Robert Gammon wrote:
Carbon monoxide deaths related to natural gas furnaces at 28 per year, I
wonder what the break down is with age of the furnace.

And it's 28 CO deaths per year for gas heating SYSTEMS. I'm sure if
you look at the incidents in more depth you would see that most of them
have nothing to do with the furnace. For example, a very common CO
situation is a blocked chimney. That would be counted as an incident
with gas heat, even though the furnace wasn't the real problem. We
had a family here in NJ where people died a couple years ago because a
contractor had temporarily put something in the chimney opening during
work in warm weather to block it, then forgot to remove it. Come
heating season, the CO killed them.




Used to be we had pilot lights. Pilot lights came equipped with
thermometer that kept the gas off unless the pilot was on. Point of
use failure causing death was then attributable to a thermometer failure
that allowed gas to flow with out a pilot. This was the design in
place 30 years ago, I do not know what preceeded it. I had gas valves
fail, but then it just got cold, no excess gas flowed. I had a
termometer fail, but again it just got cold, no excess gas flowed

Now we have hot surface igniters, much like gas ovens do. No pilot,
but the hot surface MUST reach a proscribed temperature, measured by a
thermometer before the gas will flow. I had an igniter fail in a
stove. Stove stayed cold, no excess gas flowed. Replace the igniter
and all works well.

Natural gas has been safely piped to millions of homes nationwide for
decades. The risk of injury or death due to natural gas incidents is
far far lower than the risks you take every day to drive your car, ride
in an airplane, eat out at a fast food restaurant........