Carbon Monoxide Alarm going off only at night

[invoke]

Hi All,

We're very new owners of a VW Camper. We've only had it 2 weeks! It's a second hand CamperKing conversion. We absolutely love it.

We bought a CO Alarm before our first trip this past weekend. We had no issues with it over the weekend until we returned on Monday. I plugged the van in to recharge the leisure batteries as they were nearly flat after the long weekend of running the fridge. That evening very late I heard the CO Alarm going off. I silenced the alarm and did some internet searches. It was suggested it might be the leisure batteries venting hydrogen from over charging. So I unplugged the van from the mains and made doubly sure everything was off. The following morning the CO alarm was going off (it must have been going off all night).

Tuesday during the day no CO alarm went off, Tuesday night the CO alarm went off again.
Wednesday I bought a new CO alarm with PPM display. Wednesday day no CO alarm, but I noticed yesterday evening that the PPM reading started rising to 15 PPM on the new alarm. So as not to have them both going off in the middle of the night I removed them last night and put them back in this morning. I'm going to monitor the PPM reading throughout the day.

What could be causing the CO alarms to be going off only in the evening/night and not during the day?

We think it didn't go off on the weekend because we had the door open. There is a solar panel on the van but it doesn't appear to be working as there is no voltage at the terminals on the solar charger unit, not that I think the solar panel has anything to do with the issue, but, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Any help would be grateful, sorry if this is in the wrong forum category.

Cheers

Niklas

 

[Jimbohorlicks]

Just be careful of what you eat for supper

 

[Steve and Denise]

A friend had his alarm going off for co it turned out to be his batteries venting when charging from the solar

 

[jezport]

Try disconnecting your gas bottle and see if it stops, I know its unlikeley as gas is heavy.
Is there anyone who starts a car close to it?

 

[DavidG58]

I only discovered this week that there is a delay before the alarm activates in proportion the ppm CO reading

I think you might be right that with doors open the ventilation kept the reading below alarm threshold , then when closed if only a low reading it takes 2 hours to activate the alarm

It would seem most likely to be the batteries though, assuming all other gas appliances are not in use when at home, you have turned the fridge and hot water off?

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[DBK]

I would disconnect the solar panel first and see what happens. Then try taking the batteries out, one might have an internal fault, if it still keeps going off take the gas bottle out. Keep going until either van is gutted or you find the culprit.

 

[invoke]

Thank you for all the really quick responses. Amazing. To group answer the main topics:

- Gas is turn off at the bottle but not disconnected (I'll do that tonight)
- Solar panel seems to be broken as I'm not getting any voltage readings from the panel on the solar controller or with a voltage reader.
- Everything is off and the van isn't plugged in.

What's weird is that the PPM value is only going up at night. Does sunlight vs no sunlight have anything to do with it? For example, is sunlight breaking down hydrogen (if it is the batteries venting)? I don't know enough about chemistry to know!

Thanks again for the responses.

 

[invoke]

Also, I have no idea where the batteries are in this van! :-(

 

[Lenny HB]

15-20 ppm is normal if you have been using a gas hob.

 

[invoke]

Lenny - yeah, nothing being used at all. It's just parked on the drive minding its own business with everything off. Very very strange.

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[138go]

Could be just something where it's parked setting it off. Fumes from a boiler or neighbours boiler.

 

[invoke]

I thought of that but it's not near anything. It's happened on my drive and my parents' drive. It's really weird.

 

[icantremember]

I thought of that but it's not near anything. It's happened on my drive and my parents' drive. It's really weird.

You seemed to have ruled out everything else so surely it can only be a battery fault then, either habitation or starter.

 

[Richard n Ann]

Wonder if there's no Blocking diode on the solar panel so it's loading the batteries at night? Long shot, I know ?

 

[movan]

Sorry .. I'm a bit dense with this stuff .. but just in case it helps you .. I hzd the same problem on my last mh and it turned out to be the fridge needed something cleaning in the back of it .. the Trumatic people fixed it.

I don't know why the alarm only went off in the middle of the night unless it was because I had doors and windows open in day.

Good luck. Let us know how you go on.

