Comments on: Revenge of the Smelly Ducting

By: Fred

Fred — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:09:48 +0000

Bad smell coming from one vent only.Smells like dead animal.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:00:57 +0000

In our house it must have been the p valve, too. A furnace put in recently shares some pipe with an unused washing machine. When we ran the washing machine, the smell went away. Thanks to all for helping us figure it out. Good luck to you.

By: ugh!

ugh! — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:28:06 +0000

I stumbled upon this forum hoping to find an answer that was better than I had originally thought. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure I know what my problem is. This evening we started to get a smell throughout our house that smelled like a burning skunk. Originally, we thought there was a skunk outside until it started smelling like it was burning. We evacuated the kids from the house in case there was a fire and started searching for the source. I was in the process of calling the fire dept when my husband figured out it was coming from the dryer. (Our utility room houses our dryer as well as the A/C unit that pumps air through the vents all over our house. Which means…yup this smell has invaded the whole house. We’re positive it’s coming from the dryer. I was hoping to find something on here that would cause this smell but I’m pretty sure now that when the smell fades a bit tomorrow and we open it up, there will be a fried skunk in that dryer. Yay! something that is NOT covered under my warranty. A warranty that I’ve had all of 30 days since I had to pay $250 to fix the damn thing. Guess it’s just luck.

By: nicole

nicole — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:51:39 +0000

I have been driving myself and everyone around CRAZY with my own stinky house problem. Seriously, smelling everything and begging all who enter my house to help me figure this out. In one of my many hours logged searching for an answer, I came across a post describing “Dirty Sock Syndrome”. It may be the cause of some of your unnamed stank…the hubbs has gone to the big orange store in search of coil cleaner. *fingers crossed* Just google it & hopefully it will help some of you. good luck guys!!

By: Lucky

Lucky — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:01:19 +0000

Based on some indications through your coments that drainage in the basement could be a problem, i just pluged one next to dryer and washer and also one that is used to drain condens from the furnice. We just bought the house and always tought that it was the cat smell. Replaced all the floring in the house and smell was still there. Finaly this was what was cousing that ugly smell that waits every day for you as soon as you open the door. Now i will go and purchase original plugs and this will solve the problem compleately. Good luck to all of you!!

By: Mystified in MS

Mystified in MS — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:46:17 +0000

So it looks like my issue is resolved. The smell was a result of a dry trap. My heat/ac unit drain pipe is connected to the pipe my washing machine is vented to. I hadn’t ran the washer in 4 days so the trap for the washer had dried out. Also the trap for the ac drain had dried out and the installer had not left an access point for us to be able to primer (pour water into) the trap for the ac drain and had used to small pvc for the trap and drain pipe. So to solve the problem and keep it from happening again my new hvac man is going to put in a bigger drain pipe and trap for the ac unit and is going to give us an t connector with cap so we can keep the trap primed. Whenever we smell the SMELL we pop off the cap and pour in some water and volia problem solved. He said that this is a very common problem with heatpumps, but that it could have been avoided if a bigger trap and an access point to prime the trap had been done to start with. Hope this helps someone else.

By: 27jr

27jr — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:43:47 +0000

Well the smell is gone HVAC just check out he system is fine and the smell did come back. I did some checking into humidity for house during winter and I found out 30 percent. I had noticed our house being 40’s for humidity and lower the humidifier and also noticed condensation on the windows. Ever since lowering the humidifier the smell has gone and the windows are dry no more condensation.

By: Mystified in MS

Mystified in MS — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:23:25 +0000

In July we had a 2nd ac/heat unit installed to cool and heat a newly finished room over our garage. It is an American Standard 1.5 ton heat pump. We ran the ac all summer no problems. We turned the heat on in October. The past week or two we have had a sewer like smell in the room that seemed to be coming from the vents. We turned the unit off today and have had no odor in the room at all today, I have read all the posts here and can’t figure out where to begin in solving this issue. The air handler is pretty much in an area all it’s on. My laundry closet is kinda below this area and my dryer vent comes up and into the same room the air handler is located in and vents through the roof. We recently took the dryer venting pipes apart to clean them out as it was clogged with lint. But that was back before Thanksgiving. There is no odor in this attic area where the air handler is located. Our main heat and air unit is on the other side of the house in the attic along with the water heater and all the plumbing vents. The odor is only in the one room the new unit heats. The Air handler sits up off the floor on a wood box built by the installer. We pulled the filter this morning and it is not smelly and relatively clean. also not sure if this makes a difference, but the return is the kind that has a filter in it and the installer never put a filter in it but put a filter on the air handler instead. As the installer has never supplied us with owners manuels or warranty information, that we have requested numerous times, we are not sure where to begin. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:21:07 +0000

Over the years I have had many customers with unknown odors in their houses. The most common cause I see are dead rodents not in the air ducts but trapped in the insulation around the ducts. This of course only happens in houses with crawl space type foundations. WIth slab foundations the most common cause would be a cracked sewer line leaking into the ducts. If you have a crawl space type foundation make sure you rule out a dead rodent on the outside of your duct before spending money on duct cleaning. I learned this after cleaning a customers ducts and not getting the smell out. Finding someone to crawl under your house and sniff out the rodent might not be easy but its the only way to eliminate the odor. If you are in the Tulsa Ok area call All American Carpet Cleaning. We guarantee results or the service is free.

By: cheryl b

cheryl b — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:13:49 +0000

We noticed a smell last Winter, the 3rd year in our house & never figured out what it was, it went away & we were happy. This is a house with 3 zones & a heat pump system. The smell was pretty much in one zone. Then sadly one day after the heat came on there is was again this November. The good news is a neighbor made a comment & said we might have dry drains–I don’t understand the physics of it but somehow the dry drain causes a vacuum & sucks back septic odor. We found a number of floor drains in our basement & ran water in a shower no one ever uses. We went back & put diluted bleach down all the drains also. I am pleased to say this am even with the heat running all night the odor is gone!!