[TheForge] Need help with a mystery odor in my house

Sun Mar 29 12:25:38 EDT 2020

I was going to say make sure your traps have water in them, sewer gas can smell like a lot of things, flush the toilet and run the sink a bit to flush things out. Run your heat and see how much the motor heats up, set the thermostat for a 10 degree rise and see how fast your circulator or fan motor heat up and how much. They should get warm to mildly hot but not red hot
Larry

> On Mar 28, 2020, at 10:25 AM, Walter <wmullett22 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> You say an oily smell.  Could this be an overheated bearing on a motor like on your furnace, well, sump pump - etc?
> 
> On 3/27/2020 10:57 PM, Bruce . wrote:
>> Sorry, this is not blacksmithing related at all, but I'm about at my wit's
>> end and I know that this group includes lots of folks with varied
>> experience and good deductive skills.
>> 
>> Some background:  I live in a ranch-style home with full basement and
>> storage attic.  My garage (shop) is detached.  I have (detached) sheds out
>> back where I keep most fuels and much paint, including spray paint, so the
>> bulk of this is not in the house at all.
>> 
>> My back hall leads off the kitchen via a pocket door, which I usually keep
>> closed, and my back hall is down two steps.  The back door is then to the
>> right and the stairs to the basement are to the left, opposite the back
>> door.  The pocket door, then separates the back hall and basement from the
>> ground floor of the house.
>> 
>> At the bottom of the stairs is a small "foyer".  There's an (open) door to
>> the east half, where the gas appliances are located in a separate "laundry
>> room", and an (open) door to the west, that has a separate bathroom.  There
>> is a sewer ejector that serves the bathroom and the laundry, but its
>> contents are clean at present because I've been doing laundry but not using
>> the basement john.
>> 
>> As to possible odors:  There are some oil paints, spray paints, glues,
>> Brakleen, and other auto fluids in the back hall and basement.  My house
>> and water are heated with gas.  I have paint stored in the laundry room,
>> and glues and such stored in the east basement.  I have one bin of misc.
>> automotive fluids in the west basement.
>> 
>> As recently as yesterday I was all through the house and smelled no
>> particular odors anywhere.  This morning I opened the pocket door to the
>> back hall and  immediately noticed an odor that I'd describe as "oily."
>> 
>> I immediately checked all my gas appliances in the basement -- boiler,
>> water heater and clothes dryer -- spraying all valve cocks, pipe joints and
>> the flex hose to the dryer with detergent-water to look for leaks, and
>> found none.
>> 
>> As a reference, I also accumulated a bit of gas from my kitchen stove in an
>> inverted bowl and sniffed that.  The odor of the gas was not at all the
>> same "oily" odor I smelled in the back hall.
>> 
>> Next I sought out a closed plastic bin in the west basement that contains
>> various fluids for automotive use.  One of these had leaked a bit some time
>> ago, but the odor wasn't bad if I kept the bin sealed.  I opened the bin
>> and noted the odor was *not *the "oily" odor I'd been smelling in the
>> house.  Nonetheless, I hauled the entire bin out back and have left it
>> there since.
>> 
>> At this point, I was out of ideas.  In an excess of caution, I opened one
>> window near my basement gas appliances, opened all doors between there and
>> the ground floor, opened a window on the ground floor and put a wind-box
>> fan, set on "high", in the window, blowing outward.  Fortunately, the
>> weather was nice today, so I left it like this for a while, with air being
>> pulled through the house.  (The idea was both to vent the odor and to
>> prevent accumulation of an explosive mixture if the odor was from a
>> flammable compound.)
>> 
>> I went out from noon to 3PM, and when I returned the odor was present in
>> the house, but I don't recall it being strong.  At some later point I
>> turned the wind-box fan to "low", but I don't now recall whether this was
>> before going out or after returning.  I left again at about 7 PM, and
>> during this time I was dimly aware of the odor, but it did not strike me as
>> strong.  (Granted, the nose fatigues.)
>> 
>> When I returned around 10 PM I immediately smelled the odor when I entered
>> the front door.  Once again I checked all gas lines for leaks, and found
>> none.
>> 
>> This time I went through the various thing stored in the back hall,
>> carefully sniffing each, and none have the "oily" smell I'm experiencing.
>> (This included Brakleen, a permethrin spray, 30-weight oil, and maybe one
>> or two other things.  I know quite well what WD-40 and spray paint smell
>> like, so didn't try those.)  I also have sniffed some used crankcase oil
>> from a garden tractor (which I'm waiting to dispose of properly), some
>> kerosene, and some diesel fuel.  The kerosene is the closest to the "oily"
>> smell, but not exactly the same.  I associate the "oily" smell with auto
>> shops.  Maybe it smells like dilute used crankcase oil, but not quite like
>> that from that garden tractor.
>> 
>> At this point I'm fairly sure there is no gas leak, but I'm leaving the fan
>> in the window to pull air through the house anyway.  The odor was first in
>> the back hall, but may also have been in the basement.  At no time did it
>> seem to be concentrated around the basement gas appliances.  More likely it
>> was coming from the west basement, but that's not certain.  The odor is not
>> likely to be sewer gas, both for the type of odor and for it's origin, but
>> I've run some water in each basement drain to ensure the traps are filled.
>> 
>> The real puzzle is that I have absolutely no idea what this smell is or
>> where it's coming from.  I have no reason to believe that it's being pulled
>> in from outside.  I have no reason to believe I've been the victim of
>> mischief.    FWIW, my sense of smell seems normal.  Acetone, isopropyl
>> alcohol witch hazel, lavender, and  food (at dinner) all smell or taste
>> normal.
>> 
>> Any insights would be very welcome.
>> 
>> Bruce
>> NJ
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