Every winter you hear or read another tragic story about an entire family killed by their own home's heating system. The most recent example is a family of four in Missouri, all of whom apparently succumbed to a carbon monoxide leak from a "poorly maintained" furnace. Two years ago it was a vacationing family in a rental house near Aspen, CO, due to a new but improperly installed furnace flue. And these are just a couple of examples out of hundreds each year. Each year in the US over 500 people die from carbon monoxide poisoning, and many if not most of these deaths could be avoided with a simple $20 carbon monoxide alarm. It doesn't have to be poor maintenance or faulty installation, either. Even certain atmospheric situations (wind, for example) can lead to a back-drafting furnace or water heater that ends up pouring flue gasses into your house, rather than venting them to the outside.
If you have ANY gas appliances in your house -- stove, oven, furnace, boiler, water heater, etc. -- and you don't yet have a CO detector (or if you don't know whether you do or not), do yourself and your family a good service and march on down to your favorite hardware store or home center (or Target, Sears, K-Mart, etc.) and buy a CO alarm. $20 or $30 is a very good investment, considering what's at stake.
For a good primer on CO safety from the EPA, click here. If you're reading this, please take a couple of minutes to review this site.
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