Iskander Giniyatullin: “Defective ventilation in apartments leads to carbon monoxide poisoning”

Almost all those cases occur in houses equipped with gas columns with an open combustion chamber.

(KZN.RU, February 8, Ksenia Shvetsova). Last year, 4 cases of poisoning of apartment buildings with carbon monoxide were recorded in Kazan, 18 people were injured. The main cause of such incidents is defective room ventilation. Almost all cases occur in houses equipped with gas columns with an open combustion chamber. Iskander Giniyatullin, the deputy head of the Executive Committee, said this during the live broadcast of the television program “Theme”, which was held on the TV channel “Efir” yesterday.

In the capital of Tatarstan, the most frequent cause of accidents is precisely the products of gas burning, which lead to the poisoning of people. Practically all cases of carbon monoxide poisoning occur in houses that are equipped with gas columns with an open combustion chamber, said I. Giniyatullin. In total, there are 2238 houses in Kazan with installed gas columns (almost half of the entire housing stock of the city), and the vast majority of them have an open chamber. “All 100% of the houses in which carbon monoxide poisoning cases were detected are tightly sealed with plastic windows and iron doors with rubber seals. The lack of fresh air, when we try to keep warm, leads to the fact that there is not enough oxygen. The gas burns poorly and as a result, dangerous combustion products are formed”, explained the speaker. “Poor ventilation cannot pull them out, and waste products get into the room. Thank God, there are no deaths, but the consequences of poisoning are dangerous”.

Earlier, it was reported at the Business Monday that in the incomplete first month of this year, there were already 3 cases of poisoning, 12 people suffered. There were no casualties. All these incidents occurred in apartments equipped with a gas column with an open combustion chamber.

Gas equipment in the houses is divided into intra-quarter and intra-house ones. In the first case, the gas workers monitor the serviceability of the equipment, carrying out once a year the maintenance of gas appliances, checking the tightness of pipelines and valves, and the operation of ventilation. Intra-house gas equipment (risers, external gas pipeline, and internal gas pipeline) is served by the management company. According to established rules, the check is performed once a year.

If the in-house check is performed unsatisfactorily, the citizens should complain to the management company. “Experts should perform the work as prescribed by the rules, because it is related to the safety of citizens. On such cases, you must inform the leadership of “Gorgaz”. These are their services, their experts, they receive money from the population for this service and must respond to such complaints”, said I. Giniyatullin.

The speaker also reminded that from July 1, 2019, Kazan would establish a separate tariff for the maintenance of ventilation and chimneys in the amount of 30 and 55 kopecks per square meter, respectively. The tariff was introduced for the first time on the basis of expert assessment. “The Department of State Expertise and Pricing of the RT issued its conclusion. The numbers were significantly higher than those that we eventually adopted by our resolution. For this money, service organizations will conduct an inspection of the state of the chimneys, the current repair of chimneys and ventilation systems”, explained I. Giniyatullin. He added that gas equipment inspections in Kazan are conducted in accordance with the approved schedule.