Thousands of people may be at risk from carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning and not just because of poorly installed and maintained appliances or environmental contamination but because of serious design flaws in most domestic CO detectors.  That's the alarming claim made by John Stones who has over 13 years experience in the industry and has just launched an innovative new way of testing CO detectors.

CO detectors have been widely on sale in the UK since 1992 but have been the ongoing subject of industry and government based reports raising doubts about their reliability.  A recent spate of product recalls has again underlined their vulnerability.

"There are many people in danger," explained John. "Fitting a CO detector and alarm is an important line of defence against this deadly gas that can be given off by gas heating and other appliances.  The detectors are triggered when the concentrate of CO passes a safety threshold and an alarm is sounded – just as the smoke alarm goes off when you burn the toast.

"At the heart of the problem, however, is the fact that on most CO detectors, the test button only checks the alarm bell but doesn’t test the sensor, which can rapidly deteriorate with age and may be completely ineffective if the device is over five years old."

With around 10 million detectors currently fitted in UK homes, thousands of householders may have a false sense of security, living with a device that has a CO sensor that will fail even if a new alarm battery has recently been installed.

John Stones, managing director of Birkenhead company Detectagas, has now invented and launched a patented method to test sensors in domestic CO detectors.  The householder kit comprises a hood that fits over the device and an aerosol that introduces a measured dose of test gas.  If the alarm fails to sound in three minutes (the maximum sample interval for the sensor) then the sensor has failed and a new alarm is required.  A professional version of the kit, with heavy duty hood and higher capacity aerosol is also available for gas engineers.

John has recently become a trustee of CO-Awareness, a registered charity that provides information on the dangers of CO poisoning and supports victims and families of those killed by or suffering the long term health effects of CO poisoning.  He has also hit out at CO detector manufacturers for their lack of acknowledgment of the problem, with many of them continuing to advise that pressing the test-button is sufficient reassurance.

"Most manufacturers are still selling on a 'fit and forget' sales pitch, even though CO detectors, unlike smoke alarms, have a limited life cycle of between three and six years.  The number of product recalls issued by manufacturers in recent years is, in itself, enough to suggest there remain thousands of detectors in the market that are far from safe

"There is increasing evidence that people are still dying every year as a result of CO alarms not responding to CO gas, despite the so called 'test button' showing the alarm is working perfectly. We believe our safe and simple test kit can prevent this."