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...

I guess the thing that strikes me is that the Fire Department is a long way from the river. There are many many businesses that flooded. Certainly a record flood. We thought the flood of 2006 was going to stay in the record books for a while. Not so.

There are positive things about living in the hills as we do. The farm was generally unscathed. The drive way was washed away in June and the repair held. The basement had only a small puddle.

Here is a pic that I lifted from the web. It is the Fire Department in Owego NY underwater Friday 9-9-11 after I had left town.

Here is a pic sent to me that shows the high water mark on the airplanes in the hanger at Tri-Cities airport in Endicott NY.

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