6 Common Furnace Smells Explained

If your furnace smells while heating, it’s trying to tell you something’s wrong. We’ve put together a list of the top six furnace smells so you can learn what causes them and how to repair them. These include:

Burning smell from furnace
Furnace smells like burning plastic
Gas smell from furnace
Furnace smells like sewer
Furnace smells musty

1. Burning Smell from Furnace

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 home, your furnace accumulates dust 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 problem. This smell of burning can be caused by melting plastic wire casing, which is a safety issue. If you’re noticing a melted plastic smell, turn off your heating system right away and call us at (325) 692-5850 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 invisible 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 signs 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 around your furnace, as long as the condensate drain isn’t blocked
Flu-like symptoms

3. Gas Smell from Furnace

It’s normal for your heating system to let off a little bit of gas when it starts up, so you might notice a gas smell from your furnace. But it’s not normal 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, turn that off too. Then call the gas company and us for assistance.

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 issue 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 putting some water down the floor drain in your basement. If that doesn’t solve the problem, you might have a sewer leak, so you’ll want to call a company that handles sewer line repair.

5. Furnace Smells Musty

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

Cause: Dirty Ductwork

Your furnace uses air ducts to distribute warm air throughout your home. Mold can grow in the ductwork over time, especially if you live in a humid climate. You can get rid of the mold by having an HVAC technician do air duct cleaning.

Depend on Us with Your Furnace Repair Needs

Trying to fix your heating and cooling system on your own is hard. Your comfort is our number one goal at Abilene Air-Tech Inc, so our professionals are here to help you when you need us. When you need furnace repair in Abilene that you can depend on, call us at (325) 692-5850.