CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING IS A HUGE SAFETY CONCERN in your RV!
Before you do anything else, look at the exhaust pipe from your generator. It should extend beyond the edge of your RV. Take a look at this photo to see that the pipe on our BRAND NEW RV only came to the edge of the coach body.
On our second stop of camping at a State Park (that didn’t have electrical hookups), we turned on the generator for power. Within a few minutes the Carbon Monoxide signal goes off inside the coach. It took a bit of checking (and buying a new CO detector to double check the first one in case it was faulty) to determine that there really was Carbon Monoxide leaking into the coach.
Of course, we made a quick exit on hearing the first alarm, and subsequent checks made it clear that we had an issue with the generator being on. We just didn’t know that the real problem was that the RV did not come with an exhaust pipe long enough to move the CO fumes out and away from the coach. To make matters worse, the pipe comes out just under where our bed slide extends, and the bed slide has a leak that allows water to come inside the coach (but that’s another story!) So, the CO2 would have made the trip to the underside of our leaky bed slide if we’d had it turned on for the night. Not a pleasant thought about the potential outcome.
Buying a Carbon Monoxide Tester is a wise back-up plan:
As we were trying to diagnose the problem, we bought a second CO alarm, just in case the one that came on the new RV was defective and we also bought a handheld Carbon Monoxide Tester to check it out for ourselves. Since CO is odorless, repeat “there is no Carbon Monoxide smell”, we took every precaution!
Fortunately, the Warranty Services Rep discovered the short pipe and made us aware of the real problem. We have researched extensions to correct this problem. The RV is in for repairs and that is number 1 on our list!
For anyone wanting to buy one, Amazon has them for just over $100. which is a small price to pay for safety and peace of mind!
