Carbon Monoxide can kill.
Carbon Monoxide is a colourless tasteless and odourless poisonous gas. Exposure to even low levels can lead to headaches and nausea while exposure to high levels can cause death within minutes.
Carbon Monoxide is produced when any fossil fuel is burned meaning there are a number of possible sources including from a blocked or corroded flue or vent on your boiler, using an appliance without a flue or backdrafting through chimneys or flues. It is not limited to these things - any fossil fuel burning appliance is a potential source of Carbon Monoxide
Even if you carefully maintain your appliances and have them serviced regularly problems are still possible between services and this could result in Carbon Monoxide leaking into your home.
Listed below are verified statistics that may alarm and surprise you.
23 deaths from Carbon Monoxide poisoning in 2009/2010
176 near misses from Carbon Monoxide poisoning in 2009/2010
72% of Gas Safe (formally CORGI) registered engineers discovered a Carbon Monoxide leak when performing routine services on appliances
40% of recorded Carbon Monoxide incidents were caused by bad installation and repair of appliances
It should also be noted that many incidents of Carbon Monoxide poisoning may be undiagnosed and as such would not be recorded or included in any of the above figures. Unfortunately the symptoms of low level Carbon Monoxide poisoning can be mistaken for flu as the symptoms are almost identical which againmeans that these figures are not included in the above list.