The evils of unvented combustion appliances

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toggleswitch

toggleswitch

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 12, 2005
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Location
New York City, NY
In a word: "DON'T".

The lanlord was wrong in making this into a multiple (family) dwelling when zoned and approved only as a single-family home.
Long Island does not allow such things to slide. NYC (two counties away) does.

So many factors come into play. It appears (I need to read the detals more) that the tenats did not pay their electric bill and had their service cut-off. I'm guessing there was one meter for all tenants to split the bill and this lead to disputes. Electricity is required to fire the fossil-fueled central-heating system.

So we have no heat and no electricty which lead to a generator and a kerosene heater.

New York state allows one electric meter more than the number of legal units. So in a case such as this a one-family house is allowed two meters. Ostensibly the addtional meter is for the lanlord to run the heating styem and common-area / oudoor lights. So again this horrid tragedy may have been ameloriated by the proper rewiring.

Sad when death is avoidable by thought.

(The story in the link may change over time)

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-licarb1121,0,2286648.story
 
The evil is more specific

To wit, a kerosene heater should NEVER be used inside a dwelling, vented or not.

There ARE approved natural and propane gas fired unvented heaters, but they have all sorts of safeguards built in that are missing in the average portable kerosene heater. Additionally, many states, such as California, don't allow unvented gas heaters anyway. Unvented gas ovens and stoves are allowed, but that's because the fuel consumption is so much lower, and the heat is generally located in a kitchen area, not in a sleeping area.

We'll be seeing more of these sorts of things. In the past I've seen stories of people dying from bringing a charcoal hibachi indoors for heating... stupid. If the CO doesn't get you, the likely building fire will.
 
~To wit, a kerosene heater should NEVER be used inside a dwelling.

AGREED!!!!!

Scarily, this is allowed by code on Long Island. Not allowed within NYC.

The (L.I.)newspaper was carefully worded to say "Do not use indoors for extended periods of time"
 
Sadly,I think we will see more of these tragedies as heating oil costs rise out of control. My oil company is charging $3.19 per gallon up from $2.39 last year. Luckily I haven't had to choose between heat, mortgage and food, but what about those who must do just that? It usually ends up being the most desparate people who suffer these tragedies....
 
How many times does the heat get turned up instead of a sweater getting added to one's attire? More than I care to remeber.

In apartment buildngs in poor neighborhoods I often see the gas oven going full-blast with the door open to heat an apartment that is already comfortably warm. The occupant is invariably in shorts and a T-shit or a cheap and flimsy (i.e. not heavy-weight/warm) house-dress. This is extremely unhealthy and downright dangerous. Put some clothes on!

Sadly, ignorant people (NOT necessarily a function of income/social class) do it to themselves.

If one insists on re-creating the carribean or the tropics in winter at least get and electric radiator. It's one of the the safest inexpensive-to-buy supplemental-heat options. (we are used to hot raidators here, and kids learn early-on don't touch!)

Probabably the SAFEST way to go is an air-condtiner that provides heat as well. No exposed hot surfaces except the air exhaust into the condtiones/heated space. But watch those curtains!

http://www.google.com/products?hl=e...0&q=delonghi+electric+radiators&um=1&ie=UTF-8
 
Toggle:

Your well reasoned "rant", *LOL* aside, one must consider why such persons use the oven instead of buying and using a supplemental heating source. In a word, money. Most landlords supply gas for cooking, but tenants pay their own electric bills. Electric heaters like air conditioners consume lots of power, and when the bill comes in.......

Saw the story on the news, and while sad, winter has not even begun yet so there probably will be more horrible events like the one above. Indeed as oil goes to near or over $100 per barell, heating cost will go up, and people may be caught between a rock and a hard place.

Homeowners may not be able to pay the higher costs for fuel. Landlords may not or wish to and cut back on heat. Either way it sets the stage for persons using dangerous means to supply heat. My heart goes out to young families and the elderly on very tight budgets and simply cannot cope with high heating costs. People tend to think of the NYC/Long Island area as VERY wealthy; well there are many familes in parts of LI and indeed in other parts of the City that may be wealthy on paper, but are getting their hinnies kicked in terms of cost of living.
 
Priorites, priorites, priorities.

~one must consider why such persons use the oven instead of buying and using a supplemental heating source. In a word, money.

Put a sweater on, your apt is plenty warm, as-is! Sadly oh so many who I have seen with the oven on run around in shorts and a T-shirt in January! "I can't afford it usually means, "it's not MY priority".

In the poorest of neighborhoods there is money "found" for gold jewelry, fancy sneakers, take-out food and car-service /taxis galore. Not to mention nail salons and liquor stores on every corner. We won't even discuss flat-screen televisions the size of China. And since I go into a great deal of poor homes as part of my job, I feel I can say that with a l bit of confidence that it is true.

Buy one less purse, one fewer pair of pumps and one less blouse and LIVE by diverting the money to safe heat, etc!

And trust me I have been very poor and ended up living in "The 'Hood" when I got tossed out of my parents' home & disowned when I was 19 y.o.
 
NYC poverty map.

This city may have pockets of wealth in terms of culture, job opportunities and educational opportunites; but it appears to also have an equal number of pockets of poverty.

11-21-2007-22-28-12--Toggleswitch.jpg
 
True povety is one thing, the poverty mentality is QUITE another......

BTW in those apt I have visited, there is PLENTY of heat in the other units of that building.

I stayed in a house in Cape Cod, MA.
THE HEAT WAS KEPT AT 55*F in order to save money. You know what? I got used to it over a four-day weekend and when I got back home, 70*F (22*C) seemed riduculously hot for a day or so.

So I really must say I see no reason (99% of the time) to use the gas stove for heat. It is just suicide.In NYC if a landlord does not provide heat (due to a broken boiler) in 3 days, the city will:

1) Fix it FOR you and bill you
2) Fine your @$$ off
3) While being fixed, if there is a furhter delay in getting it up an running they will set up a portable trailer with a boiler in it and connect it to your pipes/buildng.

So my point is, in NYC heating is taken VERY seriously and a phone-call or two will get the issue resolved PRONTO!

There is no need to run the gas stove continously and under normal circumstances for heat.
 
Interesting poverty map for NYC. I really wonder what a map would look like for the SF Bay Area. The NYC map makes me realize that I've never visted Harlem... and I would like to. The furthest uptown I got was around 104th ST the one time I visited back around '74. I was given dire warnings not to venture any further alone... lol...
 
Speaking of electric heat...

The shop where I work is very old and very drafty (settlement cracks in the walls big enough for a possum to get through!) and of course quite cold in the winter. There are also vents in the rafters that help suck any warmed air out almost as soon as it's generated. The management got a 3 phase electric space heater to help take the edge off, but last winter it really never got the place very warm. And currently the plug for the thing was cannibalized to run another piece of equipment, so they got some parabolic type electric heaters. These are actually pretty good; there's a model by Soleus that oscillates like a stand fan, and it has a quartz element so it broadcasts a sun-like radiance. It's a much more efficient way of warming people in a drafty workshop. And the sun-like glow just makes one feel happier. I liked the Soleus so much I bought one for my home workshop, so I can watch the Mieles go through their paces without freezing my chitlins.
 
"The occupant is invariably in shorts and a T-shit or a cheap and flimsy (i.e. not heavy-weight/warm) house-dress. This is extremely unhealthy and downright dangerous. Put some clothes on!
"

What about if you are truly uncomfortable in clothes?!?! Sounds odd, and I'm not trying to make any sleazy, sexual connotation out of it, but due to having aspergers, I find many clothes and fabrics uncomfortable rubbing against my skin, and I only wear clothing out of necessity. The lighter weight, the better, the less, the better! I'm generally more comfortable during the summer just wearing a pair of jogging shorts and a T-shirt.

" a model by Soleus that oscillates like a stand fan, and it has a quartz element so it broadcasts a sun-like radiance. It's a much more efficient way of warming people in a drafty workshop. And the sun-like glow just makes one feel happier. I liked the Soleus so much I bought one for my home workshop, so I can watch the Mieles go through their paces without freezing my chitlins. "

Now, I do it right and don't use the oven to heat with. My house has a combination of a heat-pump, and radiant floor heating to get the job done. Radiant heating works best anyways the more skin that is exposed. I'm perfectly comfortable basking in the warmpth like a chicken in the rotissere at the local supermarket!!! Three cheers for radiant heating!!!!
 
I use an unvented propane wallmount space heater in my bedroom. I have used it since winter 2000. It was bought new and never been mishandled or abused. It is safe if you ask me. It has an automatic shutoff O2 sensor. If the fuel supply is shut off from outside, the heater will automatically close up shop keeping the room safe from unburned propane. That baby has to burn efficient (99% claimed) or it will shut itself down. I run it off a ten gallon bottle which I keep outside bedroom window. I get 100 hours of burn time on the 5000 BTU Low setting or 50 hrs at 10,000 BTU. This is about 15 cents per hour of heat at the rate of 15.00 for a refill. Not too bad considering I only heat one room at night. Most nights I close down the rest of the house after dinner and retire to the bedroom, especially during cold spells. In Louisiana, a cold spell is considered if it gets into the 30's at night and not above 50 in the daytime.
 
~What about if you are truly uncomfortable in clothes?!?!

You are absolved. :-)
Others can't ALL be similarly affected!

~It has an automatic shutoff O2 sensor.
An oxygen-depletion sensor does not measure excessive carbon-dioxide or carbon monoxide. CO is colorelss, tastless and odooless. In a word udetectable. Perhaps like an ideal fart. Such a unit also does not monitor sulfuric or nitrous oxides that are given off either.

Let's put it this way. That heater gives off the same poisons you do when you exhale. Do you wantt to be breathing in what you body has proven it does not want? Not me!

The UK did a study that has shown that children that grow up with gas cooking (as opposed to electric cooking) have respiratory ailments at TWICE the rate of those with electric cooking. And the cooker/stove is only "on" for, let's say, three hours max a day figuring one hour per meal.

Cigarettes are allowed to be sold too; that does mean they are harmless.

One day go into an old pizzeria and look at the yellow film over the ovens from the gas burning, and those are VENTED ovens!
 
~Most landlords (In NYC)supply gas for cooking, but tenants pay their own electric bills.

Actually my experience indicates that most tenants in older buildngs (read: which is the kind exisitng in poorer neighborhoods) are seperartely metered for thier natural gas usage.

Perhaps the oven is used because there is less thought required. When using an electric heater in a poorly wired old building, one must juggle and balance their load/draw to avoid blowing fuses.
 
We had a sad fatality event here after Hurricane Rita. Some people were afriad that their gas generator would get stolen, so they brought it in and put it in a closet (hey, its ina closet, its gotta be safe since the door is closed!) Well, 5 people (at least two children - I can't remember now) died from CO poisoning. I personally thought the adults paid for their stupidity, but I was pissed that their stupidity caused the deaths of children as well.
 
NYC landlords were big on billing for gas. Old buildings had coin operated lighting fixtures in the apartments and I have even heard of coin op gas meters. In the O'Henry story about the room rented by the young woman, the landlady's friend asks her if she told the girl about the suicide of the young man who was the previous renter. Later the girl takes gas and does herself in the same way her lost boyfriend did a few days earlier in the same room. Robert Hope Jones, who invented the way of combining ranks of pipes in an organ so that they could be played together in what he called the unit orchestra, paved the way for theater organs. He was hired by Wurlitzer as a way to getting the rights to his invention. Once they had the secret, he was largely expendable and realized what they had done to him. His last invention was a way of taking gas that did not endanger anyone else. He ran a rubber hose from the fixture down to his bed. He taped the hose in one nostril and a short piece in the other. When he turned on the gas, he lit the escaping gas before he died so that it would burn off harmlessly. I read that in one of the most magical books I ever found titled The Best Remaining Seats about the evolution of the Movie Palace in the United States.

Most of you know the expression "limelight." It was used at the front of the stage in theaters before electric lighting for "foot lights." Gas was used to heat lime which gave off the brilliant greenish light for which theater make up had to compensate to give flesh tones. The light also had to be considered in the color of backdrops, etc. These lime salts are what the mantles of gas lanterns contain to give similar light.

Does anyone remember from reading Dreiser's Sister Carrie the descriptions of the theater district where he mentions the firesigns in the front of theaters? Those were kerosene or gas burning lamps arranged around the posters to illuminate them at night. Then there was the 70s group Firesign Theater.

Maybe Toggle, with his vast knowledge of old NY architecture will know about this. In the original film The Bishop's Wife with Loretta Young, David Niven and Cary Grant, there is an old parish church with a gated iron fence. In the Christmas Eve scene when worshipers are arriving, the arch over the gate is illuminated by little gas flames. I have never seen anything like it, nor have I any idea how to find out anything about this method of using gas for illumination other than the firesigns.

In Scarlet's grand Victorian home, there was a huge gasolier in the front hall by those steps, IIRC.
 
My grandmother has used open (unvented) gas space heaters as the primary heating source for over 50 years. Some years ago when a freak plumbing failure (could only happen to her!) caused water to seep into the gas lines and they all had to be redone, the plumbers refused to replace the lines run to the bedrooms and bathroom which is now prohibited, so she only has the one heater in the kitchen area. It's not enough to keep the house warm so we added window A/Cs with heat to the kitchen and one bedroom. She refuses to sleep in that bedroom because the bed is too high for her to get into it, so uses a portable electric heater in the other bedroom. We try to limit use of the gas heater, but being that she's freezing at less than 80°F, running the window unit that warm co$t$ too much.
 
I could usually tell when an open gas flame was used for space heating. There would be a telltale sort of mushroomy moldy smell in the home. One usually doesn't detect this when someone cooks with gas, probably because the amount of exhaust gases produced to heat a pot or even an oven are a lot less than when someone is trying to heat a large space.

At one time code dictated that gas ovens had to be vented. At some point it was decided that natural gas was clean enough not to require this, but one still sees vented gas ovens in older flats and homes. Of course, the venting genearlly represented an energy inefficient air leak to the outdoors, as these vents were generally without dampers (for safety's sake). I believe that gas wall heaters have the same problem - there must be some way for some room air to flow up the chimney along with the exhaust gases.
 
CH4 + O2 --> Co2 + H20 + heat + NOx + SOx

Methane (natural gas) + oxygen yields carbon-dioxide and water-vapor + heat + nirtous oxides + sulfuric oxides.

The water vapor released into the living space can cause a problem with mold /midlew / fungi if excessive.

Glenn:
OK, I can see no un-vented gas heaters in bedrooms, but why bathrooms? Is human natural gas THAT (so) combustible?

Regarding code changing to allow gas stoves to be uvented: Once electric lighting replaced gas/oil and candles as lighting, the air quality in living spaces improved drastically. Remember these sources of indoor pollution were unavoidable/un ventable. Now that these are gone perhaps the logic was that an unvented gas stove running 3+/- hours a day max is no big deal compared to the pollution that once was.
 
No good shall come of this Miss Scarlet!

Tom,
Sorry, No, I am not following the nuances of your post.

The only place in NYC that I am aware of with a series of tiny natural-gas flames are track de-icers on the curves and track-switches of the Jamaica station of the Long Island Rail Road.

~In Scarlet's grand Victorian home, there was a huge gasolier in the front hall by those steps, IIRC.
If anyone would kindly oblige by posting a picture, I'd be most greatful!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_lighting
 
Eliminating gas lighting *may* have helped indoor air quality, but switching to gas or oil fuel in place of coal did much more. Lights were only on for several hours per day, if that whereas coal heating was on 24/7 in colder months, and every day for ranges using coal. Add to this the coal dust wafting up from coal cellars, and homes were cloaked with coal dust, much to the worry of housewives and mothers.

One also must remember homes were not very air tight until rather recently. This is one of the reasons for those huge boilers/furnaces found in older homes. Installers sized the system much larger than required to take into account the "ventilation" caused by drafty windows and doors.

The other factor affecting "ventilation" was the great flu pandemic of 1914. Health authorites then advised people, especially housewives to keep windows slightly open, even in the dead of winter to keep buildings full of fresh air. This fresh air was supposed to flush germs, including those causing the flu out of the home. This trend persisted right up to almost the first energy crisis, which caused attention to become focused on how much heat was going out the window, thus prompting homeowners to better insulate their homes, and seal around windows and doors.

As for gas lighting giving off fumes, causing bad air quality, gas had to be much better than the candles or petrol lamps it replaced.

L.
 
~Eliminating gas lighting *may* have helped indoor air quality.
Yes it definitely did; it was 100% unvented.
Skylights in the central common hallways of much older buildings were vented to exhaust the bad air produced from burning gas-lights in hallways that were windowless.

~switching to gas or oil fuel in place of coal did much more.
Coal dust generated form moving unburnt coal (or the ashes when consumed) is another issue but almost all of the by-products of combustion (read: poisons)went up the chimney from all types of boilers and furnaces, regadless of fuel.

~gas had to be much better than the candles or petrol lamps it replaced.
Gas for light emits black sooty carbon as do candles or petroleum and its derivatives. (Beeswax candles are less unhealthy than parafin candles.) Of course the poisons of carbon-dioxide and carbon-monoxide are harmful regardless of source.

Older homes have 9 or 10 foot ceilings (say 3+/- meters) with a molding about one foot (30cm) down to facilitate painting the ceiling without paintining the whole room. Paints were oil-based and extremly expensive in the early days. Medallions were placed around ceiling-mounted (combustion) lighting fixtures, again to be able to wash the area as needed and paint over the soot without painting the whole ceiling. Wooden items such as furniture and paneling/ banisters, etc. tended to be dark in color to show less of the accumulating soot. [No folks, lighter colors don't get dirty faster, they simply show the dirt more! *WINK*]

http://laa.co.montgomery.oh.us/publications/NewsReleases/HomeHeating NR 122204.pdf
 
Careful this one has sound/music.

Fomr the linkie:

"Incomplete fuel combustion and a vent system that does not adequately remove the exhaust are the two basic failures to all combustion appliance Carbon Monoxide problems and very often these two failures are interrelated."

Newsflash: Unvented combustion appliances have a "vent system" that does not adequetly remove the exhaust!

http://www.expertinspector.com/CarbonMonoxide.html
 

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