Thread: CO Alarm Puzzle
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Old 05-25-2016, 02:54 PM   #1
Capt Jack
Senior Member
 
City: Punta Gorda, Florida
Vessel Name: Salty
Vessel Model: Fu Hwa 34 Europa
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 211
CO Alarm Puzzle

I need some help from the smarter than me (and that does not take much at times) minds on this forum. My bride and I purchased a 1984 Fu Hwa Europa Trawler in November 2015. We have been working thru the issues, and a couple of weeks ago installed a combination CO and Smoke detector. On the way home I received a call from the Marina that we had an alarm going off. When i returned it was the CO alarm. Keep in mind the boat had not been run in about a week and half. I removed the detector and the next weekend with the engines still not having been run, carried the detector back to the boat and it sounded again after about 30 minutes with the boat closed up.

I purchased another detector for just CO that shows the PPM levels and tested it today. With the boat closed it alarms and shows levels of 400+PPM. I opened up the boat and let it air out and retested with no alarm and levels less than 50PPM. Put the alarm in the bilge by the main engine and immediately sounded.

The boat is all diesel (Lehman 120 main and Kohler generator). No gasoline or gas engines on board or near our slip. Outside the alarm shows no PPM of CO. We ran the boat yesterday for about 6 hours (Lehman only - not the generator) with no issues. I am not seeing any telltale signs of an exhaust leak anywhere - no salt water or sooting. I did spend several hours earlier this week cleaning up the bilge area and looking all over the place for signs of an exhaust leak.

Looking for ideas of what could be causing this. My exposure to diesel engines says they produce very little CO - CO2, yes but very little CO. I don't want to spend a night on the boat until I have this solved. Any ideas?

Sorry for the long post and thanks for your assistance!

John
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