Natural gas smell when heat kicks on

[Silock]

It comes and goes. I only smell it when the heat first comes on, it lasts for a few moments and then disappears. I don't smell anything near the furnace, but instead in the upstairs living room. I've checked that all the vents are open, and the burners are all working inside the furnace. Air filter is clean and replaced.

What am I missing? Should I just bite the bullet and call an HVAC tech?

[A Salt Weapon]

Spray all your gas line fittings with a soap/water mix, if there is a gas leak you'll see bubbles. Most likely not or you'd smell gas all the time. Probably a cracked heat exchanger or a compromised vent.
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[Bump]

ya call your gas company. They should check it out for free.

I had to call mine, I came home from a loonng night of work to the sound of my carbon monoxide detector going off. But it was a constant alarm sound, still called the gas company and it turned out it was the batteries lol. Your mind can do crazy things because I honestly thought I was getting dizzy, like a psychological thing.

[chefsos]

Originally Posted by Donger

Pet peeve: you aren't smelling natural gas. NG is odorless. What you are smelling is the odorant that the gas companies put into NG for this very reason.

Call your gas company immediately.

Ethyl Mercaptan FTW

...That is, if it's the same stuff that's used in LP.

[bevischief]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

Call the gas company tell them you smell gas they will send a tech over asap

I was painting my house over the 4th of July weekend and smelled gas by the meter they had a tech out in about a hour to replace it.

[cabletech94]

Originally Posted by Silock

Gas dude is here now. Just a weird interaction between the water heater venting and the furnace being on that overloads the exhaust vent because of the way the vent tees together, which is why it's intermittent. Only happens when the water heater and the furnace are going at the same time.

He told me how to fix it and is just finishing up. No crazy death traps in the house. Sorry to disappoint!

i was just getting ready to post if anyone had heard from you. obviously i skipped page 2.

glad youre still alive.

as stated with these other knuckleheads. never mess with natural gas.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

You could DIY it, or you could call a professional to deal with the atomized explosive potentially invading your living space.

This is CP. If you can't you can't assemble a physics package using three pages worth of advice,you aren't trying.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Originally Posted by Rambozo

Check the ignitor. Turn off the heat and go down and watch it start. Does it take several tries? If so, sometimes you can just clean it with a dollar bill and it will work. There are videos on you tube. I just had this problem.

Thats gotta be sum of the dumbest advice I've ever read in the history of the internet !

How in the **** are you going to clean your furnace with a $1

[Chief Roundup]

Originally Posted by Silock

Gas dude is here now. Just a weird interaction between the water heater venting and the furnace being on that overloads the exhaust vent because of the way the vent tees together, which is why it's intermittent. Only happens when the water heater and the furnace are going at the same time.

He told me how to fix it and is just finishing up. No crazy death traps in the house. Sorry to disappoint!

This is a problem with the DIY type of people. They didn't know to check the sizing of the vent to insure proper ventilation. Glad you got it fixed up.

[Chief Roundup]

Originally Posted by Hog Farmer

Thats gotta be sum of the dumbest advice I've ever read in the history of the internet !

How in the **** are you going to clean your furnace with a $1

You are not really. You MIGHT knock off a build up of carbon on a spark ignitor but if it is a glow ignitor and you touch the ceramic you just as well to throw it away.

[Canofbier]

I'm glad that someone finally made a thread about this! Flatulence during lovemaking can be a huge mood-killer. My recommendation: eat less Mexican food.

[cosmo20002]

When I turn on the heat for the first time in the fall/winter, there is kind of a "gas" smell for a while, then it goes away. Figured that was normal and probably not actually gas I was smelling. So, is that normal--what's up with that?

[A Salt Weapon]

Originally Posted by Chief Roundup

You are not really. You MIGHT knock off a build up of carbon on a spark ignitor but if it is a glow ignitor and you touch the ceramic you just as well to throw it away.

That's what I was taught too, however I was flipping through one of my vendors catalogs the other day and it had a reference to that being a myth started by the igniter companies to keep techs from touching them.

[tony77]

Very bad Pedro!

[Stanley Nickels]

Just be glad you don't have to work with the real, unadulterated beta-mercaptoethanol on a daily basis. I use it in a fumigated hood and that shit still smells like somebody shit rotten eggs all over the lab.

[Chief Roundup]

Originally Posted by A Salt Weapon

That's what I was taught too, however I was flipping through one of my vendors catalogs the other day and it had a reference to that being a myth started by the igniter companies to keep techs from touching them.

I don't believe it is a myth for a couple of reasons. A lot of times the ceramic ignitors are in a tougher position to replace than spark/electronic ignitors since they have to be in line with the gas flow into the exchanger. If you could touch them and get away with it your time to do the change would be half. During some of the training that I received from Carrier there was a video where they showed 2 ceramic ignitors next to each other in the same frame. The narrator touched one and of course not the other. You could easily see the darker spots in the glowing area of the ceramic where the one was touched. It lasted for less than 200 cycles. They are suppose to last for more than 200,000 cycles. I was convinced to say the least.