Carbon monoxide detectors may be required in Wichita, Sedgwick County homes

A building inspector found poison gas in a Wichita home last week.

The gas was carbon monoxide, and the source was an improperly installed water heater.

“The inspector caught it,” said Tom Stolz, director of the Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department. “It was pumping carbon monoxide into the home.”

Unlike the common smoke detectors already required by the building codes in Wichita and Sedgwick County, a carbon monoxide detector senses the presence of the odorless but potentially deadly gas.

And a carbon monoxide detector may be in your future.

Stolz went before the Sedgwick County Commission last week to arrange for a public hearing on proposed updates to the building code. And one of the biggest revisions is a proposed requirement for carbon monoxide detectors in new homes and those that undergo significant remodeling or reroofing.

Stolz, a former Wichita deputy police chief, said dozens of residents have had to seek medical attention for carbon monoxide poisoning related to home exposure from appliances that use flame as a heat source, such as gas water heaters, furnaces and clothes dryers.

Carbon monoxide, often abbreviated CO, causes about 430 deaths a year across the country, according to research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When a person breathes carbon monoxide, it’s absorbed into blood cells, displacing life-sustaining oxygen.

Stolz said the usual scenario for a home carbon monoxide problem is improper installation of a new fuel-burning appliance. Gas, oil, coal and wood-burning appliances and heaters have to be vented to the outside through metal pipe.

Reroofing can also be a problem because the outlet vents are generally located on the roof. If workers aren’t careful, “those vents may get pounded down,” trapping the gas inside the home, Stolz said.

Carbon monoxide is often called “the silent killer” because it is odorless and colorless. Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include dull headache, weakness, dizziness, nausea or vomiting, shortness of breath, confusion and blurred vision, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Carbon monoxide alarms look much like smoke detectors and cost about the same. They range in price from $15 to $20 for a cheap battery-powered unit, to $30 to $45 for higher-end units that run off house power with battery backup.

The new code requirement, if it passes, would probably be met in most cases with combined units that can detect both smoke and carbon monoxide and sound the alarm for either. Those units cost between $35 and $60.

The County Commission set the public hearing on building code revisions for its April 22 meeting. The commission meets at 9 a.m. at the county courthouse, 525 N. Main.

The proposed county code revision would actually be a lighter burden than the international building code on which it’s based. The international code calls for a detector in all rooms with combustion appliances, and in or near the entrance to all bedrooms in a house.

The local version would require detectors in rooms with combustion appliances, but a single detector in a hallway could be used to cover several bedrooms.

Commissioner Dave Unruh said he probably will support the new requirement. He said a variety of experts participated in the code review process and “tried to come up with something good for the community.”

He said there doesn’t seem to be much opposition from the building industry and that passing the code revision would be good public policy.

Commissioner Jim Howell said he plans to take a close look at the proposal. He said he wants to balance the safety benefit against the potential cost, as he did when he was a state legislator and fought a proposal by fire officials for expanded fire sprinkler requirements.

He said there’s a strong case that carbon monoxide detectors are a valuable safety improvement, but he’s reluctant to make it a requirement if widespread use can be accomplished through education.

“I prefer to give people a choice,” he said.

This story was originally published March 21, 2015 at 6:25 PM with the headline "Carbon monoxide detectors may be required in Wichita, Sedgwick County homes."