Posted on 11/03/2011 4:03:50 AM PDT by 30Moves
Green plants absorb and use carbon dioxide in growth. Hot coals will not harm green plants. Carbon Monoxide is not used in the same way. It will not harm green plants even though it is not being used like CO2.
HOWEVER - CO & CO2 are dangerous to red blooded creatures. CO2 is not chemically poisonous but a sufficient concentration in air will smother a person. CO is a blood poison and chemically binds with hemoglobin (weakly) and prevents blood from carrying oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the organs. Be very, very careful with CO sources in enclosed spaces when people or animals are, or will be, in those spaces. Make sure that those spaces are properly ventilated when people or animals come into them.
Buy some rabbits and keep their cage in the greenhouse. Their body heat will keep it above freezing.
Between the work required for me to split wood for my wood-burner, and the disagreeableness of some new neighbors, this idea piques my interest.....
Hot coals are still burning...so they are putting out the same stuff a fire is.
; )
Glowing coals certainly produce CO! If you have a big pile of them, you can sometimes see a faint, ghostly blue flame over them, especially after fanning them. That’s CO burning. But that flame is easy to extinguish, such as when a pile of charcoal is spread out to cook meat. When that flame goes out, the CO is no longer burning, but it’s still being generated. Furthermore, even when you do see the blue flame, it isn’t necessarily true that ALL the CO is combusting into CO2. Be careful! CO is odorless, it doesn’t “smell like smoke.”
The lead singer from Boston knew about this fact and used it to commit suicide by lighting a charcoal burner in his bathroom.
One could surmise from this information that in an enclosed area the available oxygen to form CO2 would be used up and CO saturates the air.
Correct. Then again, he said the greenhouse was not that air-tight, so a small bucket of charcoal would not likely use up all the O2.
I thought the entire point of a greenhouse was to avoid the necessity of adding artificial heat.
You could also buy a roll of plastic sheet and cover leaky areas. It's air tight, relatively cheap and reusable.
Put it in there and don’t worry about killing plants. When I was growing up on the farm, my dad used to put canvas or plastic sheets over our citrus trees and leave a bucket of coals and ashes from the stoves when freezing temps were expected. We never lost a single tree.
Thank you for your reply - I remember growing up in Florida and they used smudge pots to keep the orange trees warm - the sky would be black with smoke but the fruit survived.
Do I get to chose who is being cremated. You see, there is always an upside.
No. It can only benefit the plants. Raising the CO2 levels is one of the reasons you have a greenhouse to keep the CO2 higher then out side air. Most plants are starving form the lack of CO2 in our air today. Carbon monoxide can stick on the leaves of plants making them dirty, just wash it off once in a while with a hose.
The only thing you need to worry about is yourself. Both CO2 and CO in high doses can be dangerous. Anything over 8000 ppm for CO2 over a long period of time isn't good. CO is bad for us at any detectable level. But take for example when we give CPR to someone else that has +40,000 ppm CO2 this is for a short duration it will not kill you.
Just open the windows before you go in there.
That is a very good idea and they will also keep the CO2 levels higher for better plant growth.
Not my idea, I learned that trick from a friend’s land lady back about thirty years ago. I butchered the bunnies the next spring for her in exchange for one of the carcasses.
The neat part is that they are right there in the greenhouse where you can feed them prunings and such.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.