OT Boiler Smell

Nate V. IA · Feb 2, 2011

We have baseboard heat in our house via a LP fired water heater/boiler. Recently when the furnace has been running over half the day we are getting a butane smell wafting up from the basement. Its smells just like a zippo lighter and not like propane. How concerned should we be? Carbon monoxide sniffer is not going off and is functioning properly. The exhaust goes out the roof and doesn't appear frosted over.
Thanks
Nate

Old Roy · Feb 2, 2011

I'd think you shouldn't have a butane smell maybe a pungent smell, if you think it is a gas leak and if not too bad I'd try to use and exhaust fan in basement and at first light get someone to look at it .

If you do nothing it is harder to build a house out of splinters .

Offandgone · Feb 3, 2011

If it is butane that you are smelling it would get very strong in the basement before you had much smell upstairs. That is the bad about lp or butane, it goes down and can get tick enough in the basement to blow before you detect it up stairs.
Frank

Anonymous-0 · Feb 3, 2011

The only answer you should receive is.

Have it professionally accessed. Call a licensed heating contractor!

JDseller · Feb 3, 2011

There are several things it could be. 1) You might have a cracked heat exchanger. That will let fumes in to the house side of the furnace. That you need to rule out ASAP like yesterday. 2) Your tank could be getting low. I have had to drain the bottom of my propane tanks before. The smell that propane has is added. Sometimes you can get a concentration of that in the bottom of the tank. If you do drain off the tank put some floor dry under the drain off. That stuff is so smelly that you want to be able to clean it up.

I would not trust a CO2 detector for it being safe. You might have a flammable mixture in the basement and not a CO concentration. You could go BOOM.

I see you are from Iowa. remember that family that had the house blow up on Thanksgiving several years ago. It killed most of them. They had got a puppy a few days before and the father had drive a steel post, for a dog pen, through the propane line. The propane was filtered through the ground into the basement and did not have any smell.

Your local fire department has sniffers that can tell you if it is explosive.

OT Boiler Smell

Nate V. IA

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Old Roy

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Offandgone

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Anonymous-0

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JDseller

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