It's more the burnt wood smell you get like when you run lumber too
fast thru a table saw on a dull blade...and no I haven't run the table
saw for several weeks...and it's in the basement in a separate room to
itself that does not have a tie to the HVAC. The odor is so faint that
it is very hard to track down, but it maybe appears to correlate with
running the HVAC and maybe the water heater at the same time. Both
units are new this year and both are gas. It was a professional install
on both systems to verify that they were brought up to latest code. I
would wonder if there's something with the AC pulling flue exhaust back
out of the water heater (the systems are connected) except that we have
a CO monitor in the room that is the problem and it is reading zero.
I haven't given up on electrical issues at all...just have not been
able to narrow the problem so far. We live out in the county and have a
contract fire dept...not sure they have a thermal camera to loan but
will check.
Also ended up with an unrelated emergency with the garage door opener
that had to be addressed this weekend and so that has been a
distraction on debugging as well.
Thanks for any ideas...
Mark Noakes
----Original Message----
From: mayfield+shoptalk@sackheads.org
Date: Jul 8, 2007 6:01
To: <shop-talk@autox.team.net>
Subj: Re: [Shop-talk] unnerving burnt smell
On Fri, Jul 06, 2007 at 11:52:44AM +0000, mark@noakes.com wrote:
> I'm getting a very unnevering burnt wood smell in my family room
that I
> cannot find the source of. (I haven't run the table saw or the
> fireplace in quite a while.) It's very faint and not continuous.
While
> I do have a gas water heater in the basement/garage, I'm worried
about
> something electrical. The house is 19 years old.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can find the source
> before it becomes disasterous? I guess I'll pull all the outlets in
> that part of the house this weekend to see if there are any issues.
If your local fire department is unwilling to let you borrow/rent
their
thermal imaging camera, you can use a stethoscope to find tiny arcs
in
the wiring inside the wall. A few years ago I used one to chase down
what
turned out to be a loose wire nut in a junction box.
You mentioned that you have a fireplace. Are you smelling
burnt/burning wood
or are you smelling the typical ash smell of a chimney with a
downdraft? In
my experience they are very different smells (the latter of which
quickly
gives me a headache).
Jimmie
_______________________________________________
mark@noakes.com
Shop-talk mailing list
http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/shop-talk
_______________________________________________
Shop-talk mailing list
http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/shop-talk
|