Carbon Monoxide Testing Denver | Carbon Monoxide Detectors | Blue Sky

Carbon Monoxide Detection FAQs

• Where does carbon monoxide in my home actually come from?

  In a home like yours, it almost always comes from something that burns fuel and isn’t venting right. Your furnace, your water heater, a gas stove, a fireplace, or a car left running in an attached garage. When those things burn cleanly and vent outside the way they should, you’re fine. The trouble starts when a heat exchanger cracks, a vent gets blocked, or a flue comes loose and the exhaust backs up into your living space instead of going up and out. Thirty years of pulling furnaces apart and that’s the story nine times out of ten.

• Why should I worry about CO more here in Denver than somewhere at sea level?

  Two reasons, and they stack on each other. First, we run our furnaces hard and long here. Heating season on the Front Range is no joke, so your furnace is the one appliance working overtime all winter, which is exactly when a cracked heat exchanger shows up. Second, we’re at altitude. Gas appliances burn a little differently in thinner air, and combustion equipment has to be set up correctly for our elevation. If it isn’t tuned right, it can run dirty and produce more CO than it should. So you’ve got a hard-working furnace plus altitude, and that combination is why we take CO seriously up here.

• What are the warning signs of carbon monoxide poisoning I should know?

  The tricky part is it feels like other stuff. Headaches, feeling dizzy or lightheaded, nausea, being tired for no reason, trouble thinking clearly. A lot of folks brush it off as the flu or just a rough day. The tell is when more than one person in the house feels it at the same time, or when you feel lousy at home but better the second you leave and go somewhere else. If that’s happening, get everybody outside into fresh air and call us. Don’t tough it out.

• I already have a smoke detector. Doesn't that cover me?

  No, and this is the one I correct people on the most. A smoke detector and a carbon monoxide detector are two different jobs. Smoke detectors watch for fire and particles in the air. CO detectors watch for the gas, which you can’t see or smell at all. Some newer units combine both into one device, which is great, but a plain smoke alarm will not catch carbon monoxide. If all you’ve got is smoke alarms, you’ve got half the protection.

• Where should CO detectors go in my house, and how many do I need?

  The short answer is one on every level of the home and one near each sleeping area, so the alarm wakes you up if it goes off at night. Codes around here often only require the bare minimum, but I tell people to go past the minimum, especially if you’ve got a finished basement with a furnace or water heater down there. When we come out, we look at your actual layout, where your gas appliances sit, and where everybody sleeps, then we put the detectors where they’ll do the most good. Placement matters as much as the count.

• My CO detector keeps going off but I feel fine. What do I do?

  Treat every alarm like it’s real, every single time. Get everyone out to fresh air first, then call us or 911 if anyone feels sick. Don’t stand there trying to figure out if it’s a false alarm. That said, detectors do have a lifespan, usually somewhere around 5 to 7 years depending on the unit, and an old sensor can start nuisance-tripping near the end. So if yours is going off, it’s either catching something real or telling you it’s worn out. Either way it needs attention, and we can test it and tell you which one it is.

• How often should I have my home tested for carbon monoxide?

  For most homes, the smart move is tying it to your annual heating service. When a tech is already out checking your furnace before winter, that’s the natural time to check combustion and CO levels too. Outside of that schedule, call us anytime you’ve had furnace trouble, you smell something off near a gas appliance, or somebody in the house has had those symptoms we talked about. After any furnace repair is also a good time to verify everything’s venting the way it should before you button the house up for a cold Denver winter.

• What happens during a Blue Sky carbon monoxide test?

  We send a technician out to actually measure the CO levels in your home with the right equipment, not guess at it. If the readings come back high, we don’t just tell you that and leave. We track down where it’s coming from, whether that’s the furnace, the water heater, a venting problem, or something else, and we walk you through how to fix it and get those levels back down to safe. If you need detectors installed or your existing ones checked, we handle that on the same visit. The whole point is you knowing for sure your house is safe, not wondering about it.