Is your portable generator killing you?

[MillCreek]

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/04/784279242/carbon-monoxide-poisoning-from-portable-generators-proves-predictable-and-deadly?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&fbclid=IwAR2OuZan_0bZhEEnatPGIP_IuDcYGNlSXb_P5xoRNWEPCTVwe5iI9axmUwI

It can still kill you if you are running it in the garage with an open door.

[Ben]

In a power outage, my generator will sit next to the outdoor breaker box that is wired to take it. I have a three-sided plywood enclosure that will go over it for rain/snow protection, and also as a sound buffer, because it's a loud SOB.

For the Winter, I started parking my tractor in the shop, but I just realized I need to back it in, because the exhaust blows out the front, so in very cold weather, where I'm high idling it for 5-10 minutes till it warms up, it's blowing exhaust directly into the shop even though the rollup door is open.

[Hawkmoon]

I have considered erecting a shed for my portable generator and then piping the exhaust through the exterior wall to the outdoors.

[Angel Eyes]

See Mike Irwin's signature.

[HankB]

Interesting read.

While I didn't think keeping the typical hinged single door (the kind people use  ) open would provide enough ventilation to run a generator in the garage, from the article even keeping the large garage door open is insufficient - and that's typically an opening at least 7' tall and 16' wide.

A former neighbor ran a generator in his basement. BUT . . . he was a professional HVAC engineer who ran the systems in a large commercial building, and he plumbed separate air intake and exhaust pipes himself, careful to be sure of good draw and separation to keep from recycling fumes. Had industrial grade valves on both intake and exhaust, and had an industrial CO detector "just in case." He never had a problem. (He said he was more concerned with gasoline vapor than CO, so he had additional venting of some sort in that room.)

[Declaration Day]

Mine is relatively quiet and I run it out on the rear deck of my house when I need it.

[K Frame]

Had a CO poisoning in the area here recently. Guy was working on rehabbing a house and had a gen going...

Inside.

[MillCreek]

When I first started working as an EMT and then a paramedic, that was the height of Vietnamese resettlement to the Seattle area, after the fall of Saigon.  Until there was better outreach and education to the Vietnamese community, there were several carbon monoxide poisonings every winter by people trying to stay warm by burning charcoal in a hibachi inside.  One of the local hospitals has a large hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and they really got a workout during those winters.

[dogmush]

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/04/784279242/carbon-monoxide-poisoning-from-portable-generators-proves-predictable-and-deadly?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&fbclid=IwAR2OuZan_0bZhEEnatPGIP_IuDcYGNlSXb_P5xoRNWEPCTVwe5iI9axmUwI

It can still kill you if you are running it in the garage with an open door.

No *expletive deleted*it, Sherlock.

It says that very thing in the instructions on the generator.  And usually on a sticker on the generator.  NPR is on the bleeding edge of investigative journalism here.

[Kingcreek]

Your generator might kill you but atleast you can go out with some lights on.