WATCH: A Vancouver Island family was almost killed by a carbon monoxide leak that wasn’t coming from inside their home. Kylie Stanton reports
Chris Robertson and Joanne Parker Robertson of Oak Bay are grateful for having a carbon monoxide detector in their home.
Twice in the last few days their alarm has gone off, signalling the presence of lethal levels of gas.
When the alarm first went off, the Robertsons opened all the windows and called the fire department to investigate.
“They measured levels that they said could be lethal after eight hours,” says Chris.
After inspecting the gas appliances, no one could determine the source of the leak. Then the detectors went off again.
“On both occasions within a matter of hours our house had filled up with toxic levels of carbon monoxide,” he says.
It was determined that the high carbon monoxide levels were connected to a nearby blasting project. The cause was a rare phenomenon known as advection, in which toxic fumes from the blasting are trapped under debris and travel through ground fissures.
Oak Bay has issued a stop work order on the property and Mayor Nils Jensen says inspectors “will make sure its safe before allowing the continuation of the blasting.”
The Robertsons say there is still at least a week’s worth of work to be done. The plan is to monitor carbon monoxide levels in their home.
In the meantime, they’ll be staying at a hotel, thankful that their detectors saved them from a potentially deadly situation.
-with files from Kylie Stanton
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