International
Gas leak and carbon monoxide
Use at your own risk. For education and research only. Not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in, because they change. Before you rely on these cards, ask a medical professional or a fire safety specialist to review them. Disclaimer
Do this first
If you smell gas, do not touch any switch or flame. Open windows and doors on your way out, close the gas valve if it is on your path, and call from outside.
Natural gas is given its rotten-egg smell on purpose, so your nose works as the detector. Carbon monoxide has no smell, no colour and no warning, only a headache that eases when you step outside. Avoiding sparks protects you from the first. A cheap detector protects you from the second.
Step by step
- Gas smell: stop and touch nothing electrical. No light switches, no doorbell, no lift button, no phone call inside the flat.
- Open windows and doors as you move towards the exit, so the gas thins out instead of gathering.
- Close the main gas valve if it is on your escape route, at the meter or the cylinder.
- Get everyone out. Knock on neighbours' doors with your fist and do not ring the bell. Call 112 and the gas emergency line from outside.
- Carbon monoxide: suspect it when several people and pets feel sick in the same room at the same time, with headache, nausea, dizziness or confusion that eases outdoors.
- Get everyone into fresh air at once, count heads and call 112. Say carbon monoxide, so the crew brings a meter.
- Nobody goes back in until the fire service has measured and cleared the space. The boiler, heater or flue that caused it stays off until a technician approves it.
Never do this
- Never flip a switch, light a flame or start a car inside a space that smells of gas. Switching a light off sparks the same as switching it on.
- Never sleep in a room with a running combustion heater, charcoal grill or generator, and never let an engine run in a closed garage.
- Never silence a beeping CO detector because you feel fine. Get out first and doubt it later. Low doses can fool you.
Call emergency services if
- Any gas smell you cannot stop at once at the valve, and any smell in a cellar or stairwell.
- Anyone confused, fainting or vomiting in a room with a boiler, heater or fire.
- A CO detector alarm, even if everybody feels healthy.
Common questions
Where do CO detectors belong, and how many?
One in every room with a fuel-burning appliance and one near each sleeping area. Mount them at breathing height, roughly one to two metres up, and do not fix them to the ceiling like a smoke alarm. Replace the unit by the date printed on it, because the sensor wears out in five to ten years.
The smell is faint and I think it is just the cooker left on. Still the whole routine?
Turn the cooker off, open the windows and step out while it clears, still without touching other switches. If the smell does not fade within minutes, or you cannot find an innocent source, treat it as a leak and call. Gas companies prefer a hundred false calls to one explosion.
Next cards
Sources and standards
Use at your own risk. For education and research only. Not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in, because they change. Before you rely on these cards, ask a medical professional or a fire safety specialist to review them.