If your furnace smells while running, it’s trying to tell you something’s up. We’ve put together a list of the top six furnace smells so you can know 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 likely 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, 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 problem. This smell of burning can be caused by melting plastic wire casing, which is a safety issue. If you’re experiencing a melted plastic smell, turn off your heating system right away and call us at 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 created during the combustion process.
If it cracks, carbon monoxide can seep into your home. This colorless gas is fatal in heavy concentrations. So, it’s important to have an HVAC professional do routine 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 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 give off a little bit 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 regular 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 assistance.
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 issue 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 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 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 have likely been growing in it for some time.
Cause: Dirty Ductwork
Your furnace uses air ducts to distribute warm air across your house. Mold can grow in the ductwork as time goes on, especially if you live in a humid climate. You can get rid of the mold by having an HVAC technician do air duct cleaning.
Trust Us with Your Furnace Repair Needs
Troubleshooting your heating and cooling system by yourself is hard. Your comfort is our top goal at Woody's Sudden Service, so our pros are here to help you when you need us. When you need furnace repair in that you can trust, contact us at .