- This topic has 15 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 8 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I only read about this today and am so surprised I didn’t hear about it in Chengdu.
Here is a link to the article about carbon monoxide poisoning in homes/apartments. Poor girl was only starting out here in Chengdu and died after 4 days in the city, did anyone know her or of her rest in peace Francesca.
According to the dates, this happened last year.
I don’t remember hearing about this at all…anyone else? And the article is now published a year later?
Either way, truly sad.
I fixed the title and will sticky this thread for a while. This apparently happened a year ago, but I hadn’t heard of it until this morning. I spoke to a friend who works at EF, who I met through this forum, and she said she hadn’t heard of this either (that one’s hard to imagine).
Either way, here is a link to an inexpensive carbon monoxide detector on JD.com: http://item.jd.com/759086.html. I just bought a pair of these.
I posted this on our Facebook page also. Be safe, everyone.
It wasn’t made public at the time. I heard through a friend who works with the British Consulate. She was living in Singapore Gardens – where Johnny5 and Mike’s Pizza are located!
For those who don’t mind spending a bit more money, nest make a smoke+co alarm:
https://nest.com/uk/smoke-co-alarm/meet-nest-protect/
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.21.u8sruP&id=36880277495&ns=1&abbucket=7#detail
For those who don’t mind spending a bit more money, nest make a smoke+co alarm:
Thanks for the link, that looks awesome.
Apparently it was a new apartment so presumably a new gas boiler which was judged faulty. I suspect that insufficient ventilation could have been a contributing factor.
Carbon Monoxide detectors and portable meters are available on Taobao from about 75 rmb including delivery.
Thank you Charlie for changing the headline and highlighting it on Facebook I think it is a great idea to inform people to check for carbon monoxide.
I mentioned to a friend who has been living in Singapore Gardens for a number of years of this incident and she said that no one knew a thing, strange isn’t it regardless wishing everyone to be safe in the city we call home.
I was considering urgently getting one of those detectors when I read about this news on shangaiist, but I don’t quite get it.
on all apartments I’ve seen the boiler is outside on the balcony, so even if leaking it shouldn’t make it into the apartment? so if mine is on the balcony do I need one of those detectors?
I don’t doubt the construction faults for a second, as even my own gas stove is blatantly leaking gas when you turn it off, the smell is terrible. However I turn it off on the pipe itself. and I keep windows in kitchen open at all times and kitchen door closed at all times.
so I don’t want to be cheap with my safety, but I also don’t understand how gas could possibly make it into the bedroom.
@ turtle – I guess it depends on how well your balcony is sealed from the house and whether you have glass storm shutters fitted that reduce the ventilation on your balcony. But from what you have said I would think you are fairly safe from carbon monoxide but I would get your gas leak sorted in the kitchen asap as a potential build-up of gas could lead to an explosion.
Personally I plan to install a carbon-monoxide detector and a fire alarm just to be on the safe side.
oh but one more thing, the detector in the kitchen doesn’t actually say if it is a CMD or a smoke alarm, even the chinese text just says that “red is bad, green is good”.
I would suggest looking at the pictures on Taobao to see if you can identify the device. However, it doesn’t help that some of the models are describing themselves as carbon monoxide smoke alarm which is either a bad description or a dual purpose device. But I suspect that if it says carbon monoxide it is detecting it rather than being a smoke alarm. Maybe look at e.Bay descriptions. From past experience with smoke alarms is that they go off at the mere hint of toast and the last place you want one is in the kitchen. One way to find out I guess and that’s to set light to a piece of paper near it….
Yesterday when i got home my carbon monoxide detector was going off like crazy and the kitchen stank of gas because of my kitchens gas leak, I contacted my landlord but she says that’s none of her business, if I want to fix it it’s for me to arrange help and pay for it myself.
Could this be true? I think in any other country the landlord would be legally forced to handle a hazard as big as gas leak.
Standard reply from landlords is that you have to fix whatever is the problem, if they are a nice one they will budge for good reasoning but most of times you are on your own if something breaks in the apartment that your are renting and you have to fix and pay for it yourself. This is often the most smooth way to get it done if you have the money to do it.
What the law says has very little to do with things when you are renting an apartment in China… There is usually also some fine print in the contract that wont help you as a tenant 🙂
Sometimes it works to fight the landlord but during our 10 years we usually just fixed and payed for broken things by ourselves to get it done in a way we wanted it to be done (not the brother’s cousin fixing a gas leak because he did that ten years ago at home) but it’s all up to how much energy and time you have for those things.
We were fluent in Chinese but that doesnt help when fighting a landlord but it helps a lot when you are looking for a repair guy and negotiating with him 🙂
Good Luck !
Daniel
Yesterday when i got home my carbon monoxide detector was going off like crazy and the kitchen stank of gas because of my kitchens gas leak, I contacted my landlord but she says that’s none of her business, if I want to fix it it’s for me to arrange help and pay for it myself. Could this be true? I think in any other country the landlord would be legally forced to handle a hazard as big as gas leak.
Just saw this message, but Daniel is right: landlords usually expect you to address these kind of issues yourself. To give you an example: when I first started coming across issues in my apartment (which is old and has a number of small issues), the landlord approached it in this way: “I can fix these problems for you, but then I will raise the rent”. After doing some quick cost/benefit calculations it made more sense for me to take responsibility for the repairs myself, so I did that. I have invested something like 4,000rmb into my apartment (which I obviously don’t own) but I have saved easily 2-3x that over the years that I’ve been renting there since the rent has not increased.
So to answer your question: there are no laws regarding this (or they aren’t enforced) and it’s commonplace for landlords to expect tenants to deal with situations like this. If you have a tenant who is addressing problems like this and not regularly raising your rent, you are lucky.
If you suspect a gas leak, call the gas company as soon as possible. They came to my house last month because I thought I smelled gas, and checked everything, did not find any leak and left without me having to pay. Earlier last year, they came and installed new tubes and it cost really not much, about 75 rmb I remember. They are professionals and responsible for gas safety.
If you suspect a gas leak, call the gas company as soon as possible. They came to my house last month because I thought I smelled gas, and checked everything, did not find any leak and left without me having to pay. Earlier last year, they came and installed new tubes and it cost really not much, about 75 rmb I remember. They are professionals and responsible for gas safety.
This is good advice. I did the same thing a few months ago when I smelled natural gas on my rooftop. Called the gas company and they came and swapped the old broken tubing with a new tube. I can’t remember what it cost but it was almost nothing.
- The forum ‘In Chengdu’ is closed to new topics and replies.