CO Safety In Portable Ice Hub

[PikeChaser]

Hey guys, new to the forum here, but had a couple quick questions for the masses. I apologize if these have already been answered, but wasn't able to find the exact answers to my specific questions. Thanks!

A few buddies and I have built a floor out of Rubber Mats / Marine Plywood / Outdoor Carpeting for our Clam Ice Shelter Six-Pack. We used it last weekend for an overnight stay, and it worked great. After reading all the safety concerns about CO poisoning all over the forums, we kept all of the vents open overnight (I believe there are 5 of them, all around 10 inches x 3 inches) along with keeping both doors unzipped a little. While we knew we were erring on the side of caution with so much ventillation, it also caused us to lose heat extremely quick. The temperature in the hub could not have been much above freezing most of the night (we could see our breath). We had a great time because we caught fish most of the night, but when the bite did calm down, sleeping was nearly impossible with the cold temps. We are using the Mr Big Buddy 18,000 BTU heater. It does have the low O2 automatic shut off sensor. Does anybody out there know or is there a chart with how much ventillation you need in an ice shack depending on the size of the shack and/or heater to avoid CO build-up? Is the low O2 sensor reliable enough to close up the doors and a few of the vents to try to retain some heat, and trust that it will shut-off on it's own if we have any issues? I was told by someone else that you need 1 square inch of ventillation for every 1,000 BTU of propane heat generated, which would tell me you only need 18 square inches for the heater we have, which would only be one of the vents open (each vent is about 30sq inches) Can anybody back this information up, or is it just hear-say? We want to be safe, but we also really want to be warm so we can enjoy the experience more.

Any help or information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!! 

[mrjohnny]

Not really know much about it myself,it seems to me like one vent would have been plenty...or I suppose you could get one of those meters to hang inside your hut....just my 2 cents worth...

[killa1]

i can remember reading an old post about cheap CO2 detectors. try doing a search on it.

[Rebelss]

Spent my years in Safety/law enforcement. In a nutshell, get a CO detector.  (CO2 is carbon dioxide, the fizzy stuff) You can have high CO levels WITH enough oxygen before the O (O2 is the molecule designation) depletion shut-off valve activates. Never trust an oxygen-depletion valve with your life.  If you're asleep when this happens, you may never wake up. Just happened to two young men here last week, they died. Your life is worth $20, right? Ya, I now lots of people do trust their heaters to alert them, but... I won't get into that. I value my life more than that. You asked an intelligent question, go the intelligent route. 
PS...keep some of those vents open, too, combustion always needs fresh air; even your furnace in your house has a fresh air supply.

[Bassmickster]

Also, low O2 is not the same as high levels of CO. And, long before the CO level reaches fatal it is building over time. You may experience the unpleasant side effects of lower levels of CO before a detector gets tripped (headache, confusion--not the beer kind, nausea, etc). More good reasons to be well ventilated.