What you Need To Know About Carbon Monoxide Detectors

Carbon monoxide is a silent and deadly gas that we all know about. However, not everyone is aware that we need to protect our homes and workplaces from its damaging effects. If you really want to make sure that you and your family are safe, then you should try finding carbon monoxide detector for sale just like I did. While we may not have evolved enough to protect ourselves naturally against this silent killer, our technology has. Today I’ll be going over the two most popular options when it comes to protecting yourself against carbon monoxide and how they work. Hopefully, after being informed about your options you can decide which one would work best for you and protect you best against this deadly gas.

The first kind of detector we will discuss is the chemical detector. These look quite simple and are usually made of plastic and have a beige coloured circle in the middle. This circle will tell you if there are dangerous amounts of carbon monoxide in the room. It does this by changing from beige to black. This is all possible thanks to the wonders of chemistry – it uses silica gel that has been impregnated with a catalyst. A catalyst is something that accelerates chemical reactions and is made up of chemicals including palladium and molybdenum salts. A few of the advantages that these kinds of detectors offer you is that they are inexpensive so they will only cost you a few dollars, some of the disadvantages is that they do not have an alarm so you have to be looking at it to notice the change which you might not do until it is too late. They also have to be replaced every three months so you end up spending the same amount as if you were to get something with a longer shelf life.

The second type of detector is called an electric carbon monoxide alarm and they come in different types. Some of the varieties include a colormetric detector, metal-oxide detectors, and electrolytic detector and while they all look similar they work in different ways. The colormetric detector uses chemistry similar to the last detector we went over, one the eye of this device changes colour it goes off with a loud alarm. The metal-oxide detector contains sensors that can tell when carbon monoxide is changing the metal and heating it up, the alarm will go off when too much heat is produced too quickly. These detectors are mostly battery operated so that is something you should keep in mind. The electrolytic detector uses chemistry and electric flows to trigger their alarm system, they are by far the most accurate, but this, of course, comes with a price tag. They also use power from electric outlets so if you need something that is portable this is probably not for you.

When you are thinking about protecting yourself and your family from carbon monoxide you should take into consideration whether you need something portable and whether you want something with an alarm. If you need it for your job then you will probably need something portable, if you need one for your home, then you want one that doesn’t need to be replaced or watched constantly. These are all important things to consider when you are looking for a carbon monoxide detector for sale. You can easily find good quality detectors online where you can browse and compare different models, so what are you waiting for? Keep yourself safe from carbon monoxide.