Weird odor -- Con Ed says it's not natural gas
We’ve lived in our rental apartment for a couple years, and have occasionally noticed the slight smell of natural gas ordorant. We’ve called Con Ed twice, and the previous tenants said they also had them out a couple of times, and all four times Con Ed’s detetectors have not shown signs of any leaks. Any…
We’ve lived in our rental apartment for a couple years, and have occasionally noticed the slight smell of natural gas ordorant. We’ve called Con Ed twice, and the previous tenants said they also had them out a couple of times, and all four times Con Ed’s detetectors have not shown signs of any leaks. Any ideas of what might be causing this or any sort of testing we could get done?
One way to check for sewer gas is if you have other odors besides the one they add to natural gas. We had a sewer venting problem that smelled like laundry detergent when the washing maschine was operating.
We had a gas smell for a long time, KeySpan tested and said, no leaks. Then, when installing a ceiling fan with the power OFF, we had a flame in the ceiling! Guess what? It was natural gas! Leaking from the old gas lines that used to supply gas to the LIGHT fixtures. KeySpan never thought to check in that area.
Oh, if it is the “Sewer Gas” problem you have to have it taken care of right away. I’m not plumber, but I’m almost certain it is a health code violation. Worse things than the gas could come out of your drains. 😮
maybe the owners have really bad gas!
I would check the plumbing venting stacks for obstructions since you’ve already had ConEd check for leaks. If you don’t find any blockages you can address yourself call a plumber. Sometimes the plumbing venting stacks are badly designed and not just blocked by leaves, etc. (Usually from an addition, the late 19th and early 20th century plumbing vents are pretty good, people used to think this smell was a disease vector before the germ theory of disease became more popular; now it mostly just an icky smell 🙂
It’s technically not “Sewer Gas” as it is almost certainly not coming from the public sewer system it’s but it’s the same type of gas but just generated within the pipes in your house from the decomposition within your own drainage pipes.
I had a problem in one apartment when I bought my building. We called KeySpan and there was no gas detected. I did not find out the problem until I started renovating and did demo of the walls. The sink in the bathroom and the kitchen weren’t vented! This allowed sewer gas to seep into the apartment.
Also, Con Ed might have caught this, but these old brownstones once had gas lighting and there are occassionally pipes where gas might be trapped and you might have a little seeping going on. Contractors know about this — they often find these little deposits when doing construction.
It could be sewer gas–perhaps the vent on your plumbing stack is clogged.
cat pee.
seriously.