Does everyone have a carbon monoxide detector in their home? It is a really important thing to have, not very expensive, and could save your life. Carbon Monoxide is odorless and if it gets trapped in your house there is NO WARNING until harm is already done.

If you do have a carbon monoxide detector, have you checked it recently to make sure it is working? Checked the battery?

This is on my mind because I just turned my furnace on for the first time last night. And the night before I did something I've NEVER done before.

Several years ago there was a local family that died due to CO poisoning in their house overnight. The saddest part was that they had CO detectors. When the batteries go low, the detector beeps to warn you. Well, their detectors were beeping, and the beep was annoying them, so they removed the batteries. So sad.

I've come home to have my CO detector beeping several times. Even though when I check it it has been the battery, I ALWAYS open my windows just to be safe. And I will NEVER leave it hanging disconnected "a few days won't matter until I get a new battery."

It was beeping a few days ago, so I replaced the battery. I think the package of batteries I have may be dead from age, because two days later it started beeping again (again the battery).

So that night I went to bed without the CO detector BUT I thought about it long and hard... two nights ago I had no heat... no furnace or any sort of forced air activity from any of my household systems. My space heaters can't really generate CO but I sleep with those off anyway, so no chance of them starting a fire (which can also generate CO in addition to, well, FIRE!) Since my car was reposessed there wasn't even any danger that I would sleepwalk, start my car, and leave it running in the garage with the door to the house running. So I felt OK leaving it disconnected, as that night there were no possible sources of CO in my house, unless one of my mortal enemies were to try to murder me, and if so I would hope they would be clever enough to circumvent the CO detector anyway. Won't be good for my image to have stupid mortal enemies.

Last night I turned my furnace on as a "treat" for some good news I recieved (see my post in "Depression") As I went to bed I remembered that the CO detector was disconnected. I was already in bed, to much into relaxation to get up and fix it. So you know what I did? I got up and fixed it. I took one of the other batteries from the package, figured that if it started beeping overnight and woke me up due to dead battery that was better than not having it beep for CO and waking up dead in the morning. I tested these batteries with my voltmeter, some were stronger than others, so hopefully this one will last a while. (My unit "plugs in" for power, so I am protected unless electricity goes off AND the battery goes dead, and since it beeps when the battery goes dead, I was protected last night.)

Needless to say, no problems last night.

So just a reminder for ALL of our safety devices. It is not enough to only have them, we must also test them regularly and never, ever be lazy about keeping them functioning properly.