I’m Wirecutter’s Travel Editor. Here’s What I Bring to Every Vacation Rental.
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This portable, battery-powered alarm can detect elevated CO levels caused by broken or poorly installed fuel-burning appliances (dryers, water heaters, and the like). It won’t detect smoke, though.
Any vacation rental should have working smoke alarms. Yet not everyone is aware of the deadly danger posed by carbon monoxide, an odorless gas that can seep into a building via a malfunctioning chimney, water heater, gas stove, or other combustion appliance.
Doug Mahoney, who wrote our guide to smoke alarms, suggests packing the First Alert CO710 Carbon Monoxide Detector, a portable alarm from the same company that makes the in-home smoke-and-CO alarm he recommends. Unlike that alarm, however, the CO710 won’t alert you to smoke — just to excess levels of carbon monoxide. (It does also display the temperature, though.)
Equivalent in size to a stack of three iPhone SEs, the CO710 weighs less than half a pound, so it’s easy to slip into a carry-on if you’re flying to your rental. (It is powered by a built-in lithium battery, though, so don’t put it in your checked luggage.) We recommend having one alarm for each bedroom, and from now on, I won’t travel without one.
This article was edited by Maxine Builder and Jason Chen.
