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Re: need more info (Reply to this comment)
by the_gas_man
Hi Ted,
I believe I responded to your email already directly, so I suppose you found my email address on my homepage.
If you are paying the gas bill where you rent, you should insist on a vented heater to replace vented heater that was replaced. No...a CO monitor does not make you safe and as I've said before, only has a shelf life of about five years on average. Those little devices are still getting pretty poor ratings by Consumer's Report and are still not designed to adequately protect people from the dangers of CO poisoning.
Add to that, you will be inhaling products of combustion whenever you use this heater and that is plainly not good for your health.
Thanks for your comment and your email.
Good luck.
Regards,
Gasman
couldn't find your email address ,i am renting a home that had a vented gas heater,now my land lord has replaced it with a vent free gas heater.he supplied me with a carbon dioxide detector,will this help to make this relatively safe?thanks-ted
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Nov 16 '09
5:49 am PST
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need more info (Reply to this comment)
by tjvjr
i couldn't find your email address ,i am renting a home that had a vented gas heater,now my land lord has replaced it with a vent free gas heater.he supplied me with a carbon dioxide detector,will this help to make this relatively safe?thanks-ted
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Nov 01 '09
6:23 pm PST
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Re: More reference to the deaths (Reply to this comment)
by the_gas_man
First, I have no idea who you are, since you only signed up with Epinions to ask me a question. You could have more easily emailed me. Second, the death of that young girl is something that bothers me deeply. She is gone, her parents have to live with that knowledge for the rest of their lives. The licensed gasfitter (albiet inexperienced and careless) has been justly punished in the courts, his life also ruined by his carelessness.
I fail to understand what possible good it would do you to know all their names and addresses.
As for your absurd suggestion that the chimney may be providing people with a "false sense of security". Do the brakes on your car provide you with a false sense of security?
The Gasman
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Aug 29 '08
6:25 am PDT
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More reference to the deaths (Reply to this comment)
by st225
I've been trying to track down the death you use so effectively in your story, but I can't find it. In fact, the only news coverage I can find are stories of vented heaters that killed people after the vent was broken. In one case, the maintenance worker caused the problem by dropping mortar down the vent pipe. The owner was trying to do all the right things (use a vent, have it serviced) and those conspired to cause the trouble.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cambridgeshire/7413417.stm
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2008/02/30_million_sought_in_carbon_mo.html
Could it be that vents are like oxygen depletion sensors because they cause a false sense of security?
Could you dig up a better reference to that death you describe?
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Aug 25 '08
12:30 pm PDT
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Re: The Last Two Comments Here... (Reply to this comment)
by the_gas_man
Is it a compliment or a weird quirk that so many people sign up with accounts at Epinions for the sole purpose of leaving comments on some of my reviews? Sign up and write a review!
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Jun 29 '07
3:48 am PDT
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Re: Some Humor on a Serious Topic (Reply to this comment)
by the_gas_man
Hi VF-one-liner, (JD?)
You sound like someone I know.
The rationale used by those who certified these Kovorkian death machines was that people who are awake will remember to shut them down and people who sleep will obviously forget and possibly never wake up. Hence the maximum approved input rate of 10,000 Btu's for a bedroom, providing it meets the cubic footage and required fixed ventilation rules and is on a thermostat.
Personally, I would think prolonged exposure to these things would cause black lungs. The small amounts of soot given off on start up and shut down, does accumulate and has no where else to go.
To be fair to the installers, they are being fed a pile of horse manure by the industry and the Vent-free Gas Product Alliance has publish more horse hockey pucks than anyone. If you don't go looking for the truth, and you believe the brochures, you will sell and install them, fully believing in their safety.
Odor issues are possibly one of the largest complaints homeowners make about these products, that "vented" appliance owners don't.
