Oil lamps and CO

Lazy Kipper said:
Understood but seems starnge - OK to come from the engine compartment (like ours is) but that in turn draws air from the accomodation areas.
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And normally it should not. Actually in ideal world engine room should be separated from cabin, and provided with separate ventilation...

Well, somehow I knew my boat was well designed ;) Watertight bulkhead for separating engine room. It seems original concept included both bulkheads to be watertight but somehow they made the aft one with hole for shaft... nevertheless not so bad achievement in 30 footer.
 
Lazy Kipper said:
Is it better to have the combustion air for an Eber drawn from inside or outside? If drawn from inside does that reduce the air pressure and not help or provide circulation which does help?
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We normally take the combustion air (but never the heated air) intake from the engine room usually terminating close to a vent, never from accomodation of course, where significant engine room ventilation is pulled in via the accomodation I would treat it as accomodation space and draw from elsewhere, not difficult to arrange. Pulling cooller air containing more O2 is better for the burn anyway. Wallas are always drawn from the exterior, in fact with anything up to a 30DT it's impossible to do it any other way.
 
Woodlouse said:
I had a CO alarm for a short while. The oil lamps never caused it to even flicker, this with ventilation supplied by a three inch port hole. The primus would set the thing off very quickly so I ditched the alarm after a week or so.
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Primus stoves - or any other kind or "roaring" burner - can easily produce enough CO to kill, unless kept clean and well maintained. Sadly, they have been a cause of death in Antarctica, and I have seen research into the amount of CO generated by primus stoves; it was quite scary; even a well-adjusted one is only just safe! Even minor maladjustment, or a cold surface too close to the flame, can cause a deadly amount of CO from them, of course exacerbated in Antarctica by the need for keeping excessively cold air out. Interestingly, a major factor is having cooking pans etc. too close to the flame.

I would have thrown out the stove, not the alarm!
 
Rossynant said:
What would you replace the stove with? Usually propane are used, also can give CO...

I have one contender, but costly (so a Taylor must suffice for a moment :o ):
http://www.wallas.fi/default.asp?id=boat-stove-85DP
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Propane and Butane are both safer than roaring paraffin burners; although of course they can produce CO, they are less liable to do so. I presume it's because of the different flame dynamics between a gas and a vapour. That said, I've had a badly adjusted calor-gas cooker set off the CO alarm. It was replaced ASAP!
 
Rossynant said:
What would you replace the stove with? Usually propane are used, also can give CO...

I have one contender, but costly (so a Taylor must suffice for a moment :o ):
http://www.wallas.fi/default.asp?id=boat-stove-85DP
Click to expand...

The Wallas is a great piece of kit, really great in fishing boat and workboat wheelhouses, can be used as a decent heater with the blower lid too, Installation is a bit involved though, but the Taylor just needs plenty of ventilation and to be used as its intended to be used.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
Primus stoves - or any other kind or "roaring" burner - can easily produce enough CO to kill, unless kept clean and well maintained. and I have seen research into the amount of CO generated by primus stoves; it was quite scary; even a well-adjusted one is only just safe! Even minor maladjustment, or a cold surface too close to the flame, can cause a deadly amount of CO from them, of course exacerbated in Antarctica by the need for keeping excessively cold air out. Interestingly, a major factor is having cooking pans etc. too close to the flame.
Click to expand...

Far be it for me to query 'research', but I recall spending many weekends throughout the 60s in tents, howfs and dosses on Scottish hills, summer and winter, using 'roary burner' Primus stoves.... or now and then, Optimus jobs. All the climbers' clubs huts were equipped with half a dozen or more of these, in 2-pint size, and when they were all going on a wet Saturday night, after 'chuckin' oot time', you couldn't hear the lorries going past and steam would rise from the roof! Same thing under the Shelter Stone at the back of Cairngorm on a very cold January night..... sometimes up to a dozen 'roary burner' stoves purring away, doing tea water, soup, beans, pies, w.h.y. using cold metal pans.

Now and then, in a tent on The Cobbler or above Glen Brittle, when the wee candles burnt out, we'd hook a stove leg through the burner to create a luminous flame so we could read the Guidebook. And there were scores of us around that time, all doing much the same.

Maybe we were lucky, or made of different stuff, but not a single one of us was 'deaded' by CO. Some didn't make it to old age due to motor bikes or cigarettes, but I know of no reports of urgent hospitalisations due to poisoning from fumes among the dozens of young Scottish climbers who used Primus stoves. Mind you, there were a few 'close encounters' with C2H6O....

