You can smell my oil furnace suddenly!? :(
tipoftheislandgirl
17 years ago
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daft_punk
17 years agokalining
17 years agoRelated Discussions
Well water suddenly smells like
Comments (9)My parents lived in a home with well water, and when there were a great number of homes on wellwater in the area the water table dropped and the water had a distinctive and sometimes strong sulphery smell and taste. The local municipality after many years ran a city water line into the area and the majority of homes in the neighborhood switched to city water from the well water they had always used. It wasn"t long after that , that the well water at my folks house became noticably better tasting and eventually the sulpher taste was gone. So overtaxing of the well water source could definately cause the water quality to deteriorate. Don't know if this applies to your situation or not....but I hope it helps....See MoreOil Fume Smell - brand new oil furnace
Comments (13)I would like to thank everyone for there thoughtful comments. Today another Senior Tech stopped by (the sales rep also a former tech arranged this for us) He walked in and immediately I envisioned Sherlock Holmes just by his demeanor. We went into the basement and unlike the previous 4 or 5 techs who spent hours on this rather then opening up the oil furnace He simply looked at the large pipe that extends from the furnace to the chimney. Then like Sherlock he rubbed his ring finger over it near the furnace. He smiled & said I know what the problem is. (I thought he was joking) After showing me a little dust. He pointed out a little discoloration on the pipe . He then said occasionally the heat is going in the wrong direction.. To prove this he connected a Draft Meter. When the system is on (flame on) its negative but when the fan goes on it is positive (looking for air) We went up stairs and once again he smiled. We have chairs and stuff in front of the outgoing vents and he moved them a few inches & then said problem solved. He said the newer powerful systems simply need to circulate more air. both in and out. We went back to the basement with his Draft Regulator and it tested perfect. IT only took this gentleman less then a minute to resolve a problem that we had since November or December -A problem that most of the other techs downplayed etc The chairs and stuff were there with the old less powerful furnace without any issues. . again thanks for your input....See MoreElectric Furnace to Replace Oil Furnace?
Comments (2)I'm suspecting you live in an area that gets quite cold and is not suitable for a heat pump (except geothermal $$$$$). Heating water resistively would cost a lot more than with oil.......See MoreOil boiler - smell oil when low outside temps?
Comments (14)yeah - I wasn't trying to suggest we've got enough air down there - just passing along any pertinent info. But that makes sense it's more about cubic volume vs. square footage, etc. btw - smell is indeed worse when we've got a fire going in the fireplace - obviously the draft is causing tendency for negative pressure. BUT - the smell is still evident even when no fire going - but when boiler is running long/often (aka when cold out). Trying to think of any other negative pressure causes - during these smelly times we aren't running bathroom vents, clothes dryer, or anything like that... I don't want to change too many variables at once - one at a time. I haven't figure out yet how to run the PV longer, but will take a look. In the meantime, maybe easiest first test would be to somehow provide more air down there? Crack a window in the basement? Leave the garage door open a bit? (garage is under and on same level as basement - in fact the garage door is just outside the door of the "boiler room"... Do you think that could help make a difference to test or would I just be wasting my time (along with making it cold in the basement!)? Of course it's possible that both conditions are causing the issue (not enough air AND PV not running long enough to cool off the system?) I see what you're saying that by running the PV longer it actually exacerbating the negative air issue. so maybe I'll try one thing at a time, but ultimately may need to try both at the same time (run PV longer AND crack the garage door for more airflow?) Despite the techs telling me no, maybe we do actually need an air tube to the outside so the burner can get all the air it needs? Thanks again - this is really helpful as hopefully I'll be able to do a bunch of diagnosing to help our techs. Good guys but this is the type of thing that you need to live it to figure out what's going on. Hard for them to swoop in and solve in a 30-60 min visit......See Moreberlin
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