death at Talladaga campgrond

Statistically speaking, it is not *your* generator that will kill you, it's your neighbors generator you have to watch out for.

If the generator is portable, where are people keeping theirs? When we used ours at night, or daytime for the a/c, we kept it at a distance equal to the cable, or about 25ft. We chain it up and that is the best you can do. I know people can cut the handle, etc. We point the exhaust away from us or down wind. This is when we are boondocking and not near others.

In cooler weather I don't need to run the generator at night. But, down here, I need to run at least one air conditioner at night. I've never experienced not even a beep, nor a headache.

The Dung Beetles wrote:

bazdad wrote:
How do we test the sensors? I do not know how.

Ours has a little red button on the front that says "test".
.

That's what I thought after I bought my TT . It was a 2000 model and got it a few months ago. Lights for the propane and CO detector were both green and pushing the button did the normal alarm thing.

They were both 8 years out of date!! (13 years old)
I tested the LP detector with a propane torch and it didn't make a peep .

I promptly replaced both.
Smoke detector went off after first use of oven while baking some late night munchies , so that was good.

The detectors have an effective life of so many years depending on the manufacturer. My MH is almost 9 yrs old and the all 3 detectors should have been replaced anywhere from 5 to 7 yrs. So you can see I waited too long. Each winter I review all the paperwork/warranties, etc and realized I had not seen the warranties on all 3 detectors so I replaced all 3 last spring. Ironically my propane leak detector activated a couple of days after I had order replacements. I checked everything for safety's sake and found the detector to be defective but no leaks. I replaced all of them before we took our big summer trips. A word to the wise so be safe y'all. :B

Tom N wrote:
I never run my generator when sleeping. I would not run it even with a tailpipe extension. More and heavier blankets is our safer solution.

-Tom

Blankets work. I prefer to snuggle up to that warm body next to me.

I never run my generator when sleeping. I would not run it even with a tailpipe extension. More and heavier blankets is our safer solution.

-Tom

Francesca Knowles wrote:
Link to news story.

Is running a generator while sleeping a common practice??? That's exactly the same thing that killed five people in in one RV back in 2011, only in their case it was a portable set up too close to the rig.

I was asking myself the same question. I could be wrong but I don't think most RVers would run a gen overnight. (Of course, organized camping situations don't allow it, with generator hours posted.)

I guess no one will never know, but it's possible that wasn't their original plan...I wondered if maybe their coach battery had run low, and they needed to charge in order to run the furnace that night. (Even though our furnace is propane powered, the battery has to be switched on, at least partly charged and operating; same thing for other appliances like refrigerator when run by propane.) Or maybe they wanted to use an electric space heater for a while to help warm up the RV ....and fell asleep before turning off the gen as planned. However it happened, a very sad story.

We have camped at many race tracks and the CO has always been a concern. That is why we have 2 detectors, one on ceiling and one by the bedside.
On our class a when I used the vertical tail pipe to get the fumes up and out of the way the detector would go off but when disconnected it would be ok. Never did figure out why except the exhaust would cool too much to dissipate. Be careful.

Link to news story.

No mention of any CO source except a broken exhaust pipe on the RV's generator, which "ran all night".

Is running a generator while sleeping a common practice??? That's exactly the same thing that killed five people in in one RV back in 2011, only in their case it was a portable set up too close to the rig.