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Maybe some of our clever Maine posters have ideas here. We started getting a fairly strong sulfur smell in the cellar a day or two ago. Then a few hours later the whole-house, hard-wired smoke alarms started going off (has now happened twice). (They blast for twenty minutes then stop). This evening there was actually a bit of smoke in the air as they were going off.
A few notes: no natural gas in town.
The cellar gets a bit wet--especially this time of year. A few spots that are one-quarter inch deep at the most. I run a dehumidifier, and empty it into a floor drain (which I always assumed just went down into the ground).
We are in town, with city sewer.
No obvious sewage or sewer problems anywhere.
The oil-fired furnace wasn't running this evening, but the oil- fired water heater was. So I shut it off and we used most of the hot water up,over the course of the next half hour. It seems to me that the sulfur smell has somewhat dissipated since then.
I know that bacteria can be inside the water heater, making it stink. But then wouldn't water coming out of the tap also smell?? And why the smoke alarms/smoke situation?
We called our plumber.... he wasn't too concerned. He just said to look for broken sewer pipes. We found none.
One other thing: my wife and kids were home most of the day, and she reports that there was a bit of black particulate matter on the tissues they used....
We will get either him or his water heater partner to come over tomorrow.
Any thoughts?? I am just baffled.
Last edited by maineguy8888; 04-18-2018 at 10:16 PM..
Well, an update: the smell went away once the water heater was turned off. This morning we turned it back on and smoky soot started coming out of the bottom of the water heater, and the sulfur smell returned. So we found the problem.
Our water heater guy is working on it right now.
We had one of those in 1983 and took it out. It smoked. If your thermostat is et to a narrow range, the heater will cycle often. When they first fre up, they get soot and eventually the soot blocks the exhaust pipe. If you keep the oil fired heater, set your thermostat with a wider range and it will not cycle as often. Of course, your faucet and shower water temps will vary a little more.
I used an oil-fired hot water heater since the mid 1980s along side my oil-fired hot-air furnace. It served it's purpose for 30 years never leaking or failing. Then it got to the point where I knew that the tank was on borrowed time. The fact is that today the digital world has taken over just about everything and I replaced my oil-fired unit with a new one I picked up at Home Depot. It is a Rheem. It installed extremely easily and it's run by digital sensors that keep the water temp very even. Since I've had it in over the past two years, I've never once run out of hot water. And, while the oil-fired heater only burned about 1/2 gallon per hour of heating oil, the electric heater has turned out to be much more economical. It comes down to the new insulations they use. I calculated the cost at substantially lower than using oil which is the reason I used oil in the first place. When oil was .59 a gallon way back when, the cost of my hot water hardly impacted my oil usage. Now, at 2.79 a gallon, that's quite a difference plus the cost of using electricity to burn it and the maintenance of the chimney to vent it. Maybe it's a good time to investigate an alternative which will really save you money and simplify your heating system. Just a suggestion based on my experiences.
In Maine there are many instant hot water heaters that run on propane. There is no tank. You turn the hot water faucet on and the water is hot in seconds. They are much more economical than keeping 40 gallons of water hot 365 days a year. I don't have one yet. It is on my list.
In Maine there are many instant hot water heaters that run on propane. There is no tank. You turn the hot water faucet on and the water is hot in seconds. They are much more economical than keeping 40 gallons of water hot 365 days a year. I don't have one yet. It is on my list.
I thought the same, and was about to buy one when a buddy who is the Chief Engineer for a multi-school SAD told me otherwise. Once the cost analysis is done from start to finish and efficiencies are figured in, the 40 gallon, well insulated electric hot water heater, which costs about 1/3 up front or less than the on demand gassers, wins the money saving race by a long shot. Add to that tank system a copper loop in the old Ashley, with appropriate pressure relief, and you have hot water when the power goes out for 4 days in October. As long as you have a generator or 12V system setup to move the water.
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