A year ago this week, I got a frantic call from my wife at lunchtime. She was in our basement and one of my gadgets was beeping. That gadget was this Explosive Gas / Carbon Monoxide detector from Kidde.
Time
to get out of the house and call 911. Three minutes later, some of
Whitefish Bay's finest were in my basement. Turns out the furnace was
spewing out high levels of Carbon Monoxide, a deadly, colorless and
odorless gas. The firemen killed the furnace and began airing out my now, very
cold house.
Had we not had that CO detector, this story could
have ended very differently, especially had it occurred while we slept.
This sort of thing doesn't just happen to the downtrodden, heating
their homes improperly. It even happens to Whitefish Bay residents with properly
maintained furnaces.
The moral of this story is: Get a CO detector,
for crying out loud. They're a cheap $20 of life insurance. -- And if
you have one already, give it a test after you read this. We'll all
sleep better if you do.