As I have said in previous articles, the ODS system is not designed to react to CO in the air, it is a simple device tentatively rigged to shut off the pilot and therefore the main burner, if the oxygen levels fall below 18% in the room. The odds of that happening are very low in most rooms, and the ODS is located at floor level where the oxygen will remain cooler and richer longer, as the O2 in the hot air above depletes and fills with soot, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfer dioxide and carbon monoxide. None of which the ODS is designed to detect. So it is a relatively useless safety device in this case.
Thanks for taking time to comment. Perhaps I'm getting too old to see a funny side of this topic.
Regards,
Gasman
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Jun 28 '07
7:06 am PDT
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Re: more info needed (Reply to this comment)
by the_gas_man
Dlogman,
First of all, I apologize for not responding to your comments sooner, I must have missed the notification.
Second, this should be more a cause for those in the U.S. servicing unvented gas appliances than "my cause", or any country in the world that still allows them. As for being well informed on these issues, you could say I have lived this cause for over twenty years.
You will find my comments "one-sided" for a number of reasons. I am 100% against vent-free gas appliances, the GAMA backed Vent-Free Gas Products Alliance has refused to comment publicly to me, and I am one of the few people in the industry willing to stand up to these bozo's. If there is an intelligent response to any of my many articles on this issue, I would be pleased to hear one. Since I first published an article on this subject in 1996, I have not yet received one single, technically supported counter argument. Does that suggest something?
You are correct, I have quoted sources such as EPA, the U.S. CPSC, the American Lung Association, the Mayo Clinic and others. In some of my articles I have provided links to those sites and a simple search under CO poisoning will take you to the articles and statistics I've cited. There was nothing intentionally vague about them, one of the biggest problems we have with national statistics on this issue is that they did not keep specific stats on vented vs unvented space heaters. So if 200 to 300 people died each year for a five year period, specifically from "gas space heaters" (both vented and unvented) but stats were not kept on the percentages of each, would you think more of the deaths were related to vented heaters or unvented? The same holds true for the EPA/CPSC stated 10,000 cases of unintentional CO poison treated per year. Cases involving every type of gas appliance in the business, including vented and unvented space heaters. There isn't much I can do about poor record keeping, or CO cases that were not reported or CO cases that were misdiagnosed as the flu. Sadly, the Vent Free Gas Products Alliance even managed to get a low level staffer of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to write a letter stating they could not say "specifically", that a "vent-free" gas space heater was ever held directly responsible for a death. What they failed to say, is that they can't say anything "specifically", because they didn't keep those statistics. The bad news is that they can now and those stats will be growing.
Kerosene heaters were not part of the CO deathes. They were part of the stats on accidental fires.
It's tragic that it takes the death of a young girl and her family pet to make a few more people sit up and take notice.
There are still aspects of this incident before the courts. However, I can tell you that the manufacturer of the vent-free fireplace shipped it set up for natural gas (valve, pilot and orifices) with a regulator set up for propane. In other words, the manifold pressure was about the same as the supply pressure. The installer, licensed and experienced, forgot to check the manifold pressure before leaving. Although he was experienced with gas appliances, he was not experienced with this fireplace and simply thought the flame looked high but okay. Of course it was severely overfiring and producing high levels of CO.
It is a case where any one of us could have been the guy to forget to check the MP. How many installers even carry manometers, let alone use them? The manufacturer may get their hands slapped for shoddy Q.C. testing. The installer is facing criminal charges. Negligence causing death.
Lastly, while I can appreciate that you, as a person from the gas industry wants more information, most of the readers here want less information, they even tell me I go overboard with the technical explanations too often. So I can't satisfy both sides and I am trying to get out the message to the buying public. Gas technicians and industry savvy people should already know better. Would you put one in your own home?
How many consumer products have you ever heard of the American Lung Association coming out publicly against? (other than asbestos and tobacco)
I couldn't disagree with you more on your last comment. Yes, for those who already have them, I advocate regular maintenance and combustion testing if the service is even available. For those who are thinking about buying one, it is our job to give them the plain bold facts, if that scares the heck out of them, great. Since I began I have received hundreds, possibly thousands (I lost track of all of them) of emails from people thanking me for talking them into going with a vented appliance. I've also had many people share the horrors they have lived through from property damages to prolonged, misdiagnosed illness from their vent-free fireplace.
