Urgent chimney question

Whilst it is clearly a ball-ache for you it might be worth telling her to get her boiler checked as clearly something is letting out potentially deadly CO in her house.

I'm going to have a chat with her this evening to tell her we heard her alarm go off last night and that we haven't had a fire so she should get someone out to check her boiler ASAP, because I would put money on it that it's her boiler causing the problem, not our fire/chimney
 
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So I lit the fire at 9am this morning, neighbours alarm went off about half an ago (11pm) which is 14 hours after our fire was lit.... Doesn't match to the night time alarms and also the fact the alarm went off on Thursday when we hadn't had a fire for 4 nights.

I think I'll ring the chimney sweep on Monday to speak to him about it as he smoke tested the chimney in August and see what he says.
 
The CO alarms can sound like a smoke alarm, I have both for safety's sake. Thankfully the CO alarm has never gone off other then in test mode, the smoke alarms get tested, usually when the daughter decides to try and cook something.... :LOL:

Really need to know what fuel burning appliances she has! If your fire is producing enough CO to set her alarm off i'd be pretty certain you would be dead by now. :eek: The timings aren't right for it to be your fire, and i'm wondering if she has an old gas appliance that is being used on a random basis, possibly a water heater or wall heater that is giving off CO!

It does beg the question why would she have a CO alarm if there aren't any fossil fuel burning appliances in her property, really think she should be getting her property checked before accusing you! It may well save her life..... :!:
 
The CO alarms can sound like a smoke alarm, I have both for safety's sake. Thankfully the CO alarm has never gone off other then in test mode, the smoke alarms get tested, usually when the daughter decides to try and cook something.... :LOL:

Really need to know what fuel burning appliances she has! If your fire is producing enough CO to set her alarm off i'd be pretty certain you would be dead by now. :eek: The timings aren't right for it to be your fire, and i'm wondering if she has an old gas appliance that is being used on a random basis, possibly a water heater or wall heater that is giving off CO!

It does beg the question why would she have a CO alarm if there aren't any fossil fuel burning appliances in her property, really think she should be getting her property checked before accusing you! It may well save her life..... :!:

Thanks,
She has a gas boiler which I assume heats the water and for central heating. She came round very angry last night after her alarm went off, very rude actually.
 
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Next time the alarm goes off, go round and knock on her door to see if she is ok and take your alarm with you and see if yours goes off too.
If you've not lit a fire perhaps you can scare her into getting her appliances checked.
Where is her alarm in her house?
 
I think this may be worth a mention in the plumbing forum, some of the Gas Engineers may be able to offer further advice. I am still firmly of the belief the problem is within her property, and could easily be her gas boiler! My first action would be to get that (and any other fuel burning appliances checked) before accusing the neighbours! It is vital the problem is resolved ASAP, before she does wind up in a body bag. :eek:

I certainly wouldnt enter her property if the CO alarm was going off. For the alarm to sound indicates a level of CO that is a danger to life, and for that reason alone you should be getting out into fresh air, not going in!!!!! :eek:
 
Sorry to be so late with a response!

OP - what is the latest?

When you had the chimne tested originally, did the sweep check insude HER house. That would have been logical. Some years ago, I smoke tested a chimney in '70s house, and the neighbour came around as her room was ull of my smoke!

A modern CO alarm detectig a very low level of CO will not alarm until it has detected it consistently for THREE HOURS, while going off within 2 minutes for a large dose. This could explain the time lag, to a degree.
 
So the problem has not gone away..... We went away for a couple of weeks over the Christmas period and when we returned she had told us she was putting her CO monitor in the front of the house and then claimed the A14 (over a mile from our house) is causing higher levels of CO at the front of the house!!!!

However, we had another HETAS engineer out in the meantime to check the chimney when she decided to show him a hole that she had blatently created by picking away at the brickwork between the two fireplaces and was able to shove a small steel rod through to the back of our fireplace from hers.... We heard picking/scraping noises (sounded like a rat) for a while, so we assume she was scraping away to make a hole!

She's completely mad.... Following this news, I am not ever listening to anything she says again and ignoring her.... We are going to have a woodburning stove installed anyway and have our chimney backlined.... If she still moans after that, we will just report her as a nuisance neighbour
 

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