I'm told that both CO and C2H6O cause deterioration of brain cells, so that could explain a lot....
 
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AntarcticPilot said:
Primus stoves - or any other kind or "roaring" burner - can easily produce enough CO to kill, unless kept clean and well maintained. Sadly, they have been a cause of death in Antarctica, and I have seen research into the amount of CO generated by primus stoves; it was quite scary; even a well-adjusted one is only just safe! Even minor maladjustment, or a cold surface too close to the flame, can cause a deadly amount of CO from them, of course exacerbated in Antarctica by the need for keeping excessively cold air out. Interestingly, a major factor is having cooking pans etc. too close to the flame.

I would have thrown out the stove, not the alarm!
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Well once I knew what was a source of CO on board I could then work around it. During the summer the fore hatch is always open on chocks and the washboards are never in place, plus the forward portholes in the coachroof are open unless at sea so there is never any lack of ventilation. During the winter when the boat is more closed up it is rare for it to be running for more than 3/4 of an hour a day, with ventilation supplied by a 3 inch port hole, the spurling pipe and the relatively loose fit of the washboards.

To be honest I'm more scared of dying in a gas explosion than I am from CO poisoning and I've heard of far more people being blown up than I have heard suffocated.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
Propane and Butane are both safer than roaring paraffin burners; although of course they can produce CO, they are less liable to do so. I presume it's because of the different flame dynamics between a gas and a vapour. That said, I've had a badly adjusted calor-gas cooker set off the CO alarm. It was replaced ASAP!
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And the difference here between a gas and a vapour is ??????
 
VicS said:
And the difference here between a gas and a vapour is ??????
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Well they are comonly used as synomyns but I assume ArcticPilot is using the terms in their most specific scientific meanings. I'll leave it to him to explain as SWMBO has just indicated that food will be on the table within seconds. I assume he'll get into critical points etc.
 
oldbilbo said:
Far be it for me to query 'research', but I recall spending many weekends throughout the 60s in tents, howfs and dosses on Scottish hills, summer and winter, using 'roary burner' Primus stoves.... or now and then, Optimus jobs. All the climbers' clubs huts were equipped with half a dozen or more of these, in 2-pint size, and when they were all going on a wet Saturday night, after 'chuckin' oot time', you couldn't hear the lorries going past and steam would rise from the roof! Same thing under the Shelter Stone at the back of Cairngorm on a very cold January night..... sometimes up to a dozen 'roary burner' stoves purring away, doing tea water, soup, beans, pies, w.h.y. using cold metal pans.

Now and then, in a tent on The Cobbler or above Glen Brittle, when the wee candles burnt out, we'd hook a stove leg through the burner to create a luminous flame so we could read the Guidebook. And there were scores of us around that time, all doing much the same.

Maybe we were lucky, or made of different stuff, but not a single one of us was 'deaded' by CO. Some didn't make it to old age due to motor bikes or cigarettes, but I know of no reports of urgent hospitalisations due to poisoning from fumes among the dozens of young Scottish climbers who used Primus stoves. Mind you, there were a few 'close encounters' with C2H6O....

I'm told that both CO and C2H6O cause deterioration of brain cells, so that could explain a lot....
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I'm sure that all the places you mention were reasonably well-ventilated; the research I'm talking about was oriented towards tents that are deliberately not well-ventilated - the dangers of hypothermia being quite high as well! In fact, the major contributory factor in Antarctica would be fine wind-blown snow blocking the ventilation "chimney" at the peak of a pyramid tent.

Of course, a boat can easily be sealed up!

I'm afraid the research I saw was not published - it was in-house stuff, using the Optimus stoves in use at BAS. Primus, of course, is long gone, and even the Optimus stoves used by BAS are difficult to obtain spares for - and the "new" spares are not as good quality as the "old" ones.
 
I certainly would not wish to play down the hazard, for I came close to winning a column-inch in the Plymouth newspapers a couple of years ago through this issue. It's a matter of awareness....

Nevertheless, thinking back, 'hypothermia' hadn't been invented back then and no-one but no-one had a hill-tent that could be sealed against draughts - except perhaps 'Exiguous Bonnington'. Climbers' huts such as Shenival, Steall and the CIC up on the Ben had coke stoves and, often, open fireplaces on which we burned coke. When the winds blew - and did they ever up on the hills - the fierce downdraughts would fill a packed, stopped-up room full of ruffy-tuffy Jock climbers in a mo with dense smoke, soot and noxious fumes. Many of those guys worked all week in the shipyards and steel mills, so they were perhaps inured to such - welcomed it as a companion, perhaps.

