Properly equip your home with carbon monoxide alarms on every level and outside sleeping areas.* The only safe way to detect CO in your home is with a CO alarm. Several things may be causing your Kidde carbon monoxide alarm to sound or chirp. Understanding what the beep pattern indicates is essential to keeping your home and family safe, especially if a CO beep is notifying end-of-life mode, since then it can no longer detect carbon monoxide. Your alarm may have detected carbon monoxide. Make sure that you know how to respond to a CO emergency.

FireAngel is a major player in the field of CO, fire and smoke detection and this unique system is clearly a clever, albeit pricey, way to protect the entire household in one fell swoop. Hint: If you installed CO alarms 5-7 years ago, it's time to install new carbon monoxide detectors.

Where Should I Install Carbon Monoxide Alarms?

ppm: Headache and dizziness after 1-2 minutes; unconsciousness and danger of death after 10-15 minutes of exposure. The Nest Protect passed our sealed incense test with flying colours: the smoke alarm went off first, followed by the CO alarm five minutes later; according to the app, the CO level was 414ppm and increasing. We can’t think of a better CO currently alarm on the market, particularly as it also detects smoke. ppm: Headache, nausea, and dizziness after 5-10 minutes; collapse and unconsciousness after 30 minutes of exposure. You may be experiencing a nuisance alarm. Follow the procedure for handling false carbon monoxide alarms.

Carbon monoxide sensors have a finite lifespan of between five and seven years, although a few manufacturers now claim that their sensors will last a full ten years. Generally speaking, it’s worth playing it safe and replacing your alarm a year or two before its life is supposed to run out. Tests in the US have shown that alarms over eight years old can fail to detect CO at levels of above 400ppm. Most manufacturers suggest locating your alarm next to or near a gas appliance, and it’s worth having one in the same room as any fire or wood-burning stove. It should be around 1.5m from the ground and at least 30cm away from any ceiling, and most can be mounted on a worktop, shelf or table – or simply mounted on the wall.

How Do I Dispose of a Carbon Monoxide Alarm?

The chemical makeup of the two gasses is slightly different, but the difference in their effects is extreme. Carbon dioxide is mostly harmless, while carbon monoxide can be fatal. The Peak Level reading is a memory of the highest reading taken by your carbon monoxide alarm since its last reset or power-up. The Peak Level display feature will display levels between 11-999 PPM. Although the Peak Level feature will display levels below 30 PPM, these levels will not result in an alarm no matter how long the device is exposed to these levels. Most people will not experience any symptoms from prolonged exposure to CO levels of under, say, 40ppm. It depends on the length of exposure, but the real danger level starts at around 400ppm (two to three hours of exposure at this level can be life-threatening). To give you some idea of how dangerous higher levels of concentration can be, 1,500ppm could result in death within an hour and 6,000ppm within 15 minutes. Everyone knows how important it is to have a smoke alarm in the home. If a fire breaks out while you’re asleep, the smoke it emits will set off the alarm, hopefully giving you time to get out before being asphyxiated by the fire’s deadly concoction of chemical gases.

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) comes from our breath (humans and animals breathe it out) and the burning of fossil fuels.

The best carbon monoxide alarms you can buy in 2023

All of these concentrations are bad enough when you’re awake and realise that something isn’t quite right – especially if others are feeling a similar effect – but if you’re asleep, you may wake up with a severe headache and nausea and be incapable of even crawling for fresh air. Worse, you might not even wake up at all. Why should I be concerned?