Short #73 - Ambient CO

HVAC School - For Techs, By Techs

Bryan Orr

Careers, Business, Self-improvement, Education

4.9 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2019

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this short podcast episode, Bryan talks about ambient CO. He also explains why it matters and what you do to check for it.

CO, carbon monoxide, is a colorless, odorless, and toxic gas that can result in death. It should not be confused with CO₂, carbon dioxide. Although our bodies inhale oxygen and not carbon dioxide, the latter isn't toxic if it gets into our bloodstream. CO, on the other hand, displaces oxygen, which proves deadly. Carbon monoxide can also build up in your bloodstream over time, so you want to avoid repeated exposure.

In some locations, you can expect some degree of ambient CO. For example, lots of car exhaust in busy cities can lead to a low amount of carbon monoxide in the air (a few parts per million). Most CO monitors detect much higher concentrations of carbon monoxide (around 100 parts per million).

When working in a place where carbon monoxide is a concern, such as in a home with gas appliances, be sure to use your instrumentation to measure CO in an occupied space. Also, check for carbon monoxide spilling out of the unit. Don't confuse ambient CO with the carbon monoxide found in combustion analysis; they are NOT the same. Ambient CO indicates a bigger problem like backdrafting.

Unlike standard CO monitors, you will want to use a personal ambient CO monitor that can measure down to 1 part per million for YOUR safety. Again, do NOT use combustion analyzers for personal protection! You can also offer higher-quality CO monitor/alarm suggestions to your customers.

Learn more about Refrigeration Technologies HERE.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is uh, this is Brian. Last time I checked that was my name. It's funny when I say
0:07.8	uh before I even say my own name, but you know it happens, it's one of those days.
0:12.0	This is a short episode. This episode is
0:15.0	about ambient carbon monoxide and I've talked about this before but I think it's worth
0:19.5	talking about again especially as we start to come into the fall and start doing fall p.m's I think it's one of the most
0:24.4	important things that you can do so we're going to talk about it but before we do that we're
0:28.2	gonna thank our sponsors our field peace and field peace dot. They have the JL three that is the job link
0:35.8	probes kits that you can find at True Tech Tools and at your local supply house that are all
0:40.4	over they are great they are my favorite way of testing,
0:44.2	charging, recovering, anything that you want to do with refrigerant other than
0:48.1	pulling vacuum. I like the JL3 kit from Field Piece and you may say well it's not a manifold it's a probe kit so
0:54.3	don't you need a manifold for recovering and charging and no you don't all you need
0:58.4	is a T so all you need is a T and it makes it nice and easy nice and compact that's one thing I really like
1:04.2	about it is the bag is just so easy to haul around especially if you're working commercial
1:08.6	and you're hauling things up on roofs carrying it around it's just much more manageable
1:12.1	to use the job link kit it's just much more manageable to use the job link kit. It's got extra space in there
1:15.2	so you can actually even roll up a hose, a ball valve hose, roll it up, stick it in there.
1:19.2	Just a great bag, great kit, the probes have excellent range on them. That is the field piece
1:24.2	job link probes. Also want to thank Speed Clean for all their support. We're
1:27.5	working on a new coil cleaning guide for Speed Clean that will be out really
1:30.8	soon with a great case study on the importance of
1:33.7	cleaning coils and if you want to clean coils well speed clean has some great
	...

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