CO death in newly built home

[Michael Larson]

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/860544.html
Chain of events ended in carbon monoxide death

The family thought it was the flu until the parents found their 17-year-old son dead.

By Joy Powell, Star Tribune
Their new house in North Branch, Minn., was getting chilly when Mitch Carlson and his fiancée, Penny Pliscott, returned before dawn Tuesday. They didn't know why their propane boiler was malfunctioning, only that it came at an inconvenient time. The family was sick.About 6:30 a.m. the couple went downstairs to their 17-year-old son's bedroom.
There, sprawled on the floor, was Andrew Carlson. It was obvious that he was dead, Mitch Carlson said Thursday.
Andrew Carlson's death capped a chain of events that began with the family falling sick over the weekend, while carbon monoxide gas rose to lethal levels in their new home on 412th Street.
The poisonous gas made them sluggish and disoriented. Then it led police to jail a staggering, slurring Mitch Carlson for allegedly driving while intoxicated just hours before he found his son dead.
Now, the family and investigators question how a new propane boiler used to heat the house may have gone awry. The family had moved in after an inspector approved the house for occupancy last Friday.
On Thursday, nobody had yet determined exactly what time Andy died after he went to bed in his basement bedroom near the boiler, according to the Minnesota regional medical examiner's office in Hastings.
What is clear is that carbon monoxide killed him.
In North Branch, a fast-growing city in Chisago County, Mitch Carlson and his family were eager to move into their new home. He had bought the components for the NY Thermal Trinity boiler, made in Canada, and had a contractor hook it up. It heats water for radiant heating.
On Friday, city inspector Mark Jones looked over the boiler and other mechanicals in the house, and signed a permit of occupancy, according to city records. City officials declined to comment Thursday.
Mitch Carlson, 47; his fiancée Penny Pliscott, 43; their son Andrew, and her sons Phillip Bartholomew, 10, and James Bartholomew, 12, moved in that weekend.
Mitch Carlson and Pliscott had gotten back together after years apart and were planning to be married today. But headaches and vomiting set in, and the entire family thought they had the flu.
Not long after midnight Tuesday, Mitch Carlson drove from home about 3 miles to a Holiday gas station to buy cigarettes and had what he described as a minor fender-bender near the pumps.
"I hit the dispenser that you put the washing fluid and squeegee in," Carlson said.
But it wasn't until he went to pay that he realized that something was seriously wrong.
"I went to write out a check, and my brain wasn't working. I really didn't realize what was going on," Carlson said.
Police Sgt. Rick Sapp arrived and witnessed Carlson stumbling, slurring words and having a hard time following directions. Yet a breath test showed only a tiny amount of alcohol.
At Wyoming Fairview Hospital, workers drew blood for alcohol testing. Sapp took Carlson to jail, and he was released about 3:30 a.m. Nobody suspected that carbon monoxide was the problem.
Carlson tried to call Pliscott for a ride. Contrary to previous reports, there was a phone at home, he said, but it wasn't working. So he called his brother, who drove him home about 4 a.m. Then Carlson and Pliscott left to try, without luck, to pick up his car at a towing company.
The couple arrived back home about 6:30. Something didn't smell quite right, Carlson said, and the house was getting chilly.
"We went downstairs to find the phone," he said. "I went in the bathroom and Penny went into Andrew's room and she comes out and said she found him lying dead on his bedroom floor."Yeah," Carlson said, groaning. "He looked like he had been dead for a while."
Carlson and Pliscott rushed upstairs to gather up the two younger boys. They drove to a Conoco station nearly 8 miles away. On a pay phone, Carlson dialed 911.
"I told them that we have a dead son at home from carbon monoxide poisoning, I believe, and we have two sick kids in the car."
Sapp and North Branch Police Chief Stephen Forner rushed to the house, as ambulances went there and to the Conoco station. The four surviving members of the family were treated in a hyperbaric chamber at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
There was no carbon monoxide alarm in the boiler room, which the manufacturer requires, said Carlson and Clifford Taite, sales manager for the boiler manufacturer, NY Thermal.
"I can't tell you how badly I feel about this," Taite said. "But I want to go in there physically and see this."
He said the boiler is made to operate on natural gas and can be converted to use propane.
"But if you field-convert it to propane, you, therefore, have some steps to do that," he said. "And that's what happened here. It's a propane boiler."
After a conversion kit is used, he said, tests for the proper levels of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide must be conducted with a combustion analyzer at the boiler, Taite said.
All such directions are in the company's detailed installation manual, Taite said.
The family has hired an attorney and had private experts inspect the boiler's adjustments and other mechanicals, including whether it was installed properly, Carlson said.
A source familiar with the facts of the case said the installation was under scrutiny.
The installer did not return a reporter's call Thursday.
Investigators suspect that there may have been a number of contributing factors, said Steve Hernick, assistant director of building codes for the state Department of Labor and Industry.
Joy Powell • 612-673-7750 • jpowell@startribune.com
©2006 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

