Each year over 20,000 people visit the emergency room as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. This colorless, odorless gas is called the silent killer because it’s essentially undetectable without a carbon monoxide detector.
Carbon monoxide, as confirmed by the CDC, is produced by gas ranges, furnaces, fireplaces, stoves, and boilers so it only makes sense that carbon monoxide poisoning increases during the colder months when people are trying to keep their homes heated. To help keep your home safe, TML Service Experts is here with some tips to safety keep your home heated.
- Place a CO detector on all floors of your home and change the batteries every year.
- Keep all likely sources of combustion, such as paper, clothing, bedding, or rugs, a distance over three feet away from furnaces, space heaters, fire places, or stoves.
- Before igniting a fire in the fireplace, make sure you check to verify the chimney damper is open and unclogged.
- Don’t leave portable heaters or fireplaces unattended. Shut off space heaters and confirm all embers in the fireplace are fully extinguished before leaving either heating source unattended.
- Space heaters should always be situated on the floor, and on a hard, incombustible surface, like ceramic tile. Keep kids and pets away from space heaters.
- When buying a new space heater, buy a model that turns off automatically if the heater tumbles over.
- Never use a stove to increase the temperature in your home.
- Have wood and coal stoves, fireplaces, chimneys and gas or oil furnaces professionally checked and cleaned yearly.
The ideal thing you can do for your furnace is to be sure it’s not only ready to keep your home warm all winter but also safe, is to schedule your fall tune-up. During your furnace tune-up, TML will check to make sure your heating equipment is operating safely with a total multi-point inspection and cleaning. Call 208-488-4892 today and ask how you can save on a heating tune-up through November 25th.