Gas-Detector Manufacturer Is Picking Up Some Steam

Three months ago, Point Loma resident Bill Lange stuck a small rectangular badge, the size of a credit card, on his water heater closet. On New Year’s Eve, it turned black.

Lange credits the device, a carbon monoxide detector manufactured by a fledgling San Diego company, with saving his life and that of his wife and 2-year-old son.

“Our condo project has been having terrific problems with our gas heaters. . . . I stuck the little Quantum Eye outside the gas heater, and, on New Year’s Eve, I noticed it had turned black, which is an indication of a dangerous level of CO present. So I called (San Diego Gas & Electric) and told them that I had detected carbon monoxide,” Lange said.

Black and Spewing Fumes

“They sent somebody out, a repair man who gave the heater a visual inspection and determined that just by looking at it there was nothing wrong . . . but I insisted he continue to look.

“He finally turned it off and opened it and looked in the back. Sure enough, the heater was black and spewing fumes and damaged to the point where he immediately condemned it.”

Mark Goldstein, president and founder of Quantum Group, says the Quantum Eye, and another carbon monoxide detector his company manufactures, which uses an alarm, are particularly helpful during the winter when heaters are in constant use. A reading from a detector can also be useful in convincing a repair worker to take a closer look at an appliance, he said.

Goldstein said he considers the Quantum Eye, which sells for about $10, the only product of its kind in that price range. The company also makes a battery-powered carbon monoxide alarm called the Co-Star, which sells for $70. Other versions of the Co-Star run on electricity and hook into security or fire systems, and are designed for use in commercial, multistory buildings. They range in price from $80 to $250.

The higher-priced Co-Stars have been approved by the American Gas Assn. and the $70 model is awaiting approval, Goldstein said. The association has no standards for approving non-electrical devices such as the Quantum Eye, he said, but added that the sensor in the Quantum Eye is the same as in the Co-Stars.

Quantum Group started in 1982 with just three employees. Goldstein contacted two UC San Diego chemistry professors who had developed a warning device to detect carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless gas that can cause dizziness, headaches and other flu-like symptoms, and, at higher levels, death.

Complex Chemical Mixture

The scientists had developed a complex mixture of chemicals that changed color when exposed to the gas. The technology was licensed in 1983 to Quantum, which began improving the invention and turning it into a marketable device.

“Carbon monoxide is responsible for substantial losses of life. It seemed surprising that, with all this modern technology, we still didn’t have a way of protecting people from it,” said Gerhard Schrauzer, one of the inventors.

Now Quantum has 10 full-time employees plus a handful of part-timers. After years of research and product development, the firm began producing in bulk last January and sold about $6,000 worth that month. The company saw sales of $400,000 in 1988, $100,000 of that from product sales and the rest from research-and-development contracts. Goldstein said he expects sales this year to increase.

Plant space on Sorrento Valley Road was doubled to 10,000 square feet in August to allow full-scale production of the Co-Star models.

The company, not to be confused with a neighboring superconductor manufacturer called Quantum Design, also makes ventilation controls for underground parking garages, as well as gas appliance controls.

Quantum’s plans include developing by early 1990 a breath, rather than blood, test for carbon monoxide poisoning that can be used in a doctor’s office.

Gold Mine Expected

“We expect that to be the real gold mine” because of the similarity between flu symptoms and carbon monoxide poisoning, Goldstein said.

Goldstein has spent much of his career working with detection of carbon monoxide, radon and other gases. He served as a science adviser in the Ford Administration, heading a nuclear policy study within the National Science Foundation’s science advisory office. His work there focused on the health risks from energy sources, including the dangers of radioactive waste and fuel emissions.

Lange, the Point Loma resident who credited the product with saving the lives of him and his family, is the director of client services for Stoorza, Ziegaus & Metzger, a public relations firm that counts Quantum as one of its clients.

Others who sing the product’s praises include Sheila Akin, 39, who said her husband was exposed to carbon monoxide two winters ago and had to be flown to a hospital for treatment in a hyperbaric chamber. After that, the Lakeside couple bought a Quantum Co-Star, which sounds an alarm when it detects dangerous levels of carbon monoxide.

Then, last winter, Akin fell ill. “I thought I had had the flu for three weeks, then the alarm went off about the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and we realized the reason I had been sick was carbon monoxide poisoning,” she said. “I called Quantum, they sent some people out . . . and found out there was something wrong with the ventilation to the heater.”

Craig Pykles of Pykles Plumbing, Heating, Conditioning and True Value Hardware on University Avenue in East San Diego heard about the Quantum Eye on television news. Now he instructs his service technicians, who make at least 20 calls a week, to offer the Quantum Eye to every customer whose gas appliance they service. About 50% of the customers take them up on the offer, he said.

‘Pretty Useful, All Right’

Pykles serviced a 30-year-old furnace for North Park resident Pauline Gilmore last year and sold her a Quantum Eye. Three months later she called Pykles to say the detector had turned darker. Pykles sent out a technician, who found the combustion chamber had cracked.

“I think it’s probably pretty useful, all right,” said the 75-year-old Gilmore. “If people pay attention to it, it could save your life.”

According to Dick Berry, gas services coordinator for SDG&E;: “I have no reason to believe it doesn’t work and that it’s not a good device. . . . It’s undergone some testing, and it’s been approved.”

A Vancouver-based firm, Newtec Industries, also makes carbon monoxide gas detectors; its least expensive model is a household unit that retails for $99.