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Tell HN: Candles can make you feel tired

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Re: Tell HN: Candles can make you feel tired

#11

Post by JonChesterfield »

treeman79 wrote: post #7
mindcrime wrote: post #2

If you do anything that involves having an open flame indoors (and I'm including the flame inside a gas / propane fueled furnace, water-heater, etc., or a gas stove) you should have one or more CO alarms in your home as well. CO2 has its own issues, but CO is a very powerful asphyxiant and can very easily be deadly. https://www.cpsc.gov/Safety-Education/Safety-Education-Cente...

Get one that shows actual value. We had one a new one that just beeps when high. Except it didn’t. Delayed medical treatment for months since it never went off. Gas company guy showed us how high levels in house was and the alarm was silent. Even with fresh batteries.

Example? Surprisingly difficult thing to search for and seems an unwise thing to pick off amazon.

Re: Tell HN: Candles can make you feel tired

#12

Post by treeman79 »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #11
treeman79 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get one that shows actual value. We had one a new one that just beeps when high. Except it didn’t. Delayed medical treatment for months since it never went off. Gas company guy showed us how high levels in house was and the alarm was silent. Even with fresh batteries.

Example? Surprisingly difficult thing to search for and seems an unwise thing to pick off amazon.

Well kiddie brand is the one that failed to go off. So not them.

Re: Tell HN: Candles can make you feel tired

#13

Post by nonrandomstring »

CO2 is the obvious connection here, but there's another effect at play. Candles tend to flicker in the 8Hz - 15Hz frequency range due to turbulence around the flame. This can be quite soporific. It's likely a neural entrainment. I wonder if LED fake candles that mimic the flicker have a similar effect.

Re: Tell HN: Candles can make you feel tired

#14

Post by mindcrime »

benjamir wrote: post #10
mindcrime wrote: post #2

If you do anything that involves having an open flame indoors (and I'm including the flame inside a gas / propane fueled furnace, water-heater, etc., or a gas stove) you should have one or more CO alarms in your home as well. CO2 has its own issues, but CO is a very powerful asphyxiant and can very easily be deadly. https://www.cpsc.gov/Safety-Education/Safety-Education-Cente...

I recently bought one of the best CO_2 meters available here (and had a CO alarm since before that): the low temperature boiler (natural gas, 1991) in our kitchen contributes close to nothing to the CO_2 level despite getting its air from inside. Letting it run on automatic a whole workday contributes less than 200ppm in our flat. But an adult and two kids can bring the level from below 500ppm to above 1000ppm in aro…

Yeah, under ordinary circumstances your boiler or whatever should not contribute enough CO to cause problems. It's when something weird happens that you have to worry (usually). Like if the jet is clogged or something else happens that can cause incomplete combustion. Incomplete combustion is your enemy when it comes to CO[1].

[1]: https://www.abe.iastate.edu/extension-and-outreach/carbon-mo...

Re: Tell HN: Candles can make you feel tired

#17

Post by vanilla-almond »

Most candle wax is made from paraffin (derived from petroleum). More expensive candles made from beeswax won't be so polluting indoors, but a candle flame will always produce some soot.

An alternative is a fake LED candle with flickering 'flame'. All the ambience of a real candle without the noxious emissions! Of course, you still need a source of power, but LED candles can be powered by batteries and the battery power lasts longer than a wax candle melting.

Re: Tell HN: Candles can make you feel tired

#19

Post by benjamir »

mindcrime wrote: post #14
benjamir wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently bought one of the best CO_2 meters available here (and had a CO alarm since before that): the low temperature boiler (natural gas, 1991) in our kitchen contributes close to nothing to the CO_2 level despite getting its air from inside. Letting it run on automatic a whole workday contributes less than 200ppm in our flat. But an adult and two kids can bring the level from below 500ppm to above 1000ppm in aro…

Yeah, under ordinary circumstances your boiler or whatever should not contribute enough CO to cause problems. It's when something weird happens that you have to worry (usually). Like if the jet is clogged or something else happens that can cause incomplete combustion. Incomplete combustion is your enemy when it comes to CO[1]. [1]: https://www.abe.iastate.edu/extension-and-outreach/carbon-mo...

* I wrote about CO2.

* The boiler's flame is visible (through a slit).

* The system doesn't have a separate supply stream -- it takes oxygen from the flat.

An CO sensor seems obligatory to me: after the chemney sweeper (obligatory in Germany) measured 10,000ppm CO in the exhaust stream (defect, not normal operation), I didn't want to depend on a 25y+ boiler's electronics alone.

CO kills relatively fast. Even if rare, I don't want to die caused by a rare event that could have been avoided by spending ~50€ (here)

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