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I got screamed on for turning on the AC with the back covered. I never heard someone scream so loudly. I was so scared . . I felt like an 5 year old. I was told this causes carbon monoxide poisoning so panicked and searched on the internet and I didn't see anything on it. I then made this thread to ask what CityData thinks. I saw some of the replies and then asked "how do you know it causes carbon monoxide, who told you that?" and I got "Everyone knows that! Whoever doesn't know that is lost!"
So I got SCREAMED on at home and then I got ROASTED on here.
Last edited by FreshFresh; 09-19-2016 at 10:23 PM..
I got screamed on for turning on the AC with the back covered. I never heard someone scream so loudly. I was so scared . . I felt like an 5 year old. I was told this causes carbon monoxide poisoning so panicked and searched on the internet and I didn't see anything on it. I then made this thread to ask what CityData thinks. I saw some of the replies and then asked "how do you know it causes carbon monoxide, who told you that?" and I got "Everyone knows that! Whoever doesn't know that is lost! It's the same when it happens with a car . . ."
So I got SCREAMED on at home and then I got ROASTED on here.
Honey. Come sit by me.
Air conditioning and heating are two separate functions. While they are provided by the same piece of equipment, different components with different functions within that same piece of equipment provide the heat or cool air.
The air conditioner does not use combustion to produce cool air; it's all powered by electricity only, the home use of which does not produce carbon monoxide. Therefore, the air conditioning unit outside of your house cannot, does not, and will not produce carbon monoxide.
The worst you've done by turning on a covered air conditioning unit is to shorten its life a little through overheating.
When you turn the heat on in a month or so, the outside unit will not operate at all, so you can keep it covered. The furnace, which produces heat via combustion can produce carbon monoxide if it isn't functioning properly, so have it checked soon.
That only works with radioactive radon. Radon from an A/C is non-radioactive. The worst thing you can get from non-radioactive radon is APS (acute paranoid schizophrenia) which is not nearly as bad as lung cancer, depending on your point of view.
Just in case anyone took that seriously, it was only a joke. There is no such thing as non-radioactive radon. Radon is always extremely radioactive, and would kill you fast if you were exposed to a significant amount of it. But the amount in the air is so little, it would take decades to kill you, and even then only if you got very unlucky. You can't even buy a significant amount of radon, unless you're very wealthy. People talk about radon in basements all the time, but the amount they're talking about is an extremely tiny fraction of the air. So little you couldn't even measure it if it weren't radioactive.
Actually a complete burn of any of those yields no CO. It is incomplete burning that does it.
Every natural gas flame is subject to incomplete burning at times. That's why they all have a vent over them, such as a range hood vent or a furnace flue. The poison gas goes up that vent and outdoors, where it will be diluted so much by the outdoor air that it will be harmless.
It's almost impossible to weather proof around an in situ window AC unit, covered or not. You'll get drafts. You'd be better served by removing it from the window and storing it while taking advantage of the closed window and storm window to keep heat in.
Well, if the cover is on when the AC is running, then leftover oxygen will combine with the CO and now you will have CO2 and you know that it twice as bad as CO. I mean, 2 is greater than 1.
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