SMELL OF GAS IN OLD HOUSE IN COLD WEATHER

Clutchkick

I live in a 3 story town/street house (My house terminology isn't up to scratch), the house is well over 100 years old (maybe 200) and as the title suggests there's a smell of gas in cold weather, the trouble is we don't use gas. This has been going on for the last couple of years in the winter, it's not constant, it only seems to happen around every 2-3 weeks. There's a few houses in the street that use gas heating but we're not one of them, we don't even use oil, just a traditional fire and back boiler(and we use an electric cooker).

The smell doesn't come from outside, it comes from inside in the house and when you open a window it goes away. It usually starts on the ground floor but not always, it sometimes can happen in a random room and nowhere eles. The reason why i'm making this thread is because i just walked into my room (which is on the 3rd floor) and was met with the smell pretty badly, the window was closed and when i opended it the smell was gone in about 10 or 15 mins but if i was to close it, then it's right back to square 1.

It's hard to describe, the best i can do is a kind of a musty gassey smell, not as sharp or as potent as when you smell an actual gass leak but it's a gassey smell none the less.

Any ideas on what tis could be, does it sound like something to worry about or does it sound like something to expect with the age of the house, oh i almost forgot, we have pretty bad dampness coming threw the walls in certain parts of the house.......any advice????

Victor

Talk to Bord Gáis.

Certain food can mimic the smell, e.g. bulk chopped onion.

Dayo93

You could potentially have a water leak, A leak over time can give off a gas type smell. Maybe the dampness has something to do with it

JohnnieK

It could also be (an most likely) a sewer smell. If you have any wastes pipes terminating into gullies or hoppers the smell could be coming back up these, especially is there is a washing machine waste.

If you are in a area that has a NAT gas supply then any smell of "gas" should be reported as a gas leak as posted by Victor and let Bord Gais determine the source of the smell.

Clutchkick

It wouldn't be radon??

JohnnieK

Clutchkick wrote: »

It wouldn't be radon??

There's no smell of Radon.

johnam

I wonder if the smell is an electrical socket or light fitting that is starting to burn a little. We had a smell similar to the one you describe in my parents house years ago, we happened to get an electrician in to fix an electric shower and he noticed the smell, located the faulty socket, replaced it and no more problems. The sockets and light fittings are not made of pure plastic, they have something else in them to stop them catching fire, but once they start to get hot they smell bad, kind of like a gas smell, or a rotten fish smell at times either. Turn off the electricity, the socket cools again, and the smell disappears until next time.

aloyisious

Check out vents and under wooden-flooring. They could be letting in gas from outside/next door neighbours, especially if your house is terraced. Does your house have red (or other) external brick work (and a space) next to the exterior walls?

Clutchkick

johnam wrote: »

I wonder if the smell is an electrical socket or light fitting that is starting to burn a little. We had a smell similar to the one you describe in my parents house years ago, we happened to get an electrician in to fix an electric shower and he noticed the smell, located the faulty socket, replaced it and no more problems. The sockets and light fittings are not made of pure plastic, they have something else in them to stop them catching fire, but once they start to get hot they smell bad, kind of like a gas smell, or a rotten fish smell at times either. Turn off the electricity, the socket cools again, and the smell disappears until next time.

I'd doubt it, my room is where it's the worst and there's no sockets al all in that room

Clutchkick

aloyisious wrote: »

Check out vents and under wooden-flooring. They could be letting in gas from outside/next door neighbours, especially if your house is terraced. Does your house have red (or other) external brick work (and a space) next to the exterior walls?

There is no vents, the house is that old ha

Clutchkick

The problem's getting worse and worse each night now and i don't know how we could get anyone to come and check it out because it only comes every night between 10 and 12 (religiously now). Our neighbour's chimney breast extroudes into our house and the smell is only in the rooms the chimney passes through, only trouble there is, his chimney was closed off years ago so i'd doubt it's any thing he's burning...any ideas?....it's getting so bad now that we're starting to get worried.

aloyisious

No ventilation, the dampness you mentioned, and the neighbour's closed-up chimney suggests lack of aeration is the problem. If his house has a chimney breast extruding into your's , then I assume both houses are of the same age. It's winter-time now so it could be the increased amount of moisture (rain) in the air. I'm assuming you have similar chimneys in your house. Is his chimney capped or blocked off at room-level? I'm thinking of something decomposing.

If you have only one source of heating in one ground floor room and none elsewhere in the house, then you're bound to get smells. The night-time arrival of the smells might be because you've retired to bed upstairs at that time and are more likely to notice smells, due to lack of movement.