camper enclosure

K

keith290

New Member
Nov 19, 2006
5
dunlap, tennessee
Just curious. The admiral and I purchased a 1996 290 last August which was a move up from our previous boat. The new boat has full canvas, heat/air, shore power and a bilge heater which allows us for the first time to do some cool weather cruising although with work schedule, kids and short days of winter, we haven't been able to take boat out since early November. Finally got to take her out last Saturday for a short run. I have always seen other boats cruise around with camper enclosure but I had not thought about carbon monoxide until we were out. I kept bilge blower on but kept wondering about the safety of cruising with full enclosure. Is this a safe idea?

Keith
 
I purchased a CO monitor with a digital readout that I can watch in the cockpit when we are underway with our camper top up. They are very inexpensive to buy. We bought a unit that runs on batteries at Wal Mart for less than $30 bucks.

We learned very quickly what we could and could not do with the canvas up just by watching the CO levels on our readout. Sometimes the levels will rise based on speed, wind direction, or how much ventilation we have circulating by unzipping canvas. We now know what to do to keep the CO levels down in almost all situations. I highly recommend you take a similar approach so you can monitor your CO levels as well..
 
Dave S,

What levels did you see and what levels are safe?
 
We crack open the side windows and the hatches in the cabin, which allows air flow. We also open the side windows in the cockpit. Haven't had our CO detecor go off while we were in this configuration.
 
Hampton said:
Dave S,

What levels did you see and what levels are safe?
Click to expand...

As far as what levels are safe, I don't remember what the high end number is (before the alarm goes off) but it is spelled out in the instructions which are on the boat right now. So I can't answer that question.

But, most of the time I can keep the reading around 30-70 and that's not enough to trigger an alarm. And many times once underway the reading drops to zero. If we are preparing to dock with the rear panel open sometimes it will climb to 150. So far I have never set the alarm off.

I want to emphasize again the reason I like the one with a digital readout is you can immediately see what effect it has on the CO level if you keep everything closed or open certain panels or you are headed up wind or down wind. Without a meter you have to "hope" you are doing everything right and your alarm doesn't go off.
 
Here's something I found on the internet concerning CO levels:


At what level does carbon monoxide become toxic?

For healthy adults, CO becomes toxic when it reaches a level higher than 50 ppm (parts per million) with continuous exposure over an eight hour period.. When the level of CO becomes higher than that, a person will suffer from symptoms of exposure. Mild exposure over a few hours (a CO level between 70 ppm and 100 ppm) include flu-like symptoms such as headaches, sore eyes and a runny nose. Medium exposure (a CO level between 150 ppm to 300 ppm) will produce dizziness, drowsiness and vomiting. Extreme exposure (a CO level of 400 ppm and higher) will result in unconsciousness, brain damage and death.
 
Since we are still discussing this subject I did a little research on the internet to find the CO detector I purchased. The unit is a Kidde model KN_COPP_B and if you want more information on how it operates and when the alarm will trigger, I found these two pdf's on Kidde's web site that explain all of that.

http://www.kidde.com/utcfs/Templates/Pages/Template-53/0,8062,pageId=4407&siteId=384,00.html

http://www.kidde.com/utcfs/ws-384/Assets/KN-COB-B_KN-COPP-Ben.pdf

On page 11 of the user guide they spell out when an alarm will trigger. It's based on how long the CO level has been sustained. The higher the level the sooner the alarm will trigger.

While I don't recommend or endorse this specific product, I still feel a CO detector of some sort in an enclosed cockpit is highly desirable so that you can monitor CO levels.
 
I also took Daves suggestion and got one of these Kiddie units with the read out. I plan on using this one in addition to the one already installed on the boat. Thanks again Dave for the good advice :thumbsup: P.S, I'll second the part about the digital read out. The one that is installed does not have that feature. Very good to have. Kind regards, Brian
 
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