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[Terry]

Hi it sounds like one or more of your leisure batts are goosed. Disconnect them ,leave a couple of hours and take a reading . They should be around 12.7 v or above

 

[Vic. Parsons.]

Unplug the EHU and put a cover over the solar panel rather than going to the trouble of disconnecting it. If the problem stops then it's the batteries.

 

[Terry]

Only problem with that is if OP has more than one battery....only one may be goosed,,,,,rather than covering panel simply remove live wire from charge controller

 

[Vic. Parsons.]

Only problem with that is if OP has more than one battery....only one may be goosed,,,,,rather than covering panel simply remove live wire from charge controller

They're new owners of the campervan, they may not even know where the charge controller is let alone which wire to disconnect. ?

 

[Terry]

Well OP knows enough to say nothing out of charge controller I don't need to argue the toss with anyone as to how much OP knows and I have given sound advice. It's up to OP to decide what advice he wants to heed.

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[Vic. Parsons.]

Well OP knows enough to say nothing out of charge controller I don't need to argue the toss with anyone as to how much OP knows and I have given sound advice. It's up to OP to decide what advice he wants to heed.

Sorry, missed the bit about the solar panel being broken, hey ho....?

 

[Barclaybasher]

Could the CO detector be faulty ?............

 

[Bart]

We bought a CO Alarm before our first trip this past weekend. We had no issues with it over the weekend until we returned on Monday. I plugged the van in to recharge the leisure batteries as they were nearly flat after the long weekend of running the fridge.

Hi define nearly flat? Was that from a meter inside the van, was it voltage or percentage?
Also I take it your fridge is one of them small fridges that can only run on 12v?
As if it's a 3 way fridge it should only run on battery when driving.
If its a 3 way fridge and you ran it on batteries then that's been your prob and the smell is most likely your battery or batteries are goosed,
Have you access to a volt meter? If so find out where the batteries are located, disconnect them, let them sit for a few hrs then measure the voltages.
BTW when a normal 12v lead acid battery reaches 12.2v after the above test then they are aprox 50% discharged and should not be discharged below this point to get the most out of them and make them last.

 

[invoke]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all your responses. Sorry for the slow reply, I had to subscribe! I'll do a group reply again!

> Solar panel - I know where the solar controller is. The solar LED has never shown any light and I multi-metered the inputs which showed zero. I will check again when it's dark to see if there is something else weird happening with it. The LEDs on the batteries are currently green (this is an old photo when I was trying to diagnose why the solar panel isn't working).

> Fridge - It's a Waeco 12V fridge which I've been told runs off the leisure batteries.

> Batteries - I think you might all be right. The batteries ran down to 25% (or below) on Monday (I have a CamperKing control panel that shows the leisure batteries capacity in quarter steps). I have a multi-meter, just not with me. I will try and borrow one in a few days time when we're down in Cornwall.

However, this still doesn't answer WHY only at night time and not during the day. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Have I knackered the batteries by running them too flat?

Cheers

Niklas

 

[Richard n Ann]

You can discharge Gel type batteries to 20% ?

But for wet lead acid batteries it's not advised, but a one off shouldn't kill them ?

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[invoke]

That's good to know. Thanks Richard.

Just edited my above comment as I forgot to add:

"However, this still doesn't answer WHY the CO Alarm only goes off at night time and not during the day. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

 

[Terry]

Is the battery in the alarm new,,,,,,,? ,,,,All my alarms go off in the middle of the night when batterys are low, probably due to cold in middle of night

 

[hblewett]

Ditto. Every fire alarm battery I’ve ever replaced at home has been in the middle of the night

 

[invoke]

Brand new CO Alarms. This morning it said 10 PPM. I'm going to get the batteries checked just in case.

Thanks everyone for all the help. Invaluable.

I'll be heading over trip the solar forum for the next issue in a few days when we're back home.

 

[DBK]

You can do a quick check yourself. Assuming the batteries have been on charge for a while then disconnect them from the charger and leave them to stand for a few hours with no load then check the voltage. If it is around 12.5 volts then the batteries are probably OK. If it is less than 12 volts then either the battery wasn't charged or it is dead.

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