My pastor had a very similar episode. Opened an outlet and found the same thing.

Very good advice - don't stop until you find the source.

This happened to us when we lived in an old 1930s apartment building. I kept smelling something "hot." After about a half-hour I found the source. It was a wall outlet that was so hot I could not touch it for more than a few seconds. Otherwise, it looked perfectly normal. We shut the power off and replaced it with a new outlet after cleaning the wires. They were black with corrosion. It was fine after that. Informed the landlord and that was the end of it.

My fiancé and I woke up to the smell of smoke in just our bedroom. After investigating the source with no luck I resorted to google. I decided after reading this post to call the non emergency line and have the fire department come check it out. Thankfully the source of smoke was not coming from under our home as we had feared. I wanted to comment because if you have ended up here it's likely you smell smoke in your house. Don't waste precious time and go ahead and reach out to the non emergency line in your area and ask for advice. Smoke comes from fire and hopefully it's your neighbors burning leaves at 1 in the morning on a Tuesday but in the event it's not and its coming from your home... You'll be glad you called.

It is good to call them if you suspect burning in the house. As you said they usually have thermal imaging tools and will try to find the source. Most people don't have thermal imaging tools.... not cheap.

It was October here and the furnace kicked in for the first time in the season. Set off fire alarm

randy427: yikes.

I posted this a few years ago.

elltwo

I used to lurk on this site alot but never felt compelled to register and reply until now.

I'm a firefighter in the Northeast and a few years ago (maybe 2002) we had a call for the same problem and with the thermal imaging camera we found a hot spot under a hardwood floor on the first floor of a 100 year old aprtment building. When we took up the floor we found that a 12" X 12" beam above a renovated basement apartment had been burned/charred almost all the way through. The cause was a staple or nail through a switch leg to a fluorexcent fixture, and the wire was BLUE Romex or NM. The smell happened every morning in the days before we were called, and disappeared after a short time, and sometimes occurred in the evenings for a short time as well. The reason was that it either went to a kitchen or bath and wasn't left on to draw current through it for a very long time, but on the day we were called it had been charred for so many years that it continued to smolder after the occupant left for work. I have never worked with blue Romex because it was only manufactured for a short time I have been told, but I think that the problem existed for years and only became apparent when the charred surface area of the beam became large enough to emit enough smoke to be objectional, and it still did not activate the smoke detectors.

Call the fire department.

I'm sorry for the length of my first post.

Can someone pinpoint the use of blue Romex?

Like Bookmark May 8, 2007 at 8:53PM

Double wow. Thank you all. I told my children some of these stories. Seems like a good thing to know, heading out into life. Pay attention to warning bells.

O.K. My story sounds a lot like the above "Betterknown"s story, with the major exception that no source has been located so far. Last evening, finally, I called the fire department's non-emergency line, but was referred to the emergency line. I explained that I was not reporting a fire, just an odor of smoke and wanted someone to check it out. Of course, they sent three trucks with lights flashing to our little condominium community--of mostly elderly residents. Lots of flash, but nothing was located. My husband couldn't smell it in the beginning, so he never thought there was anything to find. I still smell it the morning after, and I woke today with a pounding headache. I have no idea what to do now.

Headache can be caused by high carbon monoxide levels. Get a CO detector, it doesn't have to be installed on a ceiling or tied into a notification system. It can be placed anywhere in a room. Just take it out of the box and activate the battery and put it on the nightstand next to your bed tonight. If it goes into alarm mode call the fire department.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Emile23 did you find anything in the end?

Ok the same thing is happening to me except I am home alone and you see I am a teenager and everyone is at work and I’m scared that something is wrong but I don’t want to call the fire department then my parents get mad at me bc there is nothing wrong

The recurring theme here is that people call the non-emergency line and then are surprised when the fire department shows up with all their trucks anyway. But there is a good reason for this:

1. People are frequently embarrassed to call the fire department and tend to minimize the problem when reporting it ("Oh, it's just a small fire on my stove that I can't quite get to go out; no real problem other than I can't breath right now"). By the time the fire truck rolls in a few minutes later, it turns out this was in fact a real problem and needed all the gear and tools that the firefighters have access to on their trucks.
2. If the caller only reports the smell of smoke, it's quite possible there is nothing much to worry about. There also is the possibility that the moment somebody investigates and opens the door to where the fire has been smoldering for hours, air rushes in an a major fire starts within seconds. At that point, you really don't want to wait another 10 minutes for the trucks to roll in. You need them right then and there.

I don't know about all jurisdictions. But in most cases that I am familiar with, the fire department will happily come out to you and investigate, even if it turns out to be "nothing". And you shouldn't get charged for it. But there always could be exceptions.

Also, if they subsequently call an ambulance, that's when you might see charges.

I thought I was smelling smoke from someone barbecuing when at my apartment. It was 12am. I checked outside and no one was barbecuing. It was in my apartment. It really started smoking up inside my apartment so bad I could see the smoke. There was a smell like a cooking burned smell. I called the fire department hoping not to disturb my neighbors. Yeah lights and sirens. They saw the the haze and couldnt identify what it was or where it came from. It was only in my apartment. They checked all of the apartments surrounding me. This is puzzling. They wrote a report.

When I was growing up in Chicago, we lived in a house built in 1875, before the Chicago Fire (you could go into the attic and see the chard remains of it roof burning), but I digress. We were doing some renovation in the kitchen. Tore down the plaster wall near a wall switch and the wire from the wall switch to the ceiling light was ordinary lamp cord - this was in a jurisdiction where NM cable is prohibited. Not only that, but the stud to which the lamp cord was stapled was chard! Never smelled smoke however!

See what happens when you ban NM :)