No matter how familiar you are with your furnace, it can still be disconcerting when your furnace produces a burning smell. The good news is in most cases, a burning smell doesn’t mean that your house is in imminent danger of catching on fire. Here are a few possible causes of a burning smell within your furnace and what, if anything, you need to do to correct the situation.
Burning Dust
Most people are prepared for a burning smell when they turn their furnace on for the first time in a season. After all, the dust has had an entire summer to collect on the burners of your furnace, and it has to be burned off. However, it only takes a few days for enough dust to collect to create that burning smell. This reality means that if you have a warm spell during the winter and don’t need your furnace for a few days, then when you turn it back on, there could be a burning smell. As long as the odor goes away after a few minutes, there’s nothing to worry about.
Foreign Object
Most furnace burn smells have the same general odor. However, if you notice something that smells more like burning plastic, it’s important to turn off your furnace right away and call in for a furnace repair in Ravenswood. Burning plastic is typically caused by a small plastic object that has found its way into your furnace, most likely courtesy of your kids or pets. Since plastic emits harmful chemicals when burned and because melted plastic can clog burners, it’s important to have your furnace checked out before you turn it back on.
Overheating
To help keep you safe, furnaces are equipped with many safety features to stop problems before they have a chance to become tragedies. For example, furnaces are equipped with breakers that cause them to power down if the system detects a problem that is causing the furnace to overheat. In some cases, however, this circuit breaker can malfunction, so if you smell a generally “hot” smell or an electrical burning odor, be sure to enter this into your search engine, “furnace repair near me in Ravenswood”, immediately. For quality furnace repair and maintenance, contact the experienced technicians of American Home Heating & Air Conditioning at website