I have so much more on this issue. You may want to order a copy of the American Gas Association Research AGAR report of 1996. It is the basis for the current approvals for vent-free fireplaces in the United States. You might be surprised by many of their test methods and recommendations. Essentially, they did not test appliances above 20,000 Btu's, mostly, down around 10,000 and they recommended much smaller units per cubic foot of space to be heated and maximum run times of 8 hours per day.
Does any of that sound even remotely like what you are seeing on the market today? The average unit is 40,000, (not even tested by AGAR) people don't size them to the cubic footage of the room (as recommended by AGAR), and people run them like furnaces on thermostats 24/7 in some parts of the country (against AGAR's recommendations).
If you're putting these products in and servicing them, take out higher liability, errors and omissions insurance and take time to make sure things are perfect before you leave the job. Personally, I wouldn't touch one.
Read my bio, I have worked on the R&D side of the this industry for about 30 years, and in that time I've probably conducted tens of thousands of combustion tests on gas appliances. I know how easy it is to have one of these things go south, quickly and deadly.
Need more? Write to me.
Regards,
The Gasman
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Jun 28 '07
6:49 am PDT
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Some Humor on a Serious Topic (Reply to this comment)
by _vf_one_liner
If you liked kerosene, you’ll LOVE unvented gas.
If you’re not supposed to sleep with a vent-free appliance, why would you want to be around it when you’re awake?
OR…
If you can’t trust a vent-free appliance enough to sleep with it, why should you trust it when you’re awake?
Vent-free appliances are well-known for causing a yellow film on walls, windows and ceilings. What do you suppose your lungs look like?
I’ve never thought it was a good idea to use your house for a chimney.
Room-vented? Lung-filtered!
The real reason vent-free is so popular is that it can be installed by someone with an I.Q of 80.
If someone tells you that vent-free appliances don’t smell, there are two possibilities: (1) That person has a serious nose problem, or (2) That person is lying.
Hopefully, the oxygen depletion sensor will shut the appliance down before it shuts you down.
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Jun 27 '07
6:06 am PDT
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more info needed (Reply to this comment)
by dlogman
Gasman, thank you for your dedication to your cause. I am in the service industry and your research is very interesting.
You seem like a well informed man, but your comments are quite one sided. You quoted many publications and documents in your opinion, but those were quite vague. You mentioned the many death yearly from "unvented space heaters" in your writings on vent free gas heaters. It is not a good idea to quote general stats when addressing a specific topic. How many were caused be kerosene heaters?
It is tragic that young girl lost her life. I searched the internet for more information, but I could not locate any. Would you share more details on what caused it if you could. That subject is something that anyone in the gas service industry should become more informed upon so that never happens again.
There are millions of vent free units out there and there are going to be many more sold. Let's educate them on the proper care and operation of them instead of scaring the heck out of the owners.
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Mar 09 '07
3:59 pm PST
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Re: Watch for the yellow flame (Reply to this comment)
by the_gas_man
Thanks for the comments.
I agree with what you have written, however for the most part, my goal is to have new standards developed particularly for vent-free yellow flame fireplaces. Contrary to your opinion that yellow flames are caused by the fan, they are usually yellow by design, choking the primary air in an attempt to create a wood-like fire. In a properly designed fireplace, vented or otherwise, the circulation fan should have no effect on the flame, if it does, there is another problem for a service tech to look for.
In these cases many manufacturers are pushing the envelope between an aesthetic flame effect and dangerous combustion.
I do agree that the blue flame heaters, over time tend to develop yellow lazy pilots which are a good indicator for a service call and if the main burner turns yellow from blue, it's a good time to turn it off, again, until it's been checked.
