Don:
Congratulations on your daughter being a survivor. For every instance of someone encountering carbon monoxide poisoning there are literally thousands (as evidenced by the number sold) that have not been poisoned using catalytic heaters. Yes, they do put out a small amount of CO, but levels that are not a threat to human life when used safely, and levels less than encountered naturally.
Most CO problems are encountered by not having sufficient outside ventilation to keep oxygen levels at acceptable levels. I keep two or three windows cracked open about 1/2 to 3/4 inch to allow enough oxygen replenishment for what is burned by the catalytic heater without negatively impacting the inside temperature.
With regard to moisture, yes there will be some but the window drains take care of that for me. It is not unusual to find rivulets of frozen water on the outside skin frame of my RV and icicles hanging off the bottom edges.
If one does not feel safe using a catalytic heater in their RV then by all means they should not.
Happy camping!
http://www.cpsc.gov/PageFiles/103972/CO03.pdfHere are the full conclusions of the report you and I both cited.
The following is a summary of CPSC staff’s findings on the testing of the catalytic heater:
· The peak CO concentration ranged from 68 ppm to 125 ppm and the steady state CO concentration ranged from 67 ppm to 109 ppm.
Assuming a limited exposure time of up to 6.5 hours at these CO concentrations, the catalytic heater does not appear to pose a serious CO hazard to healthy adults when the CO concentration is considered by itself.· When the catalytic heater was operated in a closed room (ACH ~ 0), the oxygen was depleted from an ambient concentration of 20.9 percent to 8.8 percent. Because the catalytic heater can deplete the O2 concentration to such low levels, the heater poses a serious risk of hypoxia. The degree of hypoxia is further exacerbated by the moderate CO concentration and by an increase in the carbon dioxide concentration that accompanied the depletion of oxygen.
· As the oxygen decreased in the chamber, the catalytic heater became less effective at converting the propane and oxygen to carbon dioxide and water vapor. This was reflected by an increase in the hydrocarbon concentration in the chamber, which ranged from 1,050 ppm to 13,440 ppm (5 to 64 percent of the lower explosion limit of propane in air). The unreacted propane further increases the degree of hypoxia.
· The heater’s catalyst did not appear to degrade over time. This observation is based on operating two identical heaters on 100 disposable 1-pound bottles of propane (approximately 650 hours).