Homeowners' pick for heating and cooling across northeast Ohio and the Western Reserve
Your CO Alarm Went Off
Your carbon monoxide alarm is sounding and you are standing in the hallway trying to decide whether it is real. Treat it as real. Get everyone outside, call 911 or your gas utility from outside, and do not go back in until someone with a meter says the air is clear. Then call us to find the source.
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- Open 7 days
- Written quote before work starts
Taking calls until 5:00 PM ET
Written by the Trusted Comfort service team and checked by our field technicians
The First Five Minutes, In Order
1. Get everyone out. People first, then pets. Do not stop to gather things or hunt for the alarm. 2. Go outside and stay outside. A porch, a driveway, a neighbour's house. Fresh air, not a garage. 3. Call 911 or your gas utility from outside, on a mobile phone. Both will come out and check with a meter. 4. Count heads. Tell the dispatcher if anyone is dizzy, sick to the stomach, confused, or has a headache that eased once they got out. 5. Wait for the all-clear from the responders. That is the only signal that matters. After that, call us to find out what produced the CO.
What Not To Do
Do not open every window and call it handled. Ventilating can drop the reading enough to silence the alarm while the source keeps running, and now you have no warning. Do not pull the batteries or tape over the alarm. Do not go back inside to shut off the furnace or water heater yourself. Do not light anything, and do not use a stove or space heater as a substitute for the heat you just left. If you smell gas as well as hearing the alarm, leave immediately and do not touch light switches, garage door buttons, or anything else that sparks. Let the responders enter first.
What Sets A CO Alarm Off
Carbon monoxide comes from anything that burns fuel and is not venting properly. In older homes across Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, New York and West Virginia, the usual suspects are a cracked heat exchanger in a furnace, a blocked or disconnected flue, a rusted-out vent connector, or a chimney with a nest or masonry debris in it. Water heaters sharing a vent with the furnace can backdraft. Attached garages let exhaust in through a shared wall. Tight modern weatherisation on an old house can starve a burner of combustion air. Alarms also fail with age. Most have a life of five to ten years, and an end-of-life chirp is different from a full alarm pattern.
When To Call Us
Call us once the fire department or the gas utility has cleared the building, or the next morning if the alarm went off overnight and responders shut your heat down. We come out, look at the combustion side of your heating system, and test what is actually happening: draft at the flue, condition of the heat exchanger, vent pipe pitch and connections, combustion air supply, and whether anything is backdrafting when the system runs. If the furnace is the source, we tell you plainly whether it is a repair or a replacement, and we do not put a system back in service that is producing CO. We handle heating repair and furnace repair across the region.
Preventing The Next One
Have your heating system looked at once a year, before the long heating season starts. A technician checking draft and heat exchanger condition catches the slow problems while they are still cheap. Between visits, change your filter on schedule so the blower is not fighting a clogged one, keep vents open in every room, and keep the area around your furnace and water heater clear of stored items. Outside, keep the flue and chimney termination clear of snow, ice, and nests. Put a CO alarm on every level and near sleeping areas, test them monthly, and write the replacement date on the housing with a marker so you are not guessing later.
Safe Checks You Can Do Yourself
After the building has been cleared and your heat is back on, there is a short list of things a homeowner can safely handle. Check the thermostat batteries and settings if the system is behaving oddly. Look at the breaker panel for a tripped breaker. Change the filter. Clear leaves, snow, and yard debris away from the outdoor unit. Walk the house and confirm supply and return vents are open and not blocked by furniture. That is the whole list. Anything involving gas lines, burners, refrigerant, or high-voltage wiring belongs to a technician with the tools to test it. If you are unsure, call us and describe what you are seeing.
When it is time to book
Your CO Alarm Went Off — straight answers
My alarm chirped once every minute instead of a full alarm. Is that carbon monoxide?
A single chirp on a repeating interval usually means a low battery or an alarm at the end of its life, not carbon monoxide. A real alert is a loud, repeating pattern of four beeps. If you are unsure, leave and call the fire department.
Can I go back in to open windows before I leave?
No. Get out first. Opening windows can dilute the gas enough to quiet the alarm while the source keeps producing it, which hides the problem. Let the responders ventilate and test with a meter once they arrive.
The alarm stopped on its own. Do I still need someone to look at it?
Yes. The alarm cleared because the levels dropped, not because the cause was fixed. Something in the house produced carbon monoxide. Have your heating system and venting checked before you run it again overnight.
How it works
- Step 1
Tell us the symptom
Call or fill in the quote form and describe what changed. Warm air, no air, a smell, a noise, a breaker that keeps tripping. Details on the phone shorten the visit considerably.
- Step 2
We diagnose on site
A technician checks the thermostat, airflow, electrical connections, the outdoor unit and the heat exchanger side before naming a cause. You get the finding in plain words, not a parts list you cannot read.
- Step 3
You approve the repair
We explain what failed, what it takes to fix it, and what happens if you wait. Nothing gets replaced without your say so. Most common repairs are handled the same visit.
- A real person answers
- Open 7 days
- Written quote before work starts
Why homeowners call us
- Old housing stock is normal hereBasements with converted octopus trunk lines, ducts retrofitted around joists, returns that were never sized right. We work in these houses constantly and we size the repair to the house you actually have.
- Long heating seasonsFurnaces in this region run hard from October into April, and lake effect stretches it further. We know what wear looks like at that mileage, from cracked igniters to blower motors that have been dragging for two winters.
- Cooling and heating bothOne crew for air conditioning repair and heating repair. The same ductwork moves air in July and January, so a technician who understands both sides catches problems a single-season contractor tends to walk past.
- Plain talk about repair versus replaceSometimes a part fixes it for years. Sometimes you are putting money into a system that is done. We tell you which one we think you are looking at and why, then leave the decision with you.
- All major brands, gas & electricIndependent service on Carrier, Trane, Lennox, Goodman, York and the rest.
- Straight answersNot worth fixing? We say that out loud, and often it saves you the visit fee.
About this guide
Past the safe checks, it's a job for tools and a meter
Describe what you found and we'll take it from there. Booking takes about a minute.
- A real person answers
- Open 7 days
- Written quotes
- All major brands
- Gas & electric
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