TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR CO

A recent health and safety prosecution highlights the responsibilities of councils, housing providers, landlords and others to protect building occupants from carbon monoxide poisoning, which continues to claim at least 50 lives each year. Reliable CO alarms play an important role in carbon monoxide safety and there is a compelling case for their installation in all homes – existing and new.

Carbon monoxide can be produced by any fuel burning appliances resulting from the incomplete combustion of carbon based fuels including bottled or mains gas, coal, oil and wood. But the main difficulty with CO is that the dangers are often far from obvious. Shared flues can cause unexpected problems and there have been instances of CO from flues discharging onto common areas affecting neighbouring properties – sometimes with lethal consequences. Even overheating electric night storage heaters have been implicated in CO poisoning. And - as the UK government’s Chief Medical Officer has stressed – CO poisoning can occur in any type or age of property, including brand new housing. How many homes are being built today with integral garages leading into the house – fire rated but with nothing to stop CO? While nothing can replace an effective heating maintenance programme, CO alarms are a cost-effective means to prevent death and injury in all cases.

Despite this, they are not yet required under the Building Regulations, although a growing number of American States already demand CO alarms in all housing. But they are encouraged by the government’s new Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), linked to the Decent Homes Standard. Also, landlords and other organisations do have a clear duty of care to protect occupants – and failure can be expensive, as one Council found out with a substantial fine resulting from CO poisoning in a primary school and breach of health and safety laws. The introduction of corporate manslaughter provisions this year is also likely to highlight this issue. However, some leading affordable housing providers have already taken a responsible approach – such as ‘Home’ group which is well on course to fit 13,000 Kidde Fyrnetics carbon monoxide alarms in all of its properties in the North East of England.

As with smoke and heat alarms, reliability is essential to ensure long-term performance. The Health and Safety Executive and CORGI strongly recommend audible CO alarms which comply with European Standard BS EN 50291:2001 and carry an appropriate European approval mark, such as the BSi Kitemark. They should also be CORGI approved and use electrochemical technology with a stable performance over time, proven by independent and accredited laboratories. Manufacturers that produce their own CO cells – the key component – rather than buying them in, can apply tighter quality controls and safer ionised water is preferred over acid based electrolytes.

In new buildings and major refurbishment or upgrade, mains powered CO alarms are ideal with sealed-in, rechargeable lithium cells for back-up, preventing tenant access. These should be interlinked and – in some cases – can even interconnect with the same manufacturer’s smoke and heat alarms. Where hard wiring is not viable, battery powered units are also available, as well as plug-in mains CO alarms for transferable protection. The latest information on avoiding carbon monoxide poisoning using CO alarms is available in an updated brochure available free of charge via www.smoke-alarms.co.uk

using the ‘Contact Us’ link.

 4/2008