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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I have been back over a week now. Upstate NY does look and feel a lot like Antarctica. It has been around zero with considerable snow just to the North. However, it is more humid and higher pressure density than in Antarctica that is for sure.

Now that I am home I can upload some video. I have uploaded my McMurdo Film Festival submission "Pilgramage".

You can download it here. It is 35 MB. It will take quite a while to download. I suggest using right-click "Save file As.. " option to make it convienient. I have lots more video. I will post it to You tube in the near future. You may want to do a search on www.YouTube.com for "Antarctica" You will see Anthony Powell's time lapse, very nice. He is the Winter Black Island comms tech.

Comments

Todd Sheehan said…
Brillant Video! PBS needs you!
10:04 PM
Jason S. said…
Charles,

Loved the video. Can't wait to catch up with you once I'm back to work.
11:44 PM
Anonymous said…
Beatiful. I cried.
5:34 PM
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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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