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burnt toast???

Leo G_99
Leo G_99 Member Posts: 223
I have a good client, who recently has been complaining that she can smell an odour from her chimney that smells of burnt toast, but only every now and again!

Anyone have any ideas????

Leo G

Comments

  • Ken_8
    Ken_8 Member Posts: 1,640
    Not exactly \"burnt toast\" but

    an acrid odor frequently accompanies CO production. Amazingly, excessive air is the culprit. The excess air lifts the flame off the burner rack or end cone, causing incomplete combustion, high CO byproducts and a funky almost "burn your eyes" gas that is similar to a burnt toast smell.

    Does that help?

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  • Al Letellier
    Al Letellier Member Posts: 781
    burnt toast

    Have you checked the flue....it's a great place for bird and squirrel nests.....just a thought. They do stink when they get hot enough.

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  • Geo_5
    Geo_5 Member Posts: 69
    toast

    Maybe the bird was eating bread when he fell into the chimney :)
  • Uni R
    Uni R Member Posts: 663
    From her chimney?

    She must be very tall! =) Seriously... How would she know that the smell is coming from her chimney unless she is near the cap of it? I'm thinking that her olifactory directional locating skills may be off a bit and the source of her mystery smell lies elsewhere.
  • hr
    hr Member Posts: 6,106
    You tell her!

    to keep her head out of the chimney :)

    Was she smelling the odor at the roof top or at the bottom end?

    If at the bottom end she may have a backdraft issue.

    hot rod

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  • ScottMP
    ScottMP Member Posts: 5,883
    I was repairing

    a house that froze. I could'nt stop the water from dripping so I used the old plumbers trick ... Shove bread down the pipe, solder the joint and when the water comes back on it blows it out the faucet.

    After fixing about fifteen leaks his whole house smelled like Sunday morning breakfast :)

    Scott

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  • Leo G_99
    Leo G_99 Member Posts: 223
    Hmmm,

    this is very disturbing Ken, I am going to have to go out there asap, and check this out. Her boiler was a beta tester from Laars. The 2-stage one that fires either 50K or 100K. Of course the flue is sized for the 100K, so now I'm worrying that if HR is right and there is a back draft, then they could be getting slowly poisened!

    Thanx for the quick responses gang!

    Leo G
  • J.C.A._3
    J.C.A._3 Member Posts: 2,980
    I'm thinking like Al.

    Sqirrell and Starling smell like that sometimes. Pigeon has a bit more of a "chicken" smell.

    Just thinking back to the days when the children of the home were standing around watching the "guy fix the furnace", and making some bogus excuse to get them out of there while I shoveled the dozen or so critters from the base of a chimney.Starlings have a way of hanging their butts over the flue liner and being overwhelmed by CO and falling backwards into the chimney.

    One time while working at a converted school/elderly housing joint, we pulled 14 pigeons out of the base and found another 10 or so that croaked while walking down the connector flue to the 6 boiler Hydro-Pak. Good times!

    Give the boiler a good going over and PLEASE test for CO. If there are critters in there, they usually fall after being posioned. Chris
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