Another of our nine 9 lives lost!!! (only 6 left).

Another lucky escape last night. Sounds dramatic but this post could so easily not have been written. Last night both of us went to bed by 10.30pm. As per usual Ian banked up the fire with coal and left the air vents open with enough gap to allow the fire to stay alight all night. We snuggled down and was soon asleep. Suddenly we were rudely woken by an alarm going off. At first I thought it was our phone alarm telling us it was morning, but no. It was the Carbon Monoxide unit beeping at us loudly.Looking at the clock the time was 1am, just 2 1/2 hours after going to bed. Anyway, Ian shot up and rushed to the fire. He couldn't see anything amiss or smell anything but something had triggered the alarm and it could only be CO2 fumes. Its known as the silent killer and now we know why! We knew it wasn't the batteries because Ian changed them and tested the alarm back in January. The first thing we did was check Jade who was laying very still in her bed. At first I thought she was dead until she opened her eyes and gave a wag of her tail. Phew!! Then we opened all the windows and doors to let the fresh air in. Ian went back to the fire, cleaned out the ash pan and then tried to shut the fire door. That's when he noticed the fire rope had come away from the door which meant the door wasn't sealing properly.  We're not sure if this was the cause but, as mentioned in a previous post, we do sometimes have smoke blowing back into the boat from the fire so it could be that the fumes were also escaping through the gap and  back into the boat. After a while we went back to bed but left every window open. It meant the inside of the boat got quite chilly but hey! We are both here to tell the tale so I'd rather be cold then dead!!! This morning the first thing Ian did was to close all the vents and let the fire go out. He wanted to clean the flue and glue the fire rope back onto the door. Loads of stuff came down when he scrapped the sides of the chimney. He filled the ash pan to over flowing so it obviously needed doing. He replaced and glued the rope back into place and then, after a 30 minute wait, re lit the fire. All seems well at the moment but from now on one of the hopper windows in the lounge by the fire will remain open at all times. I always keep my bedroom window open and will continue to do so after this scare! It just goes to show that if we hadn't had the CO unit on the boat we may well be dead!!!



Definitely needed re gluing




Ian's DIY flue cleaner. Made from an old tin can. Works beautifully!

    Oh by the way If you are wondering about the other two narrow escapes please read post 1 and then post 2.