Carbon Monoxide!?

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Weird. The smoke alarm went off, not incredibly odd when I am using the fireplace, but it wasn't the smoke detector. It was the CO alarm. I was totally surprised. It had never gone off as long as I have had one, over many many years. Yep, after resetting it a few times. It was getting a reading over 200 ppm CO. When I took it downstairs I got a reading near 300 ppm. I started getting light headed at this point. After thinking maybe the furnace heat exchanger failed and puzzling around a bit I figured out what happened. As part of the huge winter storm that recently covered almost half of the US, we lost our electricity. So, being well prepared, I rolled out the generator and started doing what I normally do. The generator (although it was completely outside) was creating CO to get in the house. Using the fireplace draft (and possibly other leaks) the whole house created a vacuum around the seal of the basement garage door. After the CO got into the house the forced air heat...
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Today was an interesting day. I got up at 4:30, had an hour teleconference. Went to work. Flew to Mt. Aztec and got picked up 3 hours later. The geology, rock formations, ventifacts and views were great. The most interesting thing about this site (in the dry vallys at 6500 ft.) is that it is a new site. It is likely that only 6 people have ever been here. I know them all. We repaired the repeater (I was paged Saturday night when it went down) and it is back up and running.

An Astronaut stopped in the shop this afternoon. Don Pettit who spent 3 months about the Space Sation is working with the meteor hunters down here. He stopped by in particular to discuss his needs for a pilot project for the just-announced moon base. They are planning on building a pilot moon base here. Why build it? It is already here. Sounds interesting. You never know who you sit down to dinner with down here. A world class scientist, an Astronaut, Mt. Everest guide, they are all here.

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Carbon Monoxide!?

-
Image
Weird. The smoke alarm went off, not incredibly odd when I am using the fireplace, but it wasn't the smoke detector. It was the CO alarm. I was totally surprised. It had never gone off as long as I have had one, over many many years. Yep, after resetting it a few times. It was getting a reading over 200 ppm CO. When I took it downstairs I got a reading near 300 ppm. I started getting light headed at this point. After thinking maybe the furnace heat exchanger failed and puzzling around a bit I figured out what happened. As part of the huge winter storm that recently covered almost half of the US, we lost our electricity. So, being well prepared, I rolled out the generator and started doing what I normally do. The generator (although it was completely outside) was creating CO to get in the house. Using the fireplace draft (and possibly other leaks) the whole house created a vacuum around the seal of the basement garage door. After the CO got into the house the forced air heat...
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