If your furnace smells while heating, it’s trying to tell you something’s up. We’ve compiled a list of the top six furnace smells so you can learn 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. Burning Smell from Furnace
Cause: Dusty Furnace
If your furnace smells like burning, it’s probably happening when you turn on your furnace for the first time in the fall. Like anything else in your home, your furnace accumulates dust over time. This dust burns off when you turn on the heat, resulting in 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 issue. This smell of burning can be created by melting plastic wire casing, which is a safety hazard. If you’re experiencing a melted plastic smell, turn off your heating system right away and call us at 715-301-0727 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 gets rid of carbon monoxide that’s naturally produced during the combustion process.
If it cracks, carbon monoxide can leak into your home. This invisible 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 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 around your furnace, as long as the condensate drain isn’t blocked
- Flu-like symptoms
3. The Furnace Smells Like Gas or Rotten Eggs
It’s normal for your heating system to give off a small amount of gas when it turns on, so you might get 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 continuously, 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 issue 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 suspect your sewer trap is dry, you can try pouring 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 does sewer line repair.
5. Furnace Smells Musty
If your furnace smells musty, mold and mildew have probably been growing in it for a while.
Cause: Dirty Ductwork
Your furnace works with air ducts to send warm air throughout your home. Mold can grow in the ductwork as time goes on, 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 by yourself is hard. Your comfort is our number one priority at Gilray Heating and Cooling, so our pros are here to help you when you need us. When you need furnace repair in Wausau that you can trust, call us at 715-301-0727.