GREENSBORO, NC:: Fred Gehrke recently had a handyman do some work on his rental properties. One of the jobs was to install mew smoke alarms in every home and on every floor, “He told me I should look into getting carbon monoxide detectors as well,” said Gehrke.
So, a couple days later Gehrke went on Amazon and started looking for carbon monoxide detectors. He ended up buying five alarms for his homes and one for his mother, “When you deal with a reputable dealer like Amazon you think you’d have some form of protection,” said Gehrke.
After getting the detectors Gehrke realized there was no manufacturer name on them. He decided to go online and do some checking. What he found was a BBC article that appeared to be referencing the same detectors he bought, “It said they failed 80-percent of the time,” said Gehrke.
The BBC article referred to the detectors as “dangerous” and appeared to be the same ones that failed tests in 2016. The consume watchdog group Which said three of the unbranded devices repeatedly failed to sound when carbon monoxide was present.
2 Wants to Know used one of the alarms Gehrke bought and put it to the test. We tested the detector side by side with another popular brand.
Using a gas lawnmower, we put the detectors along with the mower in a shed for two minutes, “I have no faith based on the article,” said Gehrke.
To his surprise the generic detector that he bought on Amazon was alarming while the other detector was not, “Now I’m worried about this one,” said Gehrke.
We put the detectors back inside for three minutes and this time both were alarming. In fact, the detector he bought on Amazon was registering a 460 reading. According to experts anything more than 35 is considered dangerous, “You could get one that works. but when you need it if it fails that’s a bad thing,” said Gehrke.
We reached out to Amazon and a representative told us she would investigate the issue. That was more than a week ago and we have not heard back since.
A quick check of the website and it appears you can still buy the detectors even though Amazon was quoted in the BBC article saying it would remove them from its website.