For those of us who use gasoline generators for an apu

No you got it all wrong this is how I protect myself from being killed from a deadly gas. I hate gas generators on trucks they are killers end of story. What if a car parks next you and leave it run? I have a detector so I can sleep safely. So it my advice take or leave doesn't matter to me it just what I do.

 

Nothing is 100% clean, the story talked about ammonia slip. It's dose no say they actually tested one to see if it was putting to much out. It just claims it's possible. The sensors in the exhaust should be checking to keep it within the correct range.

If we compare the older no emissions engines to today's they are very clean. They probably I always heard with gasoline generators is they don't move much air. So when someone runs gasoline generator the exhaust sits on the ground and basically builds up. It keeps building up and get more toxic.

The diesel engine uses so much more air to idle, it moves crazy amount of air vs the little gas generator. Thats were the problem is. It the air quality sitting on the ground building up over night. The gas generator has a lots more build up of toxic exhaust over night vs the diesel engine

 

i almost died from a few minutes in a diesel shop full of smoke, while finishing up the last bore i was honing. Hour later i was projectile spraying out every hole. lasted 4 or 5 days, delirious.

Aannd.. Another time working in a scrap yard i flipped over a stainless tube coil, and instantly couldnt breath, but worse. Felt like someone shot ether in my nostrils, it was terrifying. I luckily noticed a faint trail of evaporation, heat lines like of a gascan in the sun, coming from the coil tip, and bolted. It was nearly 20ft before i got the first dose of air.

The coil was a commercial refrigeration component full of trapped ammonia gasses just baking in the sun. Bad juju.

 

Well that goes completely counter to the laws of physics. The temperature of the exhaust of any internal combustion engine is several hundred degrees. Note the pyrometer on the instrument panel of a large diesel, particularly when working. Even a little generator exhaust temp under load is probably at least 200 degrees. Hot air(gases) rise. How politicians manage to stay on the ground is a real head scratcher.
Either way, and this is the hazard with either source, the (warmer)combustion gases go straight up, around or into the cab. That is why I put a stack on my little gasoline generator, and it was the theory ever since large diesels have been on the road.
To quote Dave Dudley: There's a flame from my stack and that smoke's some blowin' like it's coal

But we all know that every major engine manufacturer advises against idling the truck unless absolutely necessary. Why? Because they all know the pollution levels increase the longer the idling time. Ah, you say, what about my cute little sticker with the shape of the state of California on it that says "clean idle". Yes, they tested a brand new diesel under laboratory conditions, and sure enough it was clean.
Now let's fast forward to the real world. All of the sensors that are on the pollution system has a range of acceptability.
Example, when it is very cold, the def in the system can freeze in a parked truck. But you can still start and run the truck, for a while. The ECM has built in parameters to allow the system pollute above allowed standards until the defrost system can get it working.
So various trucks may still make it within pollution standards, some don't. Have you ever heard of anyone sticking a probe down the pipe and testing the exhaust to see if it is within new specs? Not me.
And even a brand new engine, I don't think any physician would recommend breathing the fumes at all, but certainly limit the practice as much as possible.

 

What had happened, you were exposed to the ammonia gas in fairly high quantities. Very toxic. But in the case of R134a and many other refrigerants, they are odorless, colorless. And in the area of a leak, they are toxic because they displace the oxygen in the area.
Indeed, that is exactly how a refrigerant leak detector(sniffer) works. It doesn't try to find the refrigerant, it knows that the atmosphere contains roughly 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen. The less of those two gasses the probe picks up, it can determine the size of the leak caused by whatever refrigerant is in the system.

 

Welp, i can tell you its a horrible terrifying way to die.

 

Gasoline engines produce about 30 times more carbon monoxide than diesel engines (that number is likely down from the last time I researched it a few years ago due to more efficient engines, but I'm gonna stick with it for now). Diesels produce all kinds of other nastiness that isn't good to breath, but CO poisoning is more rare.

The problem with truck engines is that they are much larger than car engines (a 15 litre air pump vs. a 5 litre air pump), so they're producing a much greater volume of exhaust.

 

I got CO poisoning once; extracted by masked-up fireman from the house, ambulance ride to the hospital, put on oxygen for about half an hour. I was relatively unaffected after being rescued because I was fairly young (mid-twenties) and in very good shape, even though my exposure was much more acute. My friend was in very good shape also, but 14 years older and she had to stay on oxygen for several hours. Age, health and your body's ability to move oxygen in your system has a lot to do with survivability and recovery.

The source was the home's furnace but the situation was created by the fire we had the night before. It was an older home with inadequate separation between the chimneys for the furnace and fireplace. The fire went out in the night and the flue was left open. There was a temperature inversion (dense cold air layer trapping warm air closer to the ground... you've seen this when you see columns of exhaust or steam rising and then suddenly go horizontal) and the furnace started sucking its own exhaust back down the fireplace chimney. I was sleeping on the couch a few feet from the fireplace and my friend was in her bedroom with the door closed.

I woke up feeling like I was in a dream; really groggy and disconnected. I instinctively felt something was wrong, but I had no idea what it was. I went to see how my friend was doing and woke her up. Between the two of us we figured there was something wrong so she called 911 and I opened the front and back doors. We both collapsed, her in the kitchen and me across the back door threshold.


Yeah, ammonia poisoning is really bad. It causes corrosive burning in the eyes, nose and throat and swelling of the upper airway, so even if you get extracted you can end up being toast. A little over two years ago two city employees--one a part-time paramedic--and a refrigeration tech were killed at a hockey arena due to ammonia poisoning. I've hauled bulk ammonia for fertilizer terminals and a lot of other lethal chemicals in the oil patch... complacency kills.

 

I heard before CO is more heavy then oxygen. So it basically sits on the ground or it can like like when parked at truck stop. The little gas generator just strapped to back of truck is more deadly then the big diesel engine.because like the other person said a 15 liter diesel is producing more exhaust but less CO. From my understanding that's what I always heard. You might get cancer from long term exposure, but you will wake up in the morning.

 

CO is actually slightly lighter than air (varies with temperature, altitude, moisture, etc., but under similar conditions: density (kg/cu m); air 1.225, CO 1.14) and it diffuses evenly.