Each year, over two hundred people in the United States die from carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, and most of them were unaware that they were being poisoned by this odorless and invisible gas. What can you do to make sure your family and loved ones are protected?

What is Carbon Monoxide?"

Carbon monoxide is an invisible, tasteless, and odorless gas that is a byproduct of burning various types of fuels. Coal, natural gas, and kerosene all produce carbon monoxide when you use them. Your automobile creates carbon monoxide whenever its engine burns gasoline. Of course, this gas is usually released into the open air where it dissipates and causes no ill effects. But in an enclosed area, it concentrates to a level that it will make you ill or even kill you.

How Can You Tell if You Have CO Poisoning?

The symptoms can be mistaken for those of the flu, but they include severe headaches, nausea, and dizziness. You will not run a fever if you have been poisoned, but will have trouble breathing and be exhausted. If you have any of these symptoms, head for your local emergency room immediately and tell the doctor your concerns. The problem with CO poisoning is that many people don't know that they're being poisoned until they fall unconscious and then die—often in their own houses or cars.

Where do most poisonings happen?

Unfortunately, most of them occur at home where you would assume you'd be the safest. A major cause of CO poisonings is the use of space heaters, especially in winter. Many people seal up their homes to prevent the cold from coming in while setting up space heaters to heat individual rooms. Unfortunately, the CO created by these heaters has no place to go and will instead stay in the room and slowly poison the inhabitants. Each year people die because they wanted to stay warm and accidentally killed themselves instead.

Another common CO source is the automobile. Outside, your car's carbon monoxide dissipates into the air, causing no ill effects. But if you sit in your garage with the door closed for any length of time, the concentration of CO in the air will rise, often leading to death. This, unfortunately, is a common resource for those considering suicide. But it can also happen to those who like to work on their cars inside their garages. Without proper air circulation you can accidently poison yourself while tinkering with your car.

A fireplace also creates CO, as does the furnace in your basement. With proper air circulation you can channel the carbon monoxide out of your home without any danger, but often a closed chimney flue can be a death sentence or at the least a major health danger. Even if it's not closed, debris and dirt can clog your chimney to the point that the smoke may escape while the CO rises slowly and surely in the room.

How to Install Smoke Detectors

Now that you know where carbon monoxide comes from, let's discuss how to set up detectors to keep your family safe. There is a plethora of carbon monoxide detectors on the market, including some that can be hooked up to a central alarm system that may either be entirely in your home or may be connected to an outside monitoring company. Another common type of carbon monoxide detectors are battery powered and resemble battery-powered smoke detectors,but they are not the same and should not be located in the same places.

The first thing you need to consider when placing a detector is whether or not you wish to connect it to your house's wiring system. While it may seem easier and cheaper to do that, you may be limited as to where you can place the monitors, since you need to have an electrical wire nearby to hook the detector into. This may prove to be a problem in some areas where there may be no power source available, such as a garage or basement. But these monitors do tend to last up to ten years, depending on the model, and require no maintenance. Battery-powered detectors, on the other hand, need their batteries replaced and their sensors checked annually. In the end it will depend on how your home is arranged and how capable you are with installing new appliances.

An alternative is to hire an alarm company to install detectors for you as part of their security package. You are already paying a monthly monitoring fee.

Let's say you have little faith in your ability to hotwire detectors—or you live in an apartment building or rented home and are not allowed to install new electrical connections—and wish to go the battery-operated route, where do you start to look for quality monitors?

The first and best place is your local fire department. Phone or visit your station and discuss what models and brands they approve of as well as what concerns they would have about installing these detectors in your home. Since they will be the first responders on the scene in an emergency, consider them a reliable source for finding a high-quality carbon monoxide detector for your family. Such magazines as Consumer Reports and government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offer advice and recommended models and brands as well. Don't just buy the cheapest one on the market because it looks pretty!

Now that you've stocked up on monitors, where do you place them around the house? It's not as simple as placing smoke detectors because carbon monoxide doesn't spread the same way as smoke does.

Start in the garage—you should have one here regardless of if you have a workshop or not. It only takes a few minutes of leaving the car running while you gather your coat and keys to send CO into the enclosed space and start to poison you and your family.

One detector per level is the minimum that your house needs, regardless of the floor space. You may find it silly to place two monitors within plain sight of each other, but remember that they're working on different levels as well as monitoring the air quality for a much larger space than you think. Put one at the top of each staircase as well as one in each bedroom where the occupant sleeps with the door closed. If the door is closed, the level of CO can rise dramatically and kill the sleeper much faster than if the door is open and the odorless gas seeps through the rest of the house. Your furnace and basement will need detectors, as well as any room that has a fireplace.

But unlike smoke detectors, you can't place these monitors too close to cooking areas or in the bathroom. The dampness in most bathrooms will set off the detector, while a kitchen can confuse and set off the sensors with false readings. Consult the instructions to determine the best place to set up your CO monitors. And make sure to mark your calendars for battery changes as well—a dead battery won't work in either a smoke detector or a carbon monoxide monitor!

Check the Ventilation

One of the easiest things you can to do help prevent CO poisoning in your home is to maintain a fresh airflow through the house, either through open windows or a special system that keeps refreshing the air. There are too many cases of people attempting to keep warm by using their fireplaces or space heaters but failing to check to see that there is some sort of ventilation helping the carbon monoxide to escape. Even a dirty chimney can make the difference between a safe room and one slowly filling with poison!

If your alarms do go off, the first thing to do is stay calm and check on all the members of your family. Ask if anyone is feeling ill and look for any of the common symptoms of CO poisoning. If anyone is feeling ill, evacuate the home immediately and call 911 from a neighbor's home or a local pay phone. Do not stay in the house! Every minute you stay in the house adds to the amount of carbon monoxide in your lungs; don't become a victim!

If you feel that it was a false alarm and everyone is feeling well, go around the house and turn off any source of carbon monoxide before resetting the alarm. If the alarm goes off again, contact a professional to come and check the alarm for problems. But if at any time you or someone in your family begins to feel ill, evacuate the home and call for help!

Carbon monoxide kills hundreds of people every year because they can't see it coming. A colorless, odorless gas, it invades your lungs and will make you sick without your noticing it. But with a little research and preparation, you can make sure that your home and family remain safe from this silent killer.