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Generally speaking, new homes are quite safe from carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. The building materials and the things in the home are all usually safe, providing they are in good operating condition. The only real problem is the people who live in the houses. Let's look.

Older or malfunctioning fuel-burning furnaces, ranges or water heaters can dump carbon monoxide into the air in a house. And we know CO is dangerous stuff, particularly since it has no odor and can overcome a individual very quickly. If individuals run fuel-powered space heaters inside, or if a fireplace is malfunctioning, these can also put CO in the air. Why would anyone run a gas powered generator (or a gas powered anything else) in a home? Operating a motor vehicle in an attached garage can push CO into a house. If this isn't bad enough, some people think they can fire up a barque of some kind in a house, too. Charcoal will give off a lot of CO when it's burned.

A new home probably has up-to-date equipment. But it is up to the people who live there to maintain it (or have it maintained), and also to operate it properly. The new home itself isn't the problem with CO. It's what the people who live there are doing in the home that can end up getting a lot of CO in the air. That's the long and short of it.

Oh, and remember that CO is really nasty stuff. Hemoglobin (the stuff in blood that binds O2 and carries it through the body in the circulatory system) loves to grab onto CO much better (not just better) than it does oxygen, and it doesn't like to let go of it quickly, either. That's why CO "displaces" O2 in the respiratory/gas exchange cycle that keeps us alive. Review the main ways houses end up with dangerous CO levels in them, and you'll see it's all about the people who use the house. You may also recognize a serious threat in your own home (or one you visit) when you see an issue there that may expose you and others to dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in a home.

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Q: Are new homes safe from carbon monoxide?
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