My carbon monoxide detector is going off

[rafletcher]

Sounds like time[1] to go over the contract with a magnifying glass and see what sort of cover re response times etc you're actually paying for.

[1] Actually, the time for this was before you signed up.

There's always a caveat about "periods of exceptional activity" to allow a get-out of time "guarantees".

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I don't think phoning out of hours on Friday and being offered a Monday appointment is an excessive delay. It just seems worse because it's December, not July.

[Lucky]

Thanks for this thread, Kirst. I'd been pondering whether it's a coincidence that for the past month or two (i.e. since I've been regularly using the oil-fired heating) I've not been feeling great, with symptoms that could be consistent with low-ish levels of CO. You've provided the motivation I needed to go and buy a CO alarm, which has reassured me that I'm not about to keel over and die...

Hope you get your boiler sorted promptly and with minimal hassle.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I feel better in myself, systemically, if you know what I mean, but I've coughed right through last night and the night before, my throat is still sore on and off, the throat pain is moving into ear pain and my sinuses are filling up. Gah. The boiler man is coming today between 11-2 which is possibly the least convenient timeslot possible. No point going into work just to be there for an hour then come home again, and if he gets here at 2 he might well not finish till 4ish if it's something that can be fixed today, so I'll almost certainly not go in later. So I have taken today as holiday and am spending it wrapped in a blanket waiting for the bloke. The heating is broken at work again (4th time in 6 weeks) so I'm not too bothered about not being there.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Boiler man has been and put his probe right into the cavity.   He can't find anything wrong with the boiler at all, which is great news. He broke the rules to do a brief check of the cooker, which has nice blue cone flames, not "floppy yellow flames" so he thinks it's probably not that. He says it's most likely a faulty detector, but there is a possibility it could be the cooker. So I'm going to use it a lot this afternoon and if the detector goes off, I'll get a CORGI man out (or whatever they're called now), and if it doesn't, I'll assume it was just having a benny on Friday for no reason. Yay for not being dead!

[David Martin]

Sounds like a dodgy detector and genuine lurgy. But you did absolutely the right thing, and it is better to have a false alarm than a false non-alarm.

GWS. I am hoping the boiler man comes today to fix ours (took them a week to determine it was the fan that was bunk - apparently it was quite dramatic when he worked it out by spinning it by hand and nearly losing his eyebrows as the full burner burst into life..

Gas Safe Register is the new thing. The rules have been tightened so you *have* to pay Capita rather than being a competent person of which CORGI was a proof (but not the only proof).

..d

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yes, and better a real lurgy than real CO poisoning. So  for being alive!