Hi all,
My caravan is a 2011 Swift Conqueror 530.
It is fitted with a Carbon Monoxide detector which, until this week, had
just been sitting there quietly in its position on the wall.
In the small hours of Tuesday morning, while we were on holiday in Wales, we
were woken by the sound of the alarm going off. A quick check of the user
information showed that this was not a ‘low battery’ warning but a proper alarm
signal. I didn’t want to wake the people in nearby
caravans and the only way that I could silence the alarm was to remove the
batteries.
No gas equipment was running at the time, or had been for several hours. The
fridge was operating on mains electricity, as was the Alde heating (the central
heating itself was not running, as the thermostat was set to a low figure, just
the water heater was on).
I was a bit puzzled as to the possible source of CO, as I had always
associated it with the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, and I couldn’t see
how this applied to my situation.
Although I know that the sensible advice is to get outside as soon as an alarm occurs, I
didn’t really feel like doing this in the middle of the night. As neither of us appeared to be suffering from any of the symptoms of CO
poisoning, I opened the windows and the roof light wide to get some
ventilation. We sat there awake for a couple of hours, still feeling ok, and
then went back to sleep.
In the morning, I put the batteries back in the alarm, and all seemed well
again. However, at 1.30 am on Tuesday morning, the alarm went off again. I followed the same procedure as for the
previous night.
I was worried that we may have a serious problem, so I went to a nearby
electrical store and bought another CO detector, this time with a readout of
the CO level in parts per million (ppm). On Wednesday night, both of the detectors were
in use, with the same caravan equipment running again, but there was no further alarm,
and the readout on the new detector remained at zero.
On Thursday, we came home and parked the caravan in the back garden. I
connected a mains hook-up lead to keep the battery charged, as I normally do. We went out for a couple of hours, and when we
returned, we heard the sound of the CO alarm coming from inside the caravan.
The readout on the scale was 140ppm.
This time, the gas was turned off at the cylinder, and the Alde heating
and fridge were also off. The mains electricity was on but the only equipment
running in the caravan was the battery charger and the intruder alarm.
I removed the CO alarm from the caravan and took it indoors, where the
reading fell to zero after a few minutes. I put it back in the van on the following
morning, without altering anything from the previous day, and it has now been
there for about 36 hours, still reading zero.
I’ve read on the internet of instances of hydrogen being produced from
battery charging causing a CO alarm to operate.
I don’t know if that’s happening in my case – and isn’t the battery box
sealed from the van interior anyway?
I’m not sure what’s going on – does anyone have any ideas?
My caravan is a 2011 Swift Conqueror 530.
It is fitted with a Carbon Monoxide detector which, until this week, had
just been sitting there quietly in its position on the wall.
In the small hours of Tuesday morning, while we were on holiday in Wales, we
were woken by the sound of the alarm going off. A quick check of the user
information showed that this was not a ‘low battery’ warning but a proper alarm
signal. I didn’t want to wake the people in nearby
caravans and the only way that I could silence the alarm was to remove the
batteries.
No gas equipment was running at the time, or had been for several hours. The
fridge was operating on mains electricity, as was the Alde heating (the central
heating itself was not running, as the thermostat was set to a low figure, just
the water heater was on).
I was a bit puzzled as to the possible source of CO, as I had always
associated it with the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, and I couldn’t see
how this applied to my situation.
Although I know that the sensible advice is to get outside as soon as an alarm occurs, I
didn’t really feel like doing this in the middle of the night. As neither of us appeared to be suffering from any of the symptoms of CO
poisoning, I opened the windows and the roof light wide to get some
ventilation. We sat there awake for a couple of hours, still feeling ok, and
then went back to sleep.
In the morning, I put the batteries back in the alarm, and all seemed well
again. However, at 1.30 am on Tuesday morning, the alarm went off again. I followed the same procedure as for the
previous night.
I was worried that we may have a serious problem, so I went to a nearby
electrical store and bought another CO detector, this time with a readout of
the CO level in parts per million (ppm). On Wednesday night, both of the detectors were
in use, with the same caravan equipment running again, but there was no further alarm,
and the readout on the new detector remained at zero.
On Thursday, we came home and parked the caravan in the back garden. I
connected a mains hook-up lead to keep the battery charged, as I normally do. We went out for a couple of hours, and when we
returned, we heard the sound of the CO alarm coming from inside the caravan.
The readout on the scale was 140ppm.
This time, the gas was turned off at the cylinder, and the Alde heating
and fridge were also off. The mains electricity was on but the only equipment
running in the caravan was the battery charger and the intruder alarm.
I removed the CO alarm from the caravan and took it indoors, where the
reading fell to zero after a few minutes. I put it back in the van on the following
morning, without altering anything from the previous day, and it has now been
there for about 36 hours, still reading zero.
I’ve read on the internet of instances of hydrogen being produced from
battery charging causing a CO alarm to operate.
I don’t know if that’s happening in my case – and isn’t the battery box
sealed from the van interior anyway?
I’m not sure what’s going on – does anyone have any ideas?