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From: Rosalie B. (no email)
Date: Tue Oct 02 2001 - 08:15:56 EDT
On Tue, 02 Oct 2001 07:25:04 -0400, you wrote:
>> Please be safe everyone.
We have only electric heaters for at the dock, and on the hook we just wear
more clothes to bed. We sleep in the aft cabin, so running the stove is
not an option as it is in the main saloon. We have kerosine lamps which
help a little, and we leave the door to the head open because the engine
room is just on the other side of that and it holds its heat for quite
awhile.
>How do gasoline engines and diesel engines compare with respect to
>carbon monoxide production? Is diesel any safer in that respect than
>gasoline?
I used to do industrial health work before I retired, and one of the things
I did on occasion was sample for carbon monoxide at various sites (trash
transfer stations, stores where they used a propane floor buffer,
warehouses or factories where they used gas, diesel or propane fork lifts,
and other such sites).
First it is important to know that carbon monoxide does not have to
displace oxygen to kill you. The CO has a greater ability to bond with the
hemoglobin in the blood than oxygen does. There can be plenty of oxygen,
and that little tiny amount of CO will still kill you.
Having said that, when I sampled exhausts from vehicles (at the transfer
station), the big diesel trash trucks made hardly any impression on the
meter while little pickup trucks and cars would peg it right over.
I packed away my technical books, but when you are figuring how much
ventilation one needs for a space where a non-electric fork lift is used, I
think I remember that gasoline takes more ventilation than the other two
propulsion methods. I can't recall for sure whether diesel or propane
needed the least but I THINK it was propane.
However running a propane floor buffer in a Janesway store for less than an
hour and a half in the morning with the ventilation off produced enough
carbon monoxide so that the concentration in some areas of the store to
make the level over safe limits and also enough to give the employees bad
headaches. Sampling devices on employees reached the allowable limits for
8 hours by lunchtime.
I have a friend with a genset, but he won't run it until he gets the CO
monitors installed, and I think he has the right idea. If I was going to
burn anything other than a candle, to get warm, I'd want the CO detector
with a good loud alarm first.
grandma Rosalie
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