Glad to hear you'll never buy one.
Thanks again for taking time to leave you views.
Regards,
Gasman
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Feb 05 '07
10:29 am PST
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Watch for the yellow flame (Reply to this comment)
by eliyah-
As a former Heating/Cooling technician and instructor, I would add that if you have a 'blue flame' ventless heater, the #1 thing you want to look for to determine whether or not your ventless heater is emitting dangerous and deadly gases is the presence of solid yellow flame. This is the chief indicator of incomplete combustion, and thus carbon monoxide. If you have the ceramic bricks in your unit, watch for yellow flames on startup. (Note: If the heater is in a room where a lot of dust is being thrown around, you will get some yellow flame but that's just the dust burning in the heater.)
Often, a pilot flame will start turning 'yellow and lazy'. When this happens it's time to service the pilot orifice by cleaning it or calling a technician to clean it for you.
Of course, if you have a "yellow flame" ventless heater, (the yellow flame effects seem to be driven by electric fans blowing on an originally blue flame) you'll never know if you are getting incomplete combustion. This is why I'll never buy one.
EliYah
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Feb 04 '07
6:28 am PST
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Re: It nice to get an objective view (Reply to this comment)
by the_gas_man
Thanks for the support Howard,
I fully intend to keep putting pressure on those who sell these products, until better national standards are set or people refuse to buy them. Obviously, I would prefer the latter.
Regards,
Gasman
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Jan 29 '07
3:45 pm PST
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It nice to get an objective view (Reply to this comment)
by Howard_Creech
those who sell controversial products have a vested interest in downplaying safety concerns - its nice to know that someone is speaking out and warning consumers about the dangers of unvented gas heaters.
Keep up the good work.
Howard
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Jan 24 '07
11:53 pm PST
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Re: Re: Well... (Reply to this comment)
by ginzo
Heh,heh,I'm on a pretty good pace similar to your!! I was engaged to a jealous,lying witch for two years before I finally threw in the towel.Met my wife two months after that break-up and married her two months after meeting her!!We'll make 30 IF she can put up with me! I still think I'm 21 !But,good for you and your wife,also!!Keep us posted now and then on the business and personal end of things!
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Dec 05 '06
7:52 am PST
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Re: Well... (Reply to this comment)
by the_gas_man
Hey Ginzo,
I see you've made a recent comeback too. As for anniversaries, ten years, 15 years 20 years,... piece of cake. Try 32 years, which I'm fast approaching. Only knew her two months, before proposing and we were hitched within four months of our first date.
Take care,
Gasman
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Dec 04 '06
9:34 am PST
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Re: Re: Re: Well... (Reply to this comment)
by the_gas_man
Thanks,
I've never really been too far away.
Regards,
Gasman
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Dec 04 '06
9:26 am PST
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Well... (Reply to this comment)
by ginzo
Welcome back and keep up the good work on keeping people safe and questioning authority
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Dec 04 '06
6:06 am PST
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Re: Re: Well... (Reply to this comment)
by asafono
Welcome back,
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Dec 03 '06
7:24 am PST
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Re: Well... (Reply to this comment)
by the_gas_man
Thanks for taking time to comment.
It's nice to know that people read these mission statements, but more important, to me, that everyone who reads this takes time to tell people who might have an unvented gas heater or are thinking about buying one, to stop by and read this carefully.
When I first began this crusade, I knew it would not be easy, I even believed that common sense would prevail. I now know that people continue to die and suffer out of a sheer lack of knowledge. They are not poor people, nor rich, they are not poorly educated and in some cases, they are highly educated. So they are just people like you and me who trusted the system to protect them and lost.
Regards,
Gasman
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Dec 02 '06
5:29 pm PST
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Well... (Reply to this comment)
by verloren_hoop
Both spectacularly written and chillingly importanct. Thank you.
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Dec 01 '06
6:56 am PST
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