We just moved into this home one month ago. Before buying we had a home inspection but from what I'm seeing those are basically worthless.

We wanted to paint the entire inside. When starting the painting project we found a soot like substance on the ceiling heat vents. These were cleaned and began painting. About one week after we noticed that the vents that had been cleaned were developing soot on them again. The home is supplied with LP and a 5 year old Bryant furnace. We have never had LP before so we were unsure as to what would cause this.

In our initial cleaning of the home we found a thin layer of this black soot like substance on the tops of kitchen cabinets, inside the refrigerator, and on the walls.

We took a look at the furnace but it appeared to be working properly. Research told us that it could be a cracked heat exchanger so we had a furnace technician come and look at it. The furnace tech found the burners and the heat exchanger to be in proper working order. But when looking in the motor blower compartment he found a lot of black soot. When I say a lot, I mean an amount that would make you think it was an oil burner. He cleaned out the blower motor and the compartment. There were two wires to the motor that didn't have a terminal making him think that it was possibly a replacement blower motor. He thought that the original blower motor had burned up, caused all of the soot in the compartment and that when the replacement motor was installed the compartment wasn't cleaned.

We cleaned another ceiling heat vent to see if this cured the problem. A few days later there was again a small amount of black particulate on them which looks like soot. We had another furnace tech come look at our situation. He agreed that the burners and heat exchanger were in proper working order. He too thought that the blower motor might be a replacement. He suggest having the heat ducts cleaned and then see if this corrected the problem. There were also two panels screwed onto duct to and from the furnace. One above the A.C. condenser and the other on the cold air return duct. He suggest removing the one above the AC condenser to see if that duct was dirty. After he left we removed the panel above the A.C. condenser and found a hole in the duct that appeared to have been cut with a can opener or knife. It differently wasn't a professional job. The inside of the duct only had dust in it. When wiped with a magic eraser it came out mostly grey. There was little evidence of a black sooty residue. Out of curiosity we removed the panel on the cold air return and found a hole similar to the other. I had replaced the furnace filter when we moved in. I decided to replace it again. After a month the filter was pretty dirty but only grayish like it had caught only dust.

I contacted the previous owner and ask him if the blower motor had been replaced. He said no and that his heating company had only been there once before. I contact the heating company he used and ask them about the history. They only showed one visit in the last three years but it did not show anything about a blower motor replacement.

When purchasing the home the information said that there had not been a fire in the home.

We are at a standstill as we do not want to paint until this problem is corrected. There is a soot like shadow around the walls where the meet the ceiling. We don't know if the previous owner burned a lot of candles or smoked in the home.

We have purchased an air cleaner to try and solve the problem. After that our next move would be to have the air ducts cleaned. When removing the ceiling vents to paint the ducts that we can reach into haven't been found to be that dirty. Mostly just dust in the ductwork. Looking for any help or suggestions into what we have here.