[Charley L. Bottger]

I get blasted for using a meter to detect CO.


This is why I DO

[Russel Ray]

Originally Posted by cbottger

I get blasted for using a meter to detect CO.


This is why I DO

You get blasted?

I don't think it's necessary to use a meter to detect CO at the time of the inspection. After all, if there were high levels of CO present, the sellers would probably already be dead. Visual clues, appropriate recommendations for further evaluation if visual clues indicate a problem, and appropriate recommendations to sellers and buyers to put carbon monoxide alarms in their homes, can save lives.

Additionallly, if one has been reading about the storms in the Northwest, there is a carbon monoxide epidemic up there right now because people are using portable electricity generators and gas/charcoal grills inside their homes to provide heat.

Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

Check out this web site for stories about carbon monoxide deaths and injuries.
It gets updated on a regular basis.
In fact, it looks like it is current through December 19 right now.

[Charley L. Bottger]

Originally Posted by rray

I don't think it's necessary to use a meter to detect CO at the time of the inspection. After all, if there were high levels of CO present, the sellers would probably already be dead. Visual clues, appropriate recommendations for further evaluation if visual clues indicate a problem, and appropriate recommendations to sellers and buyers to put carbon monoxide alarms in their homes, can save lives.

.

RR I guess I am just hard core lets agree to disagree but in my opinion I think it should be included in every state SOP to use a CO meter concerning fossil fuel furnaces.

I can not tell you how many furnaces I have found over the years that CO problems were detected in their infancy due to my meters that would of never been detected by just a visual even if it had been just one furnace it would have justified me testing with a meter. THATS MY STORY AND I'M STICKING TO IT.

[ccbrands1]

Originally Posted by cbottger

RR I guess I am just hard core lets agree to disagree but in my opinion I think it should be included in every state SOP to use a CO meter concerning fossil fuel furnaces.

I can not tell you how many furnaces I have found over the years that CO problems were detected in their infancy due to my meters that would of never been detected by just a visual even if it had been just one furnace it would have justified me testing with a meter. THATS MY STORY AND I'M STICKING TO IT.

I'm with Charley on this one.
Some people get an inspection done only because their realtor said so.
Some have no intention of taking an inspector's advice.
You can beat CO detectors into their head, but some just sluff it off.
At least when you use your meter, you can confirm with them that they're at a dangerous level.


And how about forclosed homes, or ones that have been vacant for years. No people living there to tell you if levels are safe.

[tdutt]

Originally Posted by cbottger

RR I guess I am just hard core lets agree to disagree but in my opinion I think it should be included in every state SOP to use a CO meter concerning fossil fuel furnaces.

I can not tell you how many furnaces I have found over the years that CO problems were detected in their infancy due to my meters that would of never been detected by just a visual even if it had been just one furnace it would have justified me testing with a meter. THATS MY STORY AND I'M STICKING TO IT.

