I am renting a multi floored place, and it has a CO detector that after I looked at it, i noticed it says to be replaced by 2012 or something close to that. I am from a country where we dont have water heaters or gas heaters, so I never encountered those or heard of them much, and certainly didnt matter to me that date of replacement.

I now read online and understood how messed up it can get which is why I am here now, and I just want to ask what am I supposed to do.

I wake up this morning and my house mates are saying they heard weird beeping in the morning and they didnt know the source, I press the test button and they think it sounds like it might be it. I opened up the windows and the doors, and to be honest, I was feeling a bit tired getting out of bed yesterday, and I assumed it was just me being lazy as usual so of course I am not sure if I am just worried or if it was for real. I am going to buy a new detector now, but I am just not sure if there is anything else I should do.

I didnt know if I should call the fire emergency number or not, I am planning on checking first using the new detector, I didnt want to make a scene and then it turns out it wasnt the detector making the alarm or that it was a false alarm. I read online that it might be that the old device is faulty and just giving out random false alarms.

I am just lost right now and not sure what to do, any help is appreciated.

Thank you

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7 comments

  2. It is not making a scene.
    If the chimney does leak CO into the house, you all could die in a single night. It is a recurring thing in the news, every autumn with the start of the heating season, a couple of people die because of CO toxicity due to unchecked, or faulty equipement.
    I would not sleep a single night in that apartment whitout a new detector, and even when awake, I’d try to ventilate as much as possible.
    And if the new detector signals high CO PPM, immediately call for help, and if they can’t help you today, you might want to sleep somewhere else.
    It might be overreacting, but the other outcome is so serious, that I wouldn’t fuck around.

  3. If the beep was from the CO detector than it can mean that the battery needs to be changed. If it is a small CO detector with replaceable battery, you need to change only the battery and it should be OK. The detector itself does not need to be changed. But I don’t know what kind of detector you have in the apartment. You can just go to a place where they sell these and ask them to check if it works well.

  5. [https://www.obi.hu/co-berendezesek-es-tartozekok/fireangel-co-erzekelo-co-9d-int/p/4454567](https://www.obi.hu/co-berendezesek-es-tartozekok/fireangel-co-erzekelo-co-9d-int/p/4454567)

    Get one of these, I have one too.

    It is a bit pricey, but you don’t want to fuck around with CO, especially if you suspect that you might have a CO problem.

    This gives you a live readout (and you can see if you have non-zero CO levels, even below the alarm level)… It also stores the highest measured level since the last reset, so if you hear beeping but it stops before you can check the display, you can press the button to show what was the maximum level it measured. This way, you will also know if the CO level was high while you were not at home.

    I would get a new CO detector first ASAP, and if it detects CO then definitely call the relevant authorities.

  6. ​

    They can give false alarms when the battery is getting low. Another reason to have it replaced.

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