If your furnace smells while heating, 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 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. 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 house, 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 issue. This smell of burning can be created 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 614-871-4144 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 exhausts carbon monoxide that’s naturally produced during the combustion process.

If it cracks, carbon monoxide can seep into your home. This invisible 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, like formaldehyde
• Water around 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 let off a small amount of gas when it starts up, so you might get 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 call 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 suspect your sewer trap is dry, you can try pouring some water down the floor drain in your basement. If that doesn’t solve the issue, you might have a sewer leak, so you’ll want to contact a company that handles sewer line repair.

5. Furnace Smells Musty

If your furnace smells musty, mold and mildew has likely been growing in it for some time.

Cause: Dirty Ductwork

Your furnace works with air ducts to send warm air across your home. 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 Air Quality Solutions, so our pros are here to help you when you need us. When you need furnace repair in Grove City that you can trust, contact us at 614-871-4144.