Correlation of Indoor Residential Carbon Monoxide Detector Alarm Frequencies and Ambient CO Levels

摘要

Over 4000 quick response comprehensive inspections of residences with gas appliances were conducted in a six week period by a major natural gas utility in response to occupant requests. Seventy percent of the inspections were initiated by a residential indoor carbon monoxide (CO) detector in alarm mode. Those detector alarm generated inspections were correlated with local ambient monitoring station CO data. The detector alarms appear to have had a geographical distribution within the air basin. On any one day, certain areas along the foothills or coast had numerous detector alarms while other areas had few alarms. A comparison with the nearest CO monitoring station data confirms that the frequency of detector alarms seem to increase as the outdoor CO levels increase. No increase in the number of malfunctioning appliances was observed for residences inspected due to the detector in alarm mode.