COLUMBUS – Authorities believe a water heater was the source of high levels of carbon monoxide that claimed the lives of four members of a Genoa Township family inside their home earlier this month, though they have not concluded that the tragedy was the result of an unsafe product or faulty installation.
According to a joint press release from Genoa Township police Chief Stephen Gammill and Fire Chief Gary Honeycutt, there is no indication the deaths of Richard and Jennifer Reitter and their two teenage children, whose bodies were found inside their Lewis Center Road home on May 2, was the result of “human or product error” or any wrongdoing that would constitute a crime under Ohio law.
The Montgomery County Coroner, who performed autopsies on the Reitter family, issued a preliminary report listing the cause of death as carbon monoxide saturation, Gammill and Honeycutt said.
Police and fire personnel noticed a dislodged exhaust pipe on top of the hot water heater during their preliminary inspection of appliances though a Delaware County inspector examined the water heater on May 2 and reported it did appear to be compliant with safety code regulations.
A forensic engineering company that conducted an operational trial the day after the Reitter’s bodies were found caused the water heater to immediately begin emitting high levels of carbon monoxide, forcing the test to be stopped before it was possible to conclude faulty installation or a faulty unit were the cause of the emission, a determination Gammill and Honeycutt say will require more extensive testing.
The water heater, which had been installed by Richard Reitter and a friend in December was sold by a company whose water heaters were the subject of a recall, though the model installed in the Reitter home was not on the recall list, Gammill and Honeycutt said. No permit was on file for the installation as required by law, they said.
Gammill says police briefed the Reitters’ family members and their attorneys on the findings of their investigation Thursday, saying that they had not determined “whether the cause of the carbon monoxide was due to faulty installation or a product defect,” Gammill and Honeycutt wrote.
Further testing would be required to make that determination and that would be carried out at the discretion of the Reitters’ estate or the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which Gammill and Honeycutt said had been notified of the case, as well as one a few days later in a Marion County home where a similar water heater had been installed and a man was exposed to high levels of carbon monoxide a few days after the Reitters’ bodies were found. Gammill and Honeycutt say the water heater in the Marion County home also had a dislodged exhaust pipe.
The water heater – a Navien NPE-240A – is a tankless water heater that must be converted from natural gas to propane. Conversion kits installed on the water heaters were the subject of the recall in December.