3 Unusual Boiler Smells And What They Mean. 19 December 2014 Categories: , Articles. Boilers are still used to heat many of the homes in the United States today. They're reliable and efficient, and because they use natural gas or propane, they're money savers in areas where the price of electricity is high.

Natural gas includes an additive that makes it smell like rotten eggs so that you can detect when you have a gas leak, while liquid propane smells like you would expect gas to smell. Therefore, if you can smell gas around your boiler, it’s likely to be that liquid propane is leaking from the boiler. How to Test for a Gas Leak

If your boiler is letting off a sulphur like smell it could indicate that it has a leak. As we’re sure you know, a gas leak can be catastrophic if it is exposed to a naked flame. Just take the recent gas explosion in Clacton, Essex as an example. If your boiler starts to emit this smell you should extinguish all naked flames.

I notice there is a smell of gas outside the house coming from the flue, when the boiler is on. Is this normal, or something that might need sorting out? (like maybe boiler not burning efficiently or something?) There isn't a smell of gas inside the house, plus I have a carbon monoxide monitor near the boiler.

When a boiler is making a strange smell, HVAC professionals can also quickly diagnose any other problems it may have. In general, to ensure that your water heater’s anodes are replaced correctly, it’s best to have a plumber come in and take a look (or a sniff, as the case may be).

faint gas smell, only when boiler runs Is this a problem? There is no gas smell in the summer, so it isn't a leak in the piping. But now, when it's cold and the boiler is running a lot, there's a faint smell. It collects at the top of the basement stairs, and I can also smell it very near the boiler. Boiler is a Munchkin wall-mounted.

The burner on that age of boiler is a series of hollow bars with a small jet supplying gas to each one. The spark ignition electrodes are on the left and sometimes not all the burner bars light initially so unburnt gas is ejected from the flue.

We just purchased a house with an older gas hot water boiler. It has a standing pilot and i noticed that there is a slight smell in the boliler room. If i put my nose near the vent of the bioler i can smell that it's coming out of the boiler. It's not a gas smell. It's hard to put my finger on it. I have a smoke/CO detector in boiler room and nothing is going off.