Question:
I get asthma every time I turn on our natural gas heater.
My question is: Is there any way to reduce the problem caused by this
type of heating? I'm not sure quite what it is causing the problem. Is
it the gas itself, or is it dust from inside the walls of the heater.
Let me say that I live in an apartment, and the heater area is sealed
off in a way that I can't get up into the top part of it, where there
PROBABLY is a lot of dust, which I'm allergic to. But as I say, I'm
not sure it's the dust or the gas itself that is causing the problem.
I suspect it is the gas. Is there any way to filter the gas or do anything about this problem,
other than not using this heat and using a space heater which will run
me $100+/month in electricity? I use a HEPA filter, but that doesn't seem to help this problem. As
soon as the heat comes on, within 2 minutes, my asthma kicks up.
Answer:
Natural gas is just methane plus an aromatic. I would be surprised if
you could be allergic to methane! However, maybe the aromatic could
bother you. The thing, though, is that if you can detect the aromatic,
I would be more worried about the presence of methane than I would be
about your asthma. I would put my money on it being the dust. If you have a dust problem around the heater, you should also be worried
about the fuel not burning efficiently, which can produce more CO.
Normally, methane, when it burns, should not produce CO (just CO2 and
water). Incomplete combustion produces CO, and a possible cause of
incomplete combustion (or something that could worsen it, anyway) could
be the presence of other things such as dust.
