Your heating system might be the most important thing you own in Minnesota. You need it to work extremely hard, and if it were to conk out in the middle of a cold January night, there’d be more than your comfort at stake. It’s a serious safety issue! So when something is not quite right about your furnace or boiler, you need to deal with it straightaway.
If you’re noticing a smell, and you think you’ve got funky furnace fumes, you can’t afford to ignore it. Do all heating system odors require repair? Here’s a quick rundown for you of the smells your heat might make and which ones mean furnace repair is necessary.
No Need for Repair: Last Year’s Dust
First on our list, we have a common occurrence that you’re probably familiar with. It’s the smell of a year’s worth of dust starting to bake when you first turn on the heat in the fall. While unpleasant, this doesn’t mean anything is actually wrong with the heating system. So what should you do?
First, open your windows and air out the smell. It should be gone within the hour. Of course it’s no fun to have wide-open windows when what you actually wanted was a warmer house, but that’s what you get for skipping maintenance! So your second step is to schedule that now, to make sure your heating system will be in good shape for the coming winter.
Schedule Repair: Overheating
If you’ve got a hot smell that doesn’t go away after the first hour of using the heating system, or if it smells like something other than dust is too hot—like metal, or a motor, for example—you’ve probably got an overheating component. Again, this is most likely to occur in systems that haven’t had routine maintenance! It’s quicker and cheaper to repair a motor than replace it, so get the system serviced promptly.
Urgent Repair: Electrical Issues
If a hot smell is accompanied by anything that seems like an electrical issue—buzzing or clicking, or a tripped circuit breaker—or if you smell fish, turn the system off immediately. Fish odor is caused by ammonia in the air, which is released by not only decomposing sea creatures, but also by electrical fires. This is a huge hazard. Don’t turn the heat back on until you’ve had it repaired.
Evacuate: Gas Leak
Natural gas has no odor. For your safety, mercaptan is added to make gas leaks more detectable. This sulfur compound smells strongly eggy. If you notice a smell like that, and nobody has been hard-boiling dozens of eggs in your house, it’s time to evacuate.
If you can shut off the heating system, or shut off the gas to the house entirely, do that. But if you’re unsure or it would take time, don’t risk it. Gather your family and pets and get out of the house. From a safe distance, like across the street, call for help. If you can’t get through to someone at the gas company immediately, call 911.
Whether you need urgent furnace repair in Hibbing, MN or you want to schedule routine maintenance, we’ve got you covered.
Reach out to Mesaba Heating & Air Conditioning today. Service to you is success to us!