What meter do you like to use and how do you test? Have you ever had a HVAC person disagree with your findings, or are they generally in agreement with the test results?

[Charley L. Bottger]

Originally Posted by tdutt

What meter do you like to use and how do you test? Have you ever had a HVAC person disagree with your findings, or are they generally in agreement with the test results?

I use a UEI brand name meter as a matter of fact I use two meters that are kept in factory re-calibration every year.

I check at the closest register to the furnace Supply side.

I have had one disagreement in 10 years and it was with a gas company whom was called after I check the furnace which was a 30+ wall furnace that I had a high level of CO on. The gas company employee stated that the level of CO was within an exceptable range and my question was when was the last time your meter was calibrated and he did not know apparently no calibration sticker in place. When the factory calibrates my meters they place a dated sticker over the seam of the meter. My client was not overly concerned as they were going to install Central heat and air.

[Russel Ray]

Originally Posted by cbottger

RR I guess I am just hard core lets agree to disagree but in my opinion I think it should be included in every state SOP to use a CO meter concerning fossil fuel furnaces.

I can not tell you how many furnaces I have found over the years that CO problems were detected in their infancy due to my meters that would of never been detected by just a visual even if it had been just one furnace it would have justified me testing with a meter. THATS MY STORY AND I'M STICKING TO IT.

No problem.
We don't even have to agree to disagree.
Rather, we can agree that you run your business as you see fit, and I run my business as I see fit.
Mr Spock might congratulate me on my logic there.

My inspection protocols are based on the premise that "I test, operate, and analyze using normal operating controls that a normal homeowner would use during the course of a normal day." That includes using common equipment. So I don't use my moisture meter (cheapest I could find currently is $99; mine cost $349) or my carbon monoxide detector (cheapest I could find currently $89.95; mine cost $360) for all but two of my inspections. And since the home inspection is only a snapshot in time, how can one say that tonight when they turn the furnace on that there will be no problems? So I prefer to educate my Clients about carbon monoxide and the dangers of organic combustion. I'm just not a big fan of using specialized equipment to take a snapshot in time. If I could go out every day at the same time and do the same thing over the course of, say, a week or two, then I might be a fan. But such specialized duties in my opinion are for the licensed technicians.

This is what I put in my Interactive Report System about furnaces and water heaters:

[Water heaters/furnaces] should be inspected on an annual basis. A specialist will be able to detect problems that a generalist home inspector might not. If it cannot be proven that the [water heater/furnace] has been inspected within the last 12 months, recommend a complete inspection before close of escrow. Click here for helpful information about carbon monoxide.

For my PREMIUM and TECH inspections, I will pull out the high-priced equipment if necessary. But I still try not to.

[Russel Ray]

Originally Posted by ccbrands1

And how about forclosed homes, or ones that have been vacant for years. No people living there to tell you if levels are safe.

They have their own set of problems, a very large set of problems, of which heating and cooling is just a very small part.

[Russel Ray]

Originally Posted by tdutt

What meter do you like to use and how do you test? Have you ever had a HVAC person disagree with your findings, or are they generally in agreement with the test results?

I used my meter early this past summer in a vacant property. I was the only one there, so I thought I'd have some fun with the expensive equipment. The carbon monoxide detector showed high levels at the furnace. Since I was alone, I shut the furnace off.

In another part of the house, I thought I smelled gas. I called the buyer's agent and she called the gas company while I turned everything off. The gas company called me since they knew I was a home inspector (courtesy of the buyer's agent) and told me to turn the gas off at the meter. So I did.

Several days later the buyer's agent called to tell me that the gas company didn't detect any gas leaks or carbon monoxide, and the HVAC guy also didn't detect any abnormal levels of carbon monoxide. She did tell me that the HVAC guy told her that when houses are vacant for a long time or when the furnace isn't used in a long time, initial start-up will result in higher levels of carbon monoxide, as might have been the case when I started it in a property that had been vacant for six months.

