Honda Advanced Carbon Monoxide Detection System Coming for Entire Generator Lineup
Honda has upgraded the safety of its gas generator line in a big way. A rollout is underway to fit all of the models in the Honda portable generator lineup with CO-Minder. Continuing a recent trend, this is an advanced carbon monoxide detection system designed to help protect users from accidental injury or death from carbon monoxide poisoning.
How Does It Work?
As with every gas generator on the market, you need to follow your standard safety protocols, even with these upgraded Honda generators. You’ll still have to use your generator outside, away from windows and doors. Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and it can build up indoors and areas where the air stagnates. Only battery-powered inverters are currently safe for indoor use.
What the Honda CO-Minder system does is continuously measure carbon monoxide levels in the air near the generator. When it detects carbon monoxide levels in the air near the generator at 800 parts per million or higher, the CO-Minder automatically shuts down the unit before the detected CO levels reach a potentially lethal level. It also triggers when the sensor reads 400 parts per million on average for 10 minutes. An indicator light notifies you when this has happened.
Honda has designed the system to act fast while still reducing shutdowns resulting from false positives. Where other systems act slowly and thus have to respond at lower carbon monoxide concentration levels, the CO-Minder system minimizes false-positive readings and inconvenient shutdowns.
Honda Co-Minder Roll Out
Starting this month, Honda is rolling out the CO-Minder technology on existing generator models, starting with the EU1000i and EU3000iS Super Quiet Series inverter generators, the Economy Series EG4000 open frame unit, and the EB10000 Industrial Series generator.
By the end of the year, Honda plans to include this technology on all generators.
For information regarding the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning and the safety measures you need to take with your generator, check out www.takeyourgeneratoroutside.com.
For more information about Honda generators and the CO-Minder technology, head to Honda’s website by clicking here.
Final Thoughts
We’re seeing more generators come with some kind of carbon monoxide detection. Units from Generac, Ryobi, Honda, and others have it as an available option.
For construction use, CO buildup isn’t as big of a deal, but accidents do happen. We’d rather have the sensor than forgo it even though it runs the risk of a false buildup reading. Avoiding it is pretty simple—keep the generator in an open-air area and point the exhaust downwind to carry the fumes away.
Carbon monoxide buildup is more of a problem on the consumer side. Nearly every time we have a hurricane come through and knock out power to a wide area, we hear at least one story of a death that came from using a gas generator indoors or too close to the house.
The seemingly sudden push for more detection makes us wonder if there’s an upcoming regulation that’s going to require it on all generators. We’ll have to wait and see. For now, we think the technology is genuinely helpful and the downsides are minor compared to the potential upside of fewer deaths.
