a problem?

I still think that for now anyway, I will just ignore the concept of trying to have my house "heat" tight, and keep a couple of windows cracked open a bit through out the season of gas and furnace burning. Because honestly I have never heard of this CO problem until we all started sealing our houses airtight to save energy $s on heating and cooling.

Rainidame - if the alarm goes off, you leave the house, and you call 911. I am amazed that you think you should go back inside. Since CO is deadly, a killer, and people die every year from it, you can be assured that 911 will immediately send police and gas company with instruments to measure the levels of CO, and to pinpoint where it is coming from.

WHAT! CO can be caused by so many things that are not constant, if it was as simple as finding the problem and leaving, why would we need to continue to monitor? The point is the CO happens sometimes simply because the wind changed directions, or as may be the case here right now, the outside air quality is so bad that even the air brought in to freshen isn't doing so.

I would only call for assistance if it became chronic and therefore lead me to believe something was actually broken or leaking.

Goodness, one lady I know had to start telling her hubby to quit warming the car in the garage; even with the garage door open, it was setting off the co monitor downstairs but only when the wind was coming from the west. They surely didn't need the emergency folks to figure that out. And they are very happy the co monitor alerted them to the problem which was easily solved. . . pull the car out and close the garage door.

we had one in our house at the lake. We had a hot tub on the covered deck. I could smell gas in the house from time to time. No one else could. The alarm would go off every now and again when I could smell gas. Turns out the fumes from the hot tub heater would come into the house when the wind was blowing in a certain direction. Would it have killed us? Probably not, and the alarm only went off as it was on the outside wall near the heater. Do I have any alarms in my main house? Yes, three! One in my kitchen (gas cooktops), one in my crawlspace (gas water heater and furnace) and one in the hall way to the bedrooms.