Some of them went away to work for the British Antarctic Survey. The names 'John Cunningham' and 'Malcolm McCrae' spring to mind.... Both of these were 'hard bustids' from a hard community. The first-named became the leading international ice climber of his age, having already been close to a legend on Scottish rock a couple of decades before, and gave his life trying to save a climber-client who'd fallen into deep water off Anglesey's sea cliffs.

In that different world, there were other and more immediate life-challenging hazards.
 
oldbilbo said:
I certainly would not wish to play down the hazard, for I came close to winning a column-inch in the Plymouth newspapers a couple of years ago through this issue. It's a matter of awareness....

Nevertheless, thinking back, 'hypothermia' hadn't been invented back then and no-one but no-one had a hill-tent that could be sealed against draughts - except perhaps 'Exiguous Bonnington'. Climbers' huts such as Shenival, Steall and the CIC up on the Ben had coke stoves and, often, open fireplaces on which we burned coke. When the winds blew - and did they ever up on the hills - the fierce downdraughts would fill a packed, stopped-up room full of ruffy-tuffy Jock climbers in a mo with dense smoke, soot and noxious fumes. Many of those guys worked all week in the shipyards and steel mills, so they were perhaps inured to such - welcomed it as a companion, perhaps.

Some of them went away to work for the British Antarctic Survey. The names 'John Cunningham' and 'Malcolm McCrae' spring to mind.... Both of these were 'hard bustids' from a hard community. The first-named became the leading international ice climber of his age, having already been close to a legend on Scottish rock a couple of decades before, and gave his life trying to save a climber-client who'd fallen into deep water off Anglesey's sea cliffs.

In that different world, there were other and more immediate life-challenging hazards.
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Just to put it on record - the Pyramid tent has been the norm of Polar Exploration since Scott's days. It has two layers, the outer one being of wind-proof material. However, it requires 4 long, strong poles (one at each corner - hence the "Pyramid" shape), and is so not man-transportable. It's advantages are that it can be put up quickly, and doesn't require guys for stability, only to draw the middle of the sides out. Oh, and it is wind-proof, in all senses - it keeps wind out, and strong winds merely push the leeward poles more strongly into the ground! Putting one on a Nansen sledge is no problem, but carrying one is not really feasible; the poles are something like 10 feet long, and can't really be jointed because they have to take strong compression loads.

I'm afraid I don't know either of the two people you name - perhaps before my time (I joined in 1988).
 
Woodlouse said:
To be honest I'm more scared of dying in a gas explosion than I am from CO poisoning and I've heard of far more people being blown up than I have heard suffocated.
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Although you may have heard of more explosive gas events, the records we keep indicate more people aboard boats die from exposure to carbon monoxide than gas explosion.

And on the subject suffocation, not being pedantic for the sake of it, but death from carbon monoxide exposure is poisoning. It is the toxic effects of the gas that affect different people differently that can mean the difference between one person needing treatment in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber when suffering poisoning, and another going straight to the morgue.

It isn't just death or obvious injury that is the only issue, prolonged exposure to relatively low levels of CO have been found to have affects on cognitive processes including memory and mood swings. (checkout Health Protection Agency/Public Health England research)

We have a lot more detail about carbon monoxide here http://www.boatsafetyscheme.org/stay-safe/carbon-monoxide-(co)

Paraffin heaters have caused the death of boaters, and on the subject of tents, recently there have been deaths and injuries caused by small camping gas-powered lamps and some boat cabins are not much larger than tents.

It's a subject that deserves serious consideration.
 
Many thanks

Many thanks to all for the very informative responses - and especially to BSSOffice for the link to very good information. My conclusions are:

1. I will buy a good CO detector

2. I will not leave lamp or stove on when asleep

3. When I use lamp or stove I will make sure there is ventilation.

4. I won't sleep in a tent in the Antarctic.
 
OceanSprint said:
Many thanks to all for the very informative responses - and especially to BSSOffice for the link to very good information. My conclusions are:

1. I will buy a good CO detector

2. I will not leave lamp or stove on when asleep

3. When I use lamp or stove I will make sure there is ventilation.

4. I won't sleep in a tent in the Antarctic.
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If you go to Antarctica (that is, on business, not as a tourist!) you might not have a choice. Even an office-based type like me had to spend one night in a tent as a training exercise.
 
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