The Search For Bright Waters

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Carbon Monoxide makes Nala go CrAzY!!

Seems Nala cat was jealous at head-spinning cat being main blog picture because look what she did:



Congrats Nala on the crazy head spin!!

So last night after cooking enclosed in a very chilly boat on our alcohol stove, then relaxing with our space heater on, we received a "WARNING EVACUATE!!! Carbon monoxide - evacuate!!!" message blaring in our ears. So we got some fresh air and I at least, felt slightly dizzy. Sooo dear readers, what do you think caused this? We guess alcohol stove because its the only thing that wasn't in the equation last winter. It's pretty scary stuff!

It also mentioned numbers and our carbon monoxide levels reached like 59 ppt. or pp something. Knowledge anyone?






-christine

5 comments:

Mid-Life Cruising! said...

Wow! That is scary. We have an alcohol stove that we haven't used yet, but we've been thinking about replacing it with a propane stove. So glad ya'll got out of there!

Joey and Christine said...

well we aren't positive that it IS the alcohol stove, that's why we were asking, and also you know propane has it's hazards as well. The whole leaking and blowing up issue? Again, I'm not an expert but being that I don't care to be an expect either, I just flat out don't use it inside.

-christine

Captain Dan (Dock Bum) said...

here is a chart showing the effects of carbonmonoxide posioning by PPM. CM is caused the incomplete buring of Carbon based fuels, so yes your alcohol stove produces it, as does a propane style. Best defense is to leave the cabin hatch open, along with the cabin hatch lower board. That way the heated air will vent out the top and the colder air will drop to the deck. 35 ppm (0.0035%) Headache and dizziness within six to eight hours of constant exposure
100 ppm (0.01%) Slight headache in two to three hours
200 ppm (0.02%) Slight headache within two to three hours; loss of judgment
400 ppm (0.04%) Frontal headache within one to two hours
800 ppm (0.08%) Dizziness, nausea, and convulsions within 45 min; insensible within 2 hours
1,600 ppm (0.16%) Headache, tachycardia, dizziness, and nausea within 20 min; death in less than 2 hours
3,200 ppm (0.32%) Headache, dizziness and nausea in five to ten minutes. Death within 30 minutes.
6,400 ppm (0.64%) Headache and dizziness in one to two minutes. Convulsions, respiratory arrest, and death in less than 20 minutes.
12,800 ppm (1.28%) Unconsciousness after 2-3 breaths. Death in less than three minutes.

Joey said...

thank you! that is useful info. so when it went off at 59ppm we were in the first category and quickly got to fresh air. go us.

-joey

Kara Kitchen said...

Thankks for this blog post