One of the easiest ways to tell if your heating system is on the fritz is with your nose. That’s right, as the old adage says, the nose always goes. Your nose is a powerful tool that can detect even a minor amount of dangerous particles in the air, from cooking smoke to leaking gas.
While there are some important things your nose can’t pick up, like carbon monoxide (which we’ll talk about later), you should rely on your nose to tell you when something is wrong and schedule an appointment with our team for HVAC repair in Grapevine, TX.
Don’t worry, the price of this work should be secondary when the result is a safer home for you and your family. Safety always comes first, so make sure you tell us about the strange odors you’re detecting.
The First Run of the Season
First of all, we’d like to talk about a thing that happens at the beginning of every heating season. You’ll likely notice when you run your furnace or heater for the first time that it smells like burning dust. This is normal, and it’s usually the result of the system running for the first time after dust has settled on the burner.
The smell should go away within a few minutes. But if it persists, then we recommend calling for a professional team to diagnose the issue and repair it. There could be a large amount of dust in your furnace, or you could have a clogged air filter that needs to be restored. Either way, long-term odors are never a good sign
Mercaptan and the Smell of Gas
Did you know that natural gas normally has no odor? In fact, the government mandates that we add a scent to it, so the chemical mercaptan is added to the gas to give it that foul, rotten-egg smell that we associate with flammable gases.
This is good, because mercaptan is easy to detect with just your nose, and it’s almost always a sign that gas is leaking where it shouldn’t. If you detect the foul odor of gas, then call your local utility company as you evacuate the property.
Smoke
Furnace and modern day heating appliances shouldn’t be giving off smoke. Natural gas burns very clean and it usually just gives off large amounts of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and steam. But if there’s smoke coming from your heating system, you should turn it off immediately and call for help.
Smoke is a serious sign of a fire or electrical hazard that needs to be fixed immediately.
Be Careful of Carbon Monoxide!
We mentioned earlier that carbon monoxide cannot be picked up by scent or sight. This is what makes carbon monoxide detectors in your home so vital. Make sure your CO detectors are in good shape and that your home is protected from carbon monoxide. Even if you can’t detect it on your own, you should still not have to worry about it!
Schedule an appointment with Coventry & Gattis A/C, Inc. for comprehensive furnace repair.