Carbon Monoxide Venting

[John T Smith]

Our gas furnace (right side pipe) and our gas water heater vent through the side of the garage, and the vent pipes go up through the plastic rain roof so all the exhaust gases (especially any possible carbon monoxide) don't get trapped under the rain roof to go in the house when the door is open... we have a plug in carbon monoxide detector near the gas cooktop in the kitchen, but the two vent pipes from the garage are just common sense to eliminate any problems
.
To hide the pipes I built a red painted 2x4 frame that will, after the weather is warm enough to put a fresh coat of paint on the garage wall, have SMALL hole lattice cut and mounted

[kglad]

from a certain angle your frame blocks viewing the venting pipes?

[John T Smith]

Standing on the left the center vertical 2x4 will block the upright part of the furnace vent... but the small hole lattice will cover everything... which is what wife wants

I will do a test and MAY paint the white PVC with the grey house paint so they blend in with the wall and will then be 'mostly' invisible behind the lattice

[kglad]

did you use treated wood?

[John T Smith]

Not needed... no rain due to the house roof and plastic roof over the deck

[kglad]

guess you don't live in the pacific northwest.

[John T Smith]

Yep... Vancouver WA right across the Columbia River from Portland OR

Anything that is rained on is treated or Cedar for deck planks

[kglad]

i'm as far north and west in wa as you can be and still be in the us mainland.  in fact, most of our property is under the pacific ocean most of the time.

even with eave protection we have to use treated lumber or cedar.  i (among other things) assist a building contractor here in whatcom county and we do a lot if wood rot repair.

[Chuck Uebele]

If you're that close to the ocean, you sure will get damage. I used to manage an apartment for my parents in Southen California.  It was a block from the beach. The back side that faced the ocean was extremely more weathered than the the other side.

[kglad]

our property includes 1+ acres of pacific ocean, so we're overlooking the ocean, but most of the weather proofing here is for rain because our house starts about 40 ft above sea level with ~1/4 acre of beach roses on our hillside blunting ocean spray and there's virtually no surf unless it's wind generated because of the topography of nw washington and the offshore islands.

[Chuck Uebele]

Yea, the rain up there is significant. My brother lives in WA, near Gig Harbor. The apartment that we had was separated from the ocean by another row of apartments. It was the wind and salt mist, in the air that really weathered the apartment. 

[John T Smith]

>far north and west in wa as you can be

I had a relative in Squim (spelling?) for a few months... never drove up there to visit, just thought the name was interesting

[kglad]

coming from california, i was surprised by the prominence of native indian names and culture, so you may be thinking of snoqualmie which pretty far south and east of here.

we're in  the semiamoo neighborhood of blaine in whatcom county on oertel drive.

[John T Smith]

Pronounce Squim... google search says spelled Sequim

[kglad]

hadn't heard of that before, but it's 3 hrs south of us, too.

[John T Smith]

When it is warm enough to paint the garage wall (minimum 60 F) the lattice comes back off... so for right now it was measured twice, cut once, and it is held in place with three spacer brackets at the bottom (so bottom is 1" below the red frame) and wood clamps at the top and one in the center

[kglad]

oh, that looks good  much better than the venting. 

[John T Smith]

Wife likes it (the entire project was her idea) so I'm happy

The PVC pipes are white, so I'm going to test a small spot to see if the grey latex house paint will stick... and if it does I will paint the pipes so they blend into the garage wall and become as invisible as possible... if the latex paint doesn't adhere to the PVC at least they are 'mostly' hidden by the small hole lattice

[kglad]

the wife's assessment is critical; much more important than any of our opinions.

to paint, you should sand the surface first and then use a cleaning agent for each section, just prior ti painting that section.

[Chuck Uebele]

Very nice!