CO Detector Alerts

[donteeler]

I have a 2013 Rockwood ROO and just returned from a 2 week vacation. Almost every night, the CO detector would go off several times, with the red light flashing. I would get out of bed and reset the detector each time. There never seemed to be any reason for the alert, and it never went off during the daytime. It would go off whether the gas was on or off, whether I was using the AC or the heating system. I have virtually no pilots on the stove or anywhere else I can discover. It would go off whether I had windows and vents open or not. About the only thing that would help would be to open the ceiling vent and exhaust fan. I cannot figure out what is going on. Any thoughts as this was an exhausting experience with constant sleep disruption.

[jwuertz]

Check the detector to see if it has a replace date. They are only good for a few years before becoming unreliable. Mine had a problem when the humidity got a bit high. Got a new one at Amazpn and fixed the problem.

[donteeler]

Thanks, I will look at the detector to see if there is a replacement date, but it looks like a hard wired component, located below the refrigerator. You have to remove some screws on the panel to look insider. Any theory why it only goes off at night after everyone is in bed?

[Semperfi24]

I unfortunately had a similar incident in my 2504S this past weekend. Never had it happen before. Doing some research it seems that it isn't uncommon. Some suggestions have said that it could simply be a bad unit. As was mentioned, it is recommended changing them every 5 years. Mine went off 3 times (11:30, 12:00, and 12:55). Then it didn't go off again. Ours is about 12 months old, so not sure if I can chalk it up to malfunction (though it could be)

Doing some reading, as I understand it, the gasses that can be in the trailer from every day use (if you cooked on the stove for example for lunch) can take many hours to finally settle at floor level. (I believe that is for LP gas as its heavier than air, and CO is lighter than air so it ends up near the ceiling, but Im no expert). There is apparently a fuse in the power cable of the detector, and some have suggested removing that fuse (I am not advocating you do that unless you have a replacement aftermarket detector in place). We added a CO detector not realizing that the trailer had a CO/LP combo detector already. We felt comfortable that it was a false alarm because the other one didn't alert us.

I had success with turning the ceiling vent/fan on in the bathroom (my detector is about 2' from the bathroom door so it likely sucked any issues right out from that area). We were using electric for the water heater, didn't use the stove or oven, and the fridge was on electric. there was no source of burning fuel. The only thing that was unique to this evening from most others, was it was raining, so I was grilling outside under the awning. We suspect that in our case its possible that the awning was containing those gases and they were able to get into the trailer from opening and closing the door, and 5 hours later we played the jump out of bed and press the button game...

I also read that many people have had success simply vacuuming the sensor on the unit with a shop vac every 6 months or so. Maybe that can fix your problem

[donteeler]

Thanks Semper, I unscrewed the unit and looked at it more closely. It is hard wired and I do not see a fuse anywhere. It had a 2012 manufacturer stamp on it--Safe T Alert box, RV Carbon Monoxide/Propane Gas Alarm. I am inclined to just replace the unit. I understand the policy of replacing it every 5 years, but we have only owned it 2 years, and not used but a few times, but it seems to be getting worse each time we use it.

[Learjet]

Do you have open alcohol contains or trash by the sensor?

I had a old vodka bottle set one off once.

[donteeler]

Hi Learjet,

We periodically had trash close to the sensor, as there were requirements to keep trash inside due to bears. However, the CO alerts appeared to go off whether trash was present or not. We actually emptied the trash before bedtime most nights, and then put a fan on the sensor to try and keep it clear of odors. Unfortunately, it continued to go off almost every night several times. I have ordered a new unit for our trailer, and hope that a newer unit will perform better than the existing one. If it doesn't, then I will have to look at other options.

[Flybob]

spray cans or room deoderizers can set it off.

[Displaced2]

Had same problem. Replaced detector. Problem solved.

[donteeler]

Hi Flybob, Thanks for your comment. Yes, we have become "accustomed" to the alert going off with most aerosol sprays, perfumes, etc. The alert would often come on shortly after such things were used. What has made this different is that we have become very careful about not using such things in the camper, and we have had almost no alerts during our waking hours. We would go to bed at about 10 pm, stay awake reading, have fans running or the AC on, and then after everyone had been asleep for several hours, the CO alert would go off after midnight. I would reset it, go back to sleep, and then the alert would go off around around 2 to 3 am, and once again I would reset it. At that point, I would try to open ceiling vents and start vent fans, which sometimes worked and sometimes not. We had nothing going on in the trailer after we went to bed, but the alert would start its routine several hours into our sleep and erratically continue disrupting our sleep for several more hours. Made no sense at all, and was not due to any of the usual activity that had previously caused the false alarms.

[donteeler]

Hi Displaced2, I hope you are correct in that the unit just needs to be replaced. My unit has a 2012 stamp on it, so I assume it is 3 years old, and not that close to the 5 year replacement date. That said, I have read several posts that said the 5 year replacement date is a joke, and it frequently requires replacement every couple of years or more. The first year I owned this new trailer (2013), we had no problems during our sleeptime hours, then at the end of 2014, we did have a couple of sleep disruptions on our last trip. Then on this first major trip of 2015 (3 week trip), we had almost every night disruptions of 2 to 3 times a night. I consider false alerts as dangerous, because you start assuming the alert does not mean anything, but you can't ignore that shrieking alert, and I have to get up to reset it, while the rest of my family just assumes it is not a "real" danger. If I evacuated all of my family every night as the alarm instructs, then no one would sleep, and I would be even more exhausted. I don't know if this will be the solution, as it was for you, but I have decided to replace the alert component, and get a newer model--it is scheduled to arrive in a week or so, and I will replace it, and see what happens in about a month when we go on another trip. If I still get false alerts, I think I will get a CO detector from a hardware store, and disarm the current system. I am not wanting to ignore CO dangers, but false alerts are very dangerous in that they desensitize you to the real potential danger. I think Safe T Alert should do a better job of producing a detector that is not so susceptible to false alerts, but so far I have not found an alternative to Safe T Alert for my RV except for the more traditional models used for homes.