If your furnace smells while heating, it’s attempting to tell you something’s wrong. We’ve put together a list of the top six furnace smells so you can learn what causes them and how to repair them. These include:
- Burning smell from furnace
- Furnace smells like burning plastic
- Gas smell from furnace
- Furnace smells like sewer
- Furnace smells musty
1. Burning Smell from Furnace
Cause: Dusty Furnace
If your furnace smells like burning, it’s probably occurring when you turn on your furnace for the first time in the fall. Like anything else in your home, your furnace gets dusty over time. This dust burns up when you turn on the heat, causing the burning dust smell from your furnace.
2. Furnace Smells Like Burning Plastic
Cause: Electrical Problem
If your furnace smells like burning plastic or burning rubber, it might have an electrical problem. This smell of burning can be caused by melting plastic wire casing, which is a safety hazard. If you’re noticing a melted plastic smell, turn off your heating system right away and call us at 301-960-3247 for furnace repair.
Cause: Overheated Motor or Cracked Furnace Exchanger
An electrical burning smell could also mean your furnace motor is too hot or the heat exchanger is cracked. The heat exchanger safely exhausts carbon monoxide that’s naturally produced during the combustion process.
If it cracks, carbon monoxide can seep into your home. This invisible gas is fatal in heavy concentrations. So, it’s important to have an HVAC professional do annual furnace maintenance and have functional carbon monoxide detectors.
Other symptoms of a cracked heat exchanger include:
- Soot on or inside the furnace
- Yellow burner flame, instead of blue
- Chemical smell from furnace, such as formaldehyde
- Water near your furnace, as long as the condensate drain isn’t plugged
- Flu-like symptoms
3. Gas Smell from Furnace
It’s normal for your heating system to let off a small amount of gas when it turns on, so you might notice a gas smell from your furnace. But it’s not typical to be smelling natural gas or rotten eggs throughout your home on a daily basis.
Cause: Gas Leak
If your furnace smells like gas frequently, shut it down. If you know where your main gas supply valve is, turn that off too. Then contact the gas company and us for assistance.
4. Furnace Smells Like Sewer
If your furnace smells like sewer, or rotten eggs, you’ll want to make sure you aren’t dealing with a gas leak. If you don’t, the problem could be with your sewer lines and not your furnace. This is especially true if it’s been very dry lately.
Cause: Dry Sewer Trap or Sewer Leak
If you think your sewer trap is dry, you can try pouring some water down the floor drain in your basement. If that doesn’t fix the issue, you might have a sewer leak, so you’ll want to call a company that does sewer line repair.
5. Furnace Smells Musty
If your furnace smells musty, mold and mildew has likely been growing in it for some time.
Cause: Dirty Ductwork
Your furnace uses air ducts to send warm air across your house. Mold can grow in the ductwork over time, particularly if you live in a humid climate. You can get rid of the mold by having an HVAC technician do air duct cleaning.
Depend on Us with Your Furnace Repair Needs
Trying to fix your heating and cooling system by yourself is difficult. Your comfort is our top goal at H&C Heating and Cooling, so our professionals are here to help you when you need us. When you need furnace repair in Laurel that you can depend on, contact us at 301-960-3247.