[TheForge] Follow up to "Need help with a mystery odor in my house"

[Bruce .]

Thanks for all your help.  The problem isn't *solved, *exactly, but the
odor has abated.

I'm reasonably sure the odor *was* due to an overheated motor bearing in
the boiler pump.  The difficulty with that explanation, and the reasons I
didn't latch onto it immediately, were that (a) it hasn't been very cold
here, so the boiler shouldn't have been *running* all *that *much, and (b)
the odor didn't *seem* to originate very close to the boiler.

Arguments in favor of this explanation are (a) the *only* motor in the
basement (and the odor certainly originated *somewhere *in th basement)
that runs unattended* is* the boiler pump, and (b) this is a motor I need,
and do, oil monthly, and most persuasively, (c) on some cold winter
mornings, when the heat has been on for prolonged periods, I occasionally
get a "hot oil" smell in the laundry room, where the boiler is located.

Were that "hot oil" smell exactly what I experienced yesterday as the
"oily" smell, I would have zeroed in immediately on the boiler motor, but
it did not strike me as quite the same, and the location seemed different.
My tentative conclusion is that sometime the previous night, the
temperature in the house may have dropped more than I would have expected,
the boiler came on for an unexpectedly long period, producing the unusual
"hot oil" smell, and that oily smell -- for reasons yet unexplained, and
contrary to all previous experience -- diffused through the basement and
back hall.

That's the best explanation I can come up with.  After ventilating the
house overnight with the heat off (like I say, it's been relatively warm
here) the smell was almost completely gone and so far has not returned.
(Prior to that it had been quite pervasive -- worrisomely so.)  I've closed
up the house again and turned the heat back on, so we shall see what we
shall see.  So far, so good.

Thanks again.  I really felt I was in over my head on this one after my
hunting for the source of the odor went unrewarded.

Once again, I'm glad I am part of this community.  It's easier to socially
isolate when one has communities like this to fall back on.  (And if you
think I'm overreacting to the crisis by self-isolating -- take a look at a
map of the USA with the per capita COVID-19 cases indicated by color -- NJ
is right up there with NYC!)

Be careful and take care of yourself and yours,

Bruce
NJ