Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Fortunately this has not actually occurred, however it could have been a close thing. Last Friday we had some PSE&G (gas company) workers come to the house to replace some pipes so that the gas system can be converted to high pressure. In the course of their work they noticed something interesting. Apparently the exhaust from our hot water heater wasn’t hooked up properly and it was leaking Carbon Monoxide into our basement. In fact the exhaust wasn’t even connected at all. This work was done around thirteen years ago (although it probably wasn’t this bad, when it was first done). In that time Eli slept down there over Shabbat and during the summer and Chagim. Yoni spent hours down there playing his guitar or doing work away from the noise of the house. I slept down there for some Chagim, but I have spent a lot of time watching TV down there. We have been very lucky that none of us got hurt (although it can probably be debated which was worse for me, the small amount of Carbon Monoxide which may have been there, or the prolonged exposure to a TV). We have since had it fixed (although in my opinion it was a pretty shoddy job), although it is yet to be seen if it actually fixes the problem.

This is how it looked just at a glance (if you look closely the inverted funnel shapped object right at the top of the heater is not bolted to the heater).

This is where the exhaust from the heater enters the chimney (notice the big gap at the top, we think that it used to be caulked, but you shouldn't caulk that big of a gap)

This is me lifting the pipe right off the heater, I am not going to post pictures of the fix until it passes inspection