Over the last decade, over 35% of all accidental carbon monoxide deaths in UK homes have been caused by gas appliances and of these 9% are from gas cookers alone. Gas cookers are extremely useful for cooking and grilling food but you shouldn’t use them to heat the home because many people don’t use them properly or maintain them.
Do people use carbon monoxide detectors?
Every death from carbon monoxide (CO) should be preventable. One of the reasons why people are still dying from it could be that CO alarms, are still not mandatory everywhere in the UK for gas, but only in Scotland. Those who do have carbon monoxide alarms installed need to regularly check and maintain them. Ideally replace them every few years even if they’re working.
Symptoms of CO poisoning
The NHS website gives the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning including:
- A tension type headache is the most common symptom
- Dizziness
- Feeling and being sick
- Stomach pain
- Shortness of breath and difficulty breathing.
Why are cookers not safe to use as heating in the home?
Carbon monoxide is odourless, colourless and tasteless and with a cooker being a flueless appliance – which means it doesn’t have a purpose-designed flue or chimney to get rid of combustion products, all of it will go into the room.
Why are flueless appliances allowed in the home if they are so dangerous?
Flueless appliances like cookers are allowed in the home because the usage pattern of the appliance is not regular and long lasting, rarely going over two hours at most. Unlike a boiler that can carry on running for the whole day in very cold weather.
But using a cooker for heating is dangerous because you will likely be running it for much longer than normal and many don’t have any safety features built in, like oxygen level sensors to shut it down when oxygen in the atmosphere gets low.
It also doesn’t have a carbon monoxide detector built in to recognise dangerous levels. To heat the room up, you would be opening the oven door, so all the CO would be pushed into the room to potentially dangerous levels, especially over long periods.
Gas cookers need to have access to direct air
One of the requirements in the UK when installing a gas cooker is to have at least an openable window or similar in the room, direct to outside air. When you’re trying to heat the home up, the window will likely be shut so the fumes have nowhere to escape and circulate in the room.
If you’re sleeping at that time, the cooker is fighting with you for the available oxygen it needs to function. Your bodily functions will probably fail quicker than the parts of the cooker!
With many homes in the UK now having cavity wall and loft insulation installed to stop heat escaping, this results in lower levels of air coming into the room which adds to the danger. Houses that have conservatories as an extension, have the added danger of not allowing enough air to come in or combustion fumes going out.
Conclusion
If for some reason your home heating system is not working, please don’t resort to turning the gas cooker on to heat up the place. It can be a dangerous appliance when not used for the intended purpose. If you do decide to use it though, and should you fall asleep, you may not wake back up!
