Kidde Nighthawk Gas and CO Detector

Background
Back in 2001, my wife complained to me that she smelled gas, and advised me that she was concerned that we might have a gas leak. Not being much of a "nervous nelly," I went into the laundry room, where our heater is located, and attempted to determine if I could smell any gas. I couldn't smell anything unusual, and reassured my wife that everything was okay. My response did not satisfy her. It was late in the evening, but she doggedly kept after me about the gas. I finally told her she could go buy a detector, if she was that sure that we had a gas leak. I felt like the Carbon Monoxide detector we had was adequate protection. I would soon find out how wrong I was. My wife went to several stores, finally purchasing a Kidde Nighthawk Multi- Hazard carbon monoxide/explosive gas alarm. She purchased this unit from Menard's home improvement store for $54.00.

Set-up
Setting up this alarm was a breeze. However, the instruction booklet has about a dozen pages worth of information regarding this alarm. I looked over the important stuff, inserted the battery back-up, and plugged the unit into a wall socket that is near the ceiling. This unit is very simple to operate, and includes detectors for propane as well as natural gas. If you have a propane heater, you should place this unit near the floor for best results. Because I use natural gas, I plugged the unit into a high outlet, as the instruction indicated. After testing the unit, and observing the easy-to-read digital display, we went to bed.

A Rude Awakening
Around one o'clock in the morning, I was rudely awakened by the shrieking beep, beep, beep, beep of the alarm. I looked up at the alarm and observed the Carbon Monoxide readout shooting skyward. When the alarm detects gas, the word "GAS" will display in the monitor. If the unit detects carbon monoxide, it will display the PPM (Parts Per Million) of carbon monoxide detected. According to the book, the lower threshold of PPM is around 30. OSHA recommends no more than 8 hours exposure to 50 PPM. The display on my unit was moving upward past 70 as I jumped out of bed. I noticed that the heater was running. My wife and I agreed that we should immediately shut off the heater, which she did. She also opened the front door of the house, allowing an exchange of fresh air. I watched the monitor on this unit, as it slowly dropped back to a moderate range. It finally dropped below 50 PPM, and I felt that it was safe to reset the unit, and remain in the house. It was a cold night, with plenty of blankets, but the exchange of fresh air was reassuring.

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