So everyone went on their merry little way, but my Clients did put up smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors in all the areas where my Interactive Report System advised them to. I went to their housewarming party and have followed up with them a couple of times since then. No problems.

So go figure. A home inspection, though, is not, and should not if one is concerned about one's liability, the final authority on the home.

Educate, educate, educate.

[Charley L. Bottger]

Originally Posted by rray

I used my meter early this past summer in a vacant property. (quote)

Ah! so you do use a meter but for clients that pay the most money only. I place no $$$ amounts on someones safety and check Co on every furnace. If any amount is detected the system is automatically refered to a licensed contractor.

RR if you never have had a healthy HUG from a Lady client (good looking) of course or a strong handshake in appreication of finding a problem heat exchanger you just don't know what you are missing. That is an instant high for me; I feed on it. Means much more to me than money.




(quote) So go figure. A home inspection, though, is not, and should not if one is concerned about one's liability, the final authority on the home.(quote)

I never desire to be the final authority but I do desire to be the one that starts the investigation if necessary.

Cracks in heat exchangers do not start in size large enough to place your fist in the crack they start little and get larger with time. These are the ones that concern me.

(quote) Educate, educate, educate.

This we totally agree on.
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[Charley L. Bottger]

[quote=rray] The carbon monoxide detector showed high levels at the furnace. (quote)

Sorry I missed this statement what does it mean (at the furnace) where were you testing???

[Russel Ray]

[quote=cbottger]

Originally Posted by rray

The carbon monoxide detector showed high levels at the furnace. (quote)

Sorry I missed this statement what does it mean (at the furnace) where were you testing???

Probably should have said "for the furnace" or something similar, but basically everywhere within the immediate vicinity of the furnace, as well as air registers to make sure that the system is not circulating CO throughout the house.

[Charley L. Bottger]

[quote=rray]

Originally Posted by cbottger

Probably should have said "for the furnace" or something similar, but basically everywhere within the immediate vicinity of the furnace, as well as air registers to make sure that the system is not circulating CO throughout the house.

Ok were on the same page.

[Russel Ray]

Originally Posted by cbottger

Ah! so you do use a meter but for clients that pay the most money only.

Exactly. I'm a professional, and just like all other professionals, I charge for my services. I provide choices for my Clients and, with my advice, let 'em choose.

Originally Posted by cbottger

I place no $$$ amounts on someones safety

Neither do I. However, I do place $$$ amounts on my professional services. And even if someone chooses not to use my services, that does not prevent me from educating them.

Educate, educate, educate.

Originally Posted by cbottger

If any amount is detected the system is automatically refered to a licensed contractor.

What would a licensed contractor do? Do you mean an HVAC tech?

As I said in a previous post, I don't even have to find anything wrong with the system at all. It can be working perfectly. It can be 13 months old. "If the seller cannot prove that the system has been inspected within the last 12 months, recommend complete system evaluation by a licensed HVAC technician before close of escrow." He's a specialist; I'm not.

Originally Posted by cbottger

RR if you never have had a healthy HUG from a Lady client (good looking) of course or a strong handshake in appreication of finding a problem heat exchanger you just don't know what you are missing. That is an instant high for me; I feed on it. Means much more to me than money.

Well, I'm not so interested in a "HUG from a Lady client (good looking) of course," but I sure do enjoy getting invitations to house warming parties from 80% of my Clients. The other 20% didn't buy the house.

Originally Posted by cbottger

I do desire to be the one that starts the investigation if necessary.

Uh, isn't that what a home inspection is all about?

Originally Posted by cbottger

Cracks in heat exchangers do not start in size large enough to place your fist in the crack they start little and get larger with time. These are the ones that concern me.

"If the seller cannot prove that the system has been inspected within the last 12 months, recommend complete system evaluation by a licensed HVAC technician before close of escrow."