I am of the opinion that CO poisoning is been over hyped, if we look at figures around 15 deaths a year are from CO poisoning, now any death is tragic and dying from CO poisoning in this day and age should not happen, but we need to put things into prospective, if you look at deaths from fuel poverty this is in the 1000’s, so why does CO deaths get so much attention, well in my opinion it is because there is always someone that can be blamed for a CO death, there will always be a scapegoat, the media and the HSE have someone to crucify, they like it that they can point the finger at someone and can look as if they are doing something to protect the public, it is also cheaper for the Government, as they can pass the issue to others, getting the public to buy their own CO alarms and installers to have to cover all public queries, whereas fuel poverty would mean that the Government would have to confront the greed of the energy companies to reduce fuel poverty, and force them to reduce bills, but they will not do this, as the energy companies have the Government in their pockets.

Unfortunately the public today get all their information from the media, whatever the media say that’s what they will believe, even if they are told differently by those who know, there is an episode of Coronation Street this week that shows someone been affected by CO from a boiler, this is just scaremongering in my opinion, 99.9% of the public are perfectly safe with their gas appliances, but many will be panicked by this episode of Coronation Street, but unnecessarily in my opinion.

The media has a lot to answer for, programs such as rogue traders, which always shows, plumbers and gas installers in a negative light, why don’t they do a balanced program where they show the many good installers, who fix things correctly first time, but no, that is not good TV, we also have people writing for newspapers who try and tell the public what they should and shouldn’t do with their heating systems, these people are mostly not qualified to comment on the plumbing, heating and gas trade and should keep their opinions to themselves. 

With regards to energy efficiency and installing new and efficient heating systems, don’t be fooled by all this nonsense either, if you really believe that you will reduce your bills by having new efficient boiler, or heat pumps etc installed you are mistaken, energy companies and their shareholders will not see their profits drop, they will simply increase fuel costs as the public reduce their consumption of energy, so we will always pay more, let’s not feed the greed, we need to be more savvy with our fuel , we should look to the past, my advice would be if possible get yourself a good multi fuel  wood burner, source  wood from the cheapest places, these burners will heat the room and much of the rest of your property, there is no need to have every room heated at the same time, we usually only occupy a couple of rooms during the day and then we are in our beds at night, we have become wasteful of energy and need to re-educate ourselves, looking to the past can teach us a lot.