Air quality in room above furnace, water heater

We have an 1899 brownstone in Bed-Stuy, and sleep in a bedroom right over the boiler and hot water heater. Building has radiator steam heat. Even in summer, with heat off, we notice that sleeping even one hour in our bedroom leaves us feeling like our skin is drying out and we aren’t getting enough oxygen. We have a simple cheap smoke/CO detector that doesn’t seem to be complaining, but something is wrong. The room is in the front of the house, on a decently trafficked street (Putnam Ave around Tompkins), and sleeping in the room at the back of the house feels fine — it’s not over the boiler/furnace or water heater. Both of those are gas powered. There is an old fireplace in our bedroom, and we haven’t had the chimney looked at forever… The boiler/furnace and heater exhaust into that chimney from the cellar. Could CO be coming into our room via the chimney flue? Is the air just burned to a crisp somehow by being above the flames? We usually have windows pretty open, but we experience this even with a breeze coming in. Might be a little better with fan on blowing air in. Any ideas what might be going on? Is it just the crappy air of a trafficky Brooklyn street?

brw12

in Heating 10 years and 10 months ago

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cmu | 10 years and 10 months ago

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If the furnace is turned off for summer (does not provide hot water) it’s very unlikely for say the pilot light to produce any significant CO. And you can turn that off and check. That leaves the water heater. You could turn that off too and see if symptoms continue. I’d think of the chimney as the main culprit, but more likely, since you ‘have windows open’, it’s street air. Your symptoms are not typical mild-to-acute CO poisoning, either. Forget greenmtn’s fearmongering. Lead shower pans a danger? Only if you lick ’em.

cate | 10 years and 10 months ago

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As to your specific questions, yes it is possible exhaust from the street or from the chimney could be the culprit. Do you have the problem with the windows closed? Do they shut properly? Testing the chimney is more difficult. You could invite a heating specialist plumber with a sensitive C02 meter over to check the room — which may or may not find anything. You could also get a chimney expert to look at the chimney, but again this may or may not be conclusive. If you don’t suspect other scenerios described above but don’t find anything with testing but still have a problem, you could just replace the liner anyway. Costs about $4,000 or so (depending on the height of your chimney, etc.) and is a messy job.

brw12 | 10 years and 10 months ago

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Great ideas, people! Thanks!

Augustiner | 10 years and 10 months ago

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The chimney in exactly the same room in my house was releasing all kind of smells from the guy living next door in the cellar (!). To test where your air goes, do the $2 test I invented recently: buy a bundle of incents, light them up in your cellar – go upstairs and sniff if the scent comes through somewhere.

Green Mountain | 10 years and 10 months ago

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How Many Parts/million does your CO detector detect? 25PPM? 35PPM? 50PPM? If you have one as required by NYC, than it won’t alert you when your kids are slowly getting stupid. It will only let you know if they will get sick and die if you don’t take action soon. You may learn more if you shop on line for a detector measuring 7PPM. I have two, which is one more than I need. They are made by “CO-Experts.” I can sell one to you. Look for me (Green Mountain) in the directory under shower stalls. While on that topic, just as you may have thought the CO problem was “fixed” by a law, the lead paint law has nothing to do with old lead shower pans or new installation of lead pans. Maybe it is the low-level CO we breath, thinking we are safe now with our high-level detectors, making us too stupid to change the law about lead shower pans in our homes, which also makes us too stupid to remember it is there, while we presume the lead problem is “fixed” because of the (residential) paint law.