Any HVAC people... I need your help please.

diamdave

diamdave

Joined
Nov 29, 2001
Messages
3,283
We live on a NE corner, two story small Georgian home. Front door faces South, bedrooms are upstairs, master bedroom on West side.

About 3-4x per week, we get a bad smell around noon to roughly 2pm in our master bedroom only. I put a carbon monoxide detector in there, its NOT going off. Doesn't smell like gas, sort of electrical, possibly ash, can't quite define it.

One block west is an auto body shop (actually two of them). One block west from there is a rubber manufacturing plant, with oxidizers ostensibly to scrub the air before placed into the atmosphere.

Sometimes I can smell this smell faintly outside. The weird thing is that this smell is in our bedroom only, NOT any other bedroom , or any room, on the top second floor. Not anywhere else in the house, thankfully.

Smell hits me the minute I go into that room. Lights are off, so I don't think its anything electrical. If it was, why would it only be approx. noon- 2 or so, and only on some days?

All suggestions appreciated....

Thanks.....
 
Last edited:
Ever see that movie "Amityville Horror"?....;):D

Sorry, not an HVAC guy. That was the first thing I thought of though...
 
Well, not an HVAC guy but I paid one last winter...

I'd check the filter just to make sure you're not putting an undue strain on the system.

Ok, I had a similar problem last winter. Got home, thought I smelled smoke, quick check yields no fire. Smoke detectors went off the next morning at 4 am. (Smoke detectors went off because they were that dirty:(

The house started getting colder and colder. Finally called the HVAC guy and found out the motor had shorted out and quit.

Don't know why your odor would recur if the motor was shorting out though. I'd think it would just quit.
 
Carbon monoxide I believe is odorless, that is what makes it so deadly, so elimate that. Heat rises, and so do smells with warm air. I would check your vent ducts for dead rodentia, starting with your room. Maybe pay to have ducts cleaned out, would not be bad even if they found nothing. Also, check the attic on top of your room for said rodentia. Good luck getting that smell out. Oh yeah, I am not an HVAC guy, nor do I play one on TV, just have alot of tools!:D
 
Noon to 2- Hmmm, is the sun shining on the roof intensely (I know it is winter now) starting at noon and then shady after 2 due to other buildings or obstructions? Take a look at the shadow/sun patterns of your room roof area and see if you get a correspondence of that. Possibly the soffits drain the cooler attic air and then the cool air drains out of the house, hence the occaisional smell outside the house. Just another thought....Please post once you find the source, inquiring minds want to know!
 
Thanks to all. Furnace, motor seems to be fine. DOesn't really smell like a dead animal, almost more electrical, can't tell if the sun is 'melting' some shingle material, but very strange that it'd be ONLY in our bedroom, and only sometimes. I"m wondering if we have some kind of leakage between brick wall and frame outside, or the vinyl trim at the very top of the brick wall below the gutter.....?
 
Try turning off power to the bedroom from your electrical pannel. This will isolate any issues with wiring or appliances used in that room.

Did you make any changes in the room just prior to the smell problem?

When the smell arises, does the air outside have that same odor?

Also take note of wind direction when the odor comes and goes.
 
Agreed... so the question is, if does coincide with a westerly wind, why would the smell only penetrate the one bedroom, and not the whole second floor (or whole house)? For that reason I don't think it is chimney/HVAC related, but I can't imagine gaps in brick. Plus the roof is only a few years old....?
 
If it is only smelling in one room, it could be telling you it is not your HVAC system - when the fan is running the air in a room is turned over pretty quickly, and gets returned to the unit, conditioned, and sent throughout the house again.

I would try to eliminate a source in the room first - electrical first - unplug everything and give anything plugged in and the outlets a good sniff. Also check for smells from anything with a battery in it.

Another idea is to turn your HVAC off some morning, close the doors of all rooms, and then see if you can discover more about the smell. If your fan is running, you will be moving the air, and the smell around making it harder to figure out...
 
Some troubleshooting. Not an HVAC guy, just somebody who's had to trouble shoot many things myself and with friends.

When you shut off the power through the panel, first shut off all the power to the bedroom, then that half of the floor, then the entire floor, then everything that side of the house, and then the whole house if you can. It will help to have two people, one to flip the switches, and the other to stand outside the room and stick their nose in for a couple minutes at a time. If you talk to an electrician, you'd probably be amazed at the weirdness they find in older houses. If the panel is not labeled, this is a good time for you to do so. It makes life much easier when your electrical panels are labeled; again, a job much easier with two.

Is there a bathroom adjacent to your master? If so, how long has it been since the toilet was replaced, specifically the wax ring? If the ring is cracked, gas from the sewer could potentially be making its way up from a daily rubber factory dump, just for example. This hypothetical air could be leaking out from under the toilet and only reaching nose level in the bedroom because of a chimney effect from your A/C vents there. Again, just for example.

Also check the seals on your windows or doors going to the outside. Smells often concentrate in rooms; while you may only smell an outside odor faintly, it may become much more noticeable in a room that has an inlet for air.

If none of that yields anything, get a moist sponge and take your shirt off. Wipe the sponge on your lower back and sit with your back to your electrical, cable or telephone outlets, a couple inches away. Is there a draft? Is the draft incoming or outgoing? This may sound asinine, but your lower back is very sensitive to drafts, especially when it's moistened.

Do you have a crawlspace between your top floor and the roof? If so, go up there, even if you can only stick your head up there. If there is something happening on your roof, this is the easiest way to find out.

Consider this little useless factotum; most reports of "poltergeist" and "ghostly cold spots" are attributable to air leaks in electrical outlets, window sill cracks and the like. FYI you can get foam gaskets for outlets that pop under the plate with nothing but a screwdriver.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top