Postby Viper » April 14th, 2018, 9:53 pm
I was just talking to a rep last week and he insists there IS a big difference between a marine and household unit. Beyond the coatings are component differences, they're higher end with tighter tolerances that come with a few advantages including the ability to deal with temperature extremes and still achieve their designed life span and accurate detection ability. How old is your boat and how old were the detectors when you finally had to replace them? While household units will work, they'll have a shortened life span in a marine environment and may lose the critical ability to detect CO at a certain threshold. It's doubtful they'll last as long as a marine unit will. They may have the same housing but that doesn't mean they're built the same, it's just one less thing to fabricate that way. Some marine units also incorporate learning software to deal with minute CO levels that are unique to and differ from boat to boat that can otherwise cause nuisance alarms.
I also like the fact that the marine ones hooked up to the 12 volt system chirp in low voltage conditions. This acts as an alarm in itself, warning you, other boaters around you, and the marina that there is something wrong. I can't count the number of times I've heard low voltage alarms from CO detectors that have precipitated contacting the owner and boarding the vessel to correct the problem before something major happens where power could prevent a sinking. For the difference in price, a marine unit is totally worth it IMO.