With cold snaps across much of Australia, how do you keep warm in your caravan or camper?

Too many risks are taking knowingly or unknowingly. There have been way to many deaths and close calls recently from carbon monoxide poisoning. What is safe and what could leave you or your family dead or permanently brain damaged? Read of the many sources about carbon monoxide from devices being used for heating while camping and when at home, that have had fatal results, or lucky escapes when unconscious people were discovered and resuscitated.

Worldwide, thousands of deaths each year are attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon Monoxide is the same weight as air, so unlike domestic cooking gas or carbon dioxide, it will not settle to the floor. It mixes with the air and is not noticeable. Carbon Monoxide warning devices may be a smart idea, but they may not give warning in sufficient time, particularly if infants and elderly people are present. Brain damage can result even if you are found in time to save your life.

The big danger with carbon monoxide is that there are no warning signs - it just makes you drowsy, so falling asleep before you intended is easy to do. Then without turning off the device as you had planned, you just won't wake up.

There are other health risks with unflued gas so even using a carbon monoxide alarm is not the full answer. The only answer is don't do it. It is illegal and for very good reasons. Deaths have occurred.

Deaths have occurred in houses, deaths have occurred in campers and deaths have occurred in tents. Causes have been carbon monoxide poisoning from unflued gas heater, camping gas heaters (intended for outside use only), from a gas fridge run in an enclosed space, from a generator run indoors during a power outage, from a car idling in the garage while the family was in the house, from a flued gas heater where the venting was not working effectively due to lack of maintenance, from heat beads from a barbecue brought in a tent or a room while still giving out warmth. Read media reports of some of these tragic deaths here. These are just a few examples of many tragedies which have happened so simply and without warning. Do not take any of these risks.

How can you keep warm and stay safe?

Consider your life and the lives of your family when camping, and do not use any devices which emit carbon monoxide inside your camper.