If your furnace smells while heating, it’s attempting 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:

  1. Burning smell from furnace
  2. Furnace smells like burning plastic
  3. Gas smell from furnace
  4. Furnace smells like sewer
  5. Furnace smells musty

1. The Furnace Smells Like It’s Burning

Cause: Dusty Furnace

If your furnace smells like burning, it’s likely happening 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. 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 experiencing a melted plastic smell, turn off your heating system right away and call us at 732-806-5536 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 house. This colorless 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 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 starts up, 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 continuously, turn it off. If you know where your main gas supply valve is, turn 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 make sure you don’t have 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 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 contact a company that does sewer line repair.

5. The Furnace Smells Like Mold

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 across your house. Mold can grow in the ductwork over time, especially if you live in a humid climate. You can eliminate the mold by having an HVAC technician do air duct cleaning.

Trust Us with Your Furnace Repair Needs

Troubleshooting your heating and cooling system on your own is hard. Your comfort is our number one goal at Aggressive Mechanical, so our pros are here to help you when you need us. When you need furnace repair in Neptune City that you can depend on, contact us at 732-806-5536.