Gas Space Heaters

The public docket of the CPSC's proceedings on gas space heaters consists of eleven folders, available for public inspection at the CPSC offices in Bethesda. These files were examined by the author for several days in October 1984. Several hundred pages of documents were subsequently requested through the

Freedom of Information Act. Some of these documents are cited specifically in the notes to chapter 6. None are cited below.

All meetings of the CPSC are tape-recorded and these tapes are also available for public listening at the CPSC offices in Bethesda. Copies of the tapes for the following meetings (at which gas space heaters were discussed) were obtained from the CPSC and transcribed in rough form by the author: July 27 and November 16, 1978. A few of the quotations from these meetings are cited in the notes to chapter 6.

The Product Safety and Liability Reporter, a loose-leaf service published by the Bureau of National Affairs, reports extensively on current developments at the CPSC. Various stories from 1975 through 1985 provided background for this case study.

Minutes of the Subcommittee on Standards for Unvented Gas-fired Space Heating Appliances were the primary written source for the case study of AGA/ ANSI Z21.11.2. These minutes are on file in the library of the American Gas Association Laboratories in Cleveland, Ohio. The subcommittee met fifty-two times between January 14, 1960 (when a separate standard for unvented heaters was first developed), and January 16, 1985 (the cutoff date for this research). All of these documents were examined and some are cited specifically in the notes to chapter 6. None are cited below.

The following documents were the primary written sources, other than those described above, for the gas space heater case study:

American Gas Association. Engineering Services Department. Fundamentals of Gas Appliances . Arlington, Va.: AGA, 1976.

American Gas Association. Engineering Services Department. Fundamentals of Gas Appliance Venting and Ventilation . Arlington, Va.: AGA, 1976.

American Gas Association. Engineering Services Department. Fundamentals of Gas Controls . Arlington, Va.: AGA, 1976. "Are Kerosene Heaters Safe?" Consumer Reports, October 1982, 499–507. (Discussion of carbon monoxide poisoning and various federal and private emission standards applicable to kerosene and gas space heaters.)

Belkin, Lisa. "Devices to Detect Lethal Gas." New York Times, December 14, 1984, 16.

Bullerdick, W. A., and R. D. Adams. "Investigation of Safety Standards for Flame-fired Space Heaters." Calspan Report no. YG-5569-D-4. February 1976.

Lamar, Charles S. "Oxygen Depletion Sensor Improves Safety of Gas-fired Heating Equipment." Appliance Engineer 5 , no. 1 (1971): 21–28.