Plumber or Chimney Specialist for Gