7 ms·

I had a pretty scary run in with CO from my car once and it had nothing to do with the keyless fob. My car with gasoline direct injection had two bad injectors

I had a pretty scary run in with CO from my car once and it had nothing to do with the keyless fob. My car with gasoline direct injection had two bad injectors fail while I was driving home. It went into limp mode. When I got home I inserted the OBD2 scanner to diagnose the issue in the garage. Because it was in limp mode, the engine was running rich and I guess producing a lot of CO in my garage. In the roughly 5 minutes it took me to start the car, get the code, and shut it off, it had produced a dangerous level of CO. I left the garage and went inside. About 30 minutes later while I was in bed my Nest smoke/CO detectors alerted me to CO in the hallway connecting my house to the garage. I ventilated the entire house and garage and the alarm stopped. I did get a light headache from the short exposure. Moral of the story, never run a car inside the garage with the door closed and always have CO detectors throughout the house. Nest probably saved my life that night from my own mistake. If we want a more general solution, we should look beyond the keyless fob and just make CO detectors a requirement. You don’t need fancy ones like Nest. Cheaper ones that cost 20 dollars still works.

tadfisher 8y ago
Yep, that's my rule even with properly-running engines: The car won't start until the garage door is open. If I could hack up some sort of ignition interlock such that an Arduino or Pi could broadcast a killswitch signal while the garage door is closed, I could more effectively enforce that rule.
- FeepingCreature 8y ago
  CO sensor outside the car to force a shutoff?
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    I've thought about installing a CO sensor that would open the garage door.
- luma 8y ago
  I built a quick project to address this from the other direction: https://github.com/aderusha/MQTTCarPresence https://github.com/aderusha/MQTTCarPresence If the car is turned on and in range of your home WiFi, it makes sure the door is open. This is mostly a convenience thing (when I leave home in the morning, it opens the door when I start the car and closes it after I leave, same process returning home) but it also address the concerns floated in the article.
jessaustin 8y ago
Attached garages are really a terrible misfeature, which will be emblematic for future generations (as they already are for those overseas) of our poor taste and judgement. No matter how ugly the house, it would be a lot more pleasant without the garage. In addition to the dangers cited here, garages make houses less effective at their primary purposes: controlling the movement of air, moisture, and heat. The garage door itself is a big part of that, since every time it opens and closes it opens the house completely to the outdoors. Automobiles bring moisture, dirt, heat, and noxious chemicals into the garage and thence into the house. I've never rented a house and been sorry there was no attached garage. If I ever build my own house it won't have one either.
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  I completely disagree with you. It's an enormous convenience in poor weather, with very minor risks that are easily mitigated (I can't believe there is anyone that doesn't have a CO detector and smoke detector at least on every floor, it should be illegal not to have them) and they can be very easily insulated. I have had both and I'd never have a place without a garage or carport.
  - scottlegrand2 8y ago
    Where I live, Santa Cruz, it's against the building code to insulate the garage lest it get converted into an unpermitted extra room. Speaking from experience here.
    - DonHopkins 8y ago
      That law would have more teeth in Maine.
      - TylerE 8y ago
        Insulation matters with heat too.
        8y ago
13of40 8y ago
Huh - how about a CO detector on the air intake of the engine that shuts it off if the concentration is too high.
- hedora 8y ago
  It is a little tricky to get right. For instance, it shouldn’t trip if the car is in motion. Even harder to get right (and very likely to increase the current, extremely low accidental CO death toll), it definitely shouldn’t trip if the car is stuck in stop-and-go traffic in a tunnel full of idling cars.
  - ars 8y ago
    I agree that halting the car could be very dangerous. But an alarm might be worthwhile. And if the car has not moved in say, 15 minutes, then shut it off (but allow it to be restarted - no lockout).
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    I think we're talking higher numbers than is possible in a tunnel. If there was as much CO in the air there that it would trip CO detectors, it wouldn't be safe for people to use.
- dralley 8y ago
  Ever seen a video of people having to drive through a wildfire to escape?
  - rpeden 8y ago
    This video from the FortMcMurray fire is one of my favorite examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieTQvIdG-Vo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieTQvIdG-Vo The craziness starts about 30 seconds in.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      I will never cease to be amazed how relatively orderly that evacuation was. Only two people died in that evacuation and that was due to a car crash. I think it's great evidence that, when the going gets really tough, people band together and try to do the right thing.
beamatronic 8y ago
>> never run a car inside the garage with the door closed Are you implying this is not common knowledge?
- dx034 8y ago
  Yes. I know a lot of people who start their engine while waiting for the garage door to open.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    The car's going to make a very small amount of CO in those fifteen seconds. If you take 'never' as 100% absolute then it's going to really distort your numbers, if your goal is counting how many people aren't aware of and safe around the danger.
    - nkrisc 8y ago
      The reason these sort of rules are absolute "never" are not because you'll end up with dangerous amounts of CO in 10 seconds, but because it makes it a simple rule to follow. Is 10 seconds OK? 15? 30? When does it stop being OK? Following an absolute rule eliminates much of the grey area where mistakes are made.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        It stops being okay when you're not opening the door "at the same time". Such a rule has minimal gray area and shouldn't cause mistakes.
        dx034 8y ago
        What if you open the door but the remote doesn't work? Then you go back inside and look for new batteries, meanwhile the car keeps running. Those cases will be rare but can occur. And switching on the car once the door is open costs at most 2 seconds.
refurb 8y ago
I would say you took a pretty big risk running a car for 5 minutes in a closed space. I've started a car briefly in a closed garage, but we're talking for maybe 10-15 seconds (post oil-change in the winter). Even then I started to wonder if I was taking too big a risk. 5 minutes is a long time!
- hangonhn 8y ago
  Yeah I didn't know better and was lulled into a false sense of security. For a couple of years, I always started my car first and opened the garage door and always shut the car off after the door came down. Why? Because my car's built-in garage door opener doesn't work with the car off. This hasn't been an issue for a long time and after a while I figured "a few minutes is okay". Also, I didn't grow up in a place with garages (coastal part of Florida) Gas heating is really not a thing there either (again because Florida). So CO poisoning wasn't a thing I learned to worry about. So the combination of ignorance and "it was okay if I ran the car inside for 15 seconds so it must be okay if I ran it a little longer". Dumb for sure but thankfully I did know enough about gas water heaters and gas stoves to have CO detectors installed throughout my house.
  - refurb 8y ago
    Doing rough math - A 2L engine uses 1L of air every cycle. At 1000 rpm, that's 500L (or .5 m^3) of air every minute. A single car garage is 4m x 2m x 3m or 24 m^3. Running the car for 5 minutes just exchanged ~10% of the air for exhaust. I'm sure my math is wrong somewhere and someone will come by to mention it's the CO concentration, not the % of air consumed (which is true), but it's interesting math none the less.
jordache 8y ago
5 min? that's a long time to run a car for in an enclosed space
- hangonhn 8y ago
  Yeah it was pretty dumb but I grew up in the coastal parts of Florida. People there don't usually have enclosed garages and gas heating really isn't a thing. CO poisoning isn't something I really learned about growing up. I only knew of it via pop culture (i.e. "Office Space").

tadfisher 8y ago

Yep, that's my rule even with properly-running engines: The car won't start until the garage door is open. If I could hack up some sort of ignition interlock such that an Arduino or Pi could broadcast a killswitch signal while the garage door is closed, I could more effectively enforce that rule.

FeepingCreature 8y ago
CO sensor outside the car to force a shutoff?
- organsnyder 8y ago
  I've thought about installing a CO sensor that would open the garage door.
luma 8y ago
I built a quick project to address this from the other direction: https://github.com/aderusha/MQTTCarPresence https://github.com/aderusha/MQTTCarPresence If the car is turned on and in range of your home WiFi, it makes sure the door is open. This is mostly a convenience thing (when I leave home in the morning, it opens the door when I start the car and closes it after I leave, same process returning home) but it also address the concerns floated in the article.

jessaustin 8y ago

Attached garages are really a terrible misfeature, which will be emblematic for future generations (as they already are for those overseas) of our poor taste and judgement. No matter how ugly the house, it would be a lot more pleasant without the garage. In addition to the dangers cited here, garages make houses less effective at their primary purposes: controlling the movement of air, moisture, and heat. The garage door itself is a big part of that, since every time it opens and closes it opens the house completely to the outdoors. Automobiles bring moisture, dirt, heat, and noxious chemicals into the garage and thence into the house. I've never rented a house and been sorry there was no attached garage. If I ever build my own house it won't have one either.

throwaway5752 8y ago
I completely disagree with you. It's an enormous convenience in poor weather, with very minor risks that are easily mitigated (I can't believe there is anyone that doesn't have a CO detector and smoke detector at least on every floor, it should be illegal not to have them) and they can be very easily insulated. I have had both and I'd never have a place without a garage or carport.
- scottlegrand2 8y ago
  Where I live, Santa Cruz, it's against the building code to insulate the garage lest it get converted into an unpermitted extra room. Speaking from experience here.
  - DonHopkins 8y ago
    That law would have more teeth in Maine.
    - TylerE 8y ago
      Insulation matters with heat too.
      - 8y ago

13of40 8y ago

Huh - how about a CO detector on the air intake of the engine that shuts it off if the concentration is too high.

hedora 8y ago
It is a little tricky to get right. For instance, it shouldn’t trip if the car is in motion. Even harder to get right (and very likely to increase the current, extremely low accidental CO death toll), it definitely shouldn’t trip if the car is stuck in stop-and-go traffic in a tunnel full of idling cars.
- ars 8y ago
  I agree that halting the car could be very dangerous. But an alarm might be worthwhile. And if the car has not moved in say, 15 minutes, then shut it off (but allow it to be restarted - no lockout).
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  I think we're talking higher numbers than is possible in a tunnel. If there was as much CO in the air there that it would trip CO detectors, it wouldn't be safe for people to use.
dralley 8y ago
Ever seen a video of people having to drive through a wildfire to escape?
- rpeden 8y ago
  This video from the FortMcMurray fire is one of my favorite examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieTQvIdG-Vo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieTQvIdG-Vo The craziness starts about 30 seconds in.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    I will never cease to be amazed how relatively orderly that evacuation was. Only two people died in that evacuation and that was due to a car crash. I think it's great evidence that, when the going gets really tough, people band together and try to do the right thing.

beamatronic 8y ago

>> never run a car inside the garage with the door closed Are you implying this is not common knowledge?

dx034 8y ago
Yes. I know a lot of people who start their engine while waiting for the garage door to open.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  The car's going to make a very small amount of CO in those fifteen seconds. If you take 'never' as 100% absolute then it's going to really distort your numbers, if your goal is counting how many people aren't aware of and safe around the danger.
  - nkrisc 8y ago
    The reason these sort of rules are absolute "never" are not because you'll end up with dangerous amounts of CO in 10 seconds, but because it makes it a simple rule to follow. Is 10 seconds OK? 15? 30? When does it stop being OK? Following an absolute rule eliminates much of the grey area where mistakes are made.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      It stops being okay when you're not opening the door "at the same time". Such a rule has minimal gray area and shouldn't cause mistakes.
      - dx034 8y ago
        What if you open the door but the remote doesn't work? Then you go back inside and look for new batteries, meanwhile the car keeps running. Those cases will be rare but can occur. And switching on the car once the door is open costs at most 2 seconds.

refurb 8y ago

I would say you took a pretty big risk running a car for 5 minutes in a closed space. I've started a car briefly in a closed garage, but we're talking for maybe 10-15 seconds (post oil-change in the winter). Even then I started to wonder if I was taking too big a risk. 5 minutes is a long time!

hangonhn 8y ago
Yeah I didn't know better and was lulled into a false sense of security. For a couple of years, I always started my car first and opened the garage door and always shut the car off after the door came down. Why? Because my car's built-in garage door opener doesn't work with the car off. This hasn't been an issue for a long time and after a while I figured "a few minutes is okay". Also, I didn't grow up in a place with garages (coastal part of Florida) Gas heating is really not a thing there either (again because Florida). So CO poisoning wasn't a thing I learned to worry about. So the combination of ignorance and "it was okay if I ran the car inside for 15 seconds so it must be okay if I ran it a little longer". Dumb for sure but thankfully I did know enough about gas water heaters and gas stoves to have CO detectors installed throughout my house.
- refurb 8y ago
  Doing rough math - A 2L engine uses 1L of air every cycle. At 1000 rpm, that's 500L (or .5 m^3) of air every minute. A single car garage is 4m x 2m x 3m or 24 m^3. Running the car for 5 minutes just exchanged ~10% of the air for exhaust. I'm sure my math is wrong somewhere and someone will come by to mention it's the CO concentration, not the % of air consumed (which is true), but it's interesting math none the less.

jordache 8y ago

5 min? that's a long time to run a car for in an enclosed space

hangonhn 8y ago
Yeah it was pretty dumb but I grew up in the coastal parts of Florida. People there don't usually have enclosed garages and gas heating really isn't a thing. CO poisoning isn't something I really learned about growing up. I only knew of it via pop culture (i.e. "Office Space").