The Carbon Monoxide Safety Association (COSA) is working to educate professionals such as emergency response teams, manufacturers, building inspectors, and HVACR technicians to help prevent carbon monoxide poisoning.
Every year carbon monoxide claims hundreds of lives and sends over 50,000 poisoning victims a year to emergency rooms, according to COSA. The COSA program is designed to provide attendees with an understanding of the hazards inherent in carbon monoxide generation, testing procedures, an overview of combustion analysis and the relation of building pressures to carbon monoxide. It emphasizes thorough testing and the vitality of manufacturer instructions when setting equipment in service and conducting service checks.
"The old days of installing equipment without verifying the safety, efficiency & the basic code requirements should be coming to an end as knowledgeable HVACR companies and technicians step up to testing while leaving their traditional guesswork behind. " said Bob Dwyer, Director of Training for COSA. "If companies continue to install and service without testing, they surely will run into liability issues when consumers realize they have a choice between trained, certified and performance driven technicians compared to those who do not test."
And certainly they are. Last year, a Colorado contractor and two building inspectors were indicted in the 2008 deaths of a Denver family poisoned due to poor ventilation work at an Aspen-area vacation home. The Lofgren family and several other subsequent deaths due to carbon monoxide have spurred HB09-1091, The Lofgren Family Home Safety Act, which requires that all residences sold after July 1, 2009, and all multi family residences that come up for rent after July 1, must have carbon monoxide detectors placed within 10 feet of bedrooms.
Similar legislation has been proposed by Pennsylvania State Senator Pat Browne (R-16). The proposed law would require homeowners in Pennsylvania to demonstrate that their homes are equipped with a carbon monoxide detector when they are put up for sale.
The COSA training program includes instruction on building & duct pressure measurements, which are critical to the performance requirements of combustion equipment such as Category I appliances.
"The non-positive pressure vent systems are especially affected by building pressures as people continue to tighten up their homes to save energy. The tighter the home, competing pressures like duct leakage, clothes dryers, bath & kitchen exhausts will have a larger impact for building air and pressure release," said Dwyer. "We also demonstrate the effectiveness of carbon monoxide alarms in front of the audience using known & certified concentrations of CO test gas. This really gets them involved and in many cases worried about the safety of their own homes."
To learn more about COSA, CO Safety or to have COSA conduct training for you, visit www.cosafety.org.
