Nighthawk CO detector - Suceptability to Chemicals

[Rich Stidger]

A while ago there was a post claiming that their CO detector was alarming and there seemed to be no CO source present.

I had replied at that time that I had a list of other vapors and chemicals that were known to set off a Nighthawk CO detector. I finally remembered to bring the list home from my boat and scan it.

This list was faxed to me from Kidde and it is applicable to their Nighthawk devices. I suspect that it is also applicable to other brands of CO detectors, but be aware that your mileage may vary.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Other stuff, too

One of our folks wrote about his detector alarming constantly. After many back and forths, we convinced him it was his faulty, old, single stage, bad, poor, horrible and ancient shorepower charger that was burning up his batteries. For some reason, he didn't like the first answer we gave him which was his charger, so he ripped his boat apart for a week or so trying to find something else! Go figure...

 

[Rich Stidger]

Stu,

The charger was a likely source if it was heavily charging the batteries. The batteries give off hydrogen and H is on the list.

 

[Tim R.]

I love these: Sewer gases, vapor from baby's diapers. I imagine there should be another related gas that they were too shy to add to the list: Magical fruit gas.

On a more serious note, I know someone who was sleeping in their boat at a slip and their alarm went off. It turned out to be the boat across the slip from them running their generator and the wind was blowing the exhaust right into their boat. In fact the dodger acted like a big scoop funneling the gases into the companionway.

 

[Rich Stidger]

You are correct Tim. I didn't mean to suggest that one ignore a CO alarm just because they were not running an engine or a CO generating device. One must always persist to discover the source of the alarm, and like your acquaintance, the source could be from someone else.

The point of the list of offending vapors is just to make others aware that there are a lot of substances that might not immediately come to mind that will set off a detector.

In my own case the detector went off at 2am and I was up for an hour checking every possible cause. I was on the hard and my batteries were charging heavily overnight. After shutting off the charger and opening the compartment housing the batteries, the CO ppm dropped. Days later I confirmed with Kidde that charging batteries were definitely a high suspect. That is when I asked them to send me the list I posted.

 

[Tim R.]

Wasn't trying to second guess you Rich. Just wanted folks to understand that your boat may be in order and bad things can still happen. When my friends woke up they immediately smelled the exhaust and had headaches so they traced it pretty quickly.