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 know what causes them and how to fix them. These include:
- Burning smell from furnace
- Furnace smells like burning plastic
- Gas smell from furnace
- Furnace smells like sewer
- Furnace smells musty
1. Your Furnace Smells Like Burning Dust
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 house, 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. The Furnace Smells Like Plastic Is Burning
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 created 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 713-364-9957 for furnace repair.
Cause: Overheated Motor or Cracked Furnace Exchanger
An electrical burning smell could also mean your furnace motor is overheated or the heat exchanger is cracked. The heat exchanger safely exhausts carbon monoxide that’s naturally created during the combustion process.
If it cracks, carbon monoxide can seep into your home. This colorless gas is fatal in large doses. So, it’s important to have an HVAC professional do annual furnace maintenance and have functional carbon monoxide detectors.
Other signs 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 around your furnace, as long as the condensate drain isn’t blocked
- Flu-like symptoms
3. A Gas Smell Is Coming From the Furnace
It’s normal for your heating system to let off a small amount of gas when it starts up, so you might notice a gas smell from your furnace. But it’s not normal 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, shut that off too. Then contact the gas company and us for help.
4. Furnace Smells Like Sewer
If your furnace smells like sewer, or rotten eggs, you’ll want to ensure 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 extremely dry lately.
Cause: Dry Sewer Trap or Sewer Leak
If you think your sewer trap is dry, you can try putting some water down the floor drain in your basement. If that doesn’t fix the problem, you might have a sewer leak, so you’ll want to call a company that handles sewer line repair.
5. The Furnace Has a Musty Smell
If your furnace smells musty, mold and mildew have likely been growing in it for a while.
Cause: Dirty Ductwork
Your furnace uses air ducts to distribute warm air across your home. Mold can grow in the ductwork over time, particularly if you live in a humid climate. You can eliminate the mold by having an HVAC technician do air duct cleaning.
Depend on Us for Your Furnace Repair Needs
Trying to fix your heating and cooling system on your own is hard. Your comfort is our top priority at Premium Air Services LLC, so our professionals are here to help you when you need us. When you need furnace repair in Tomball that you can depend on, contact us at 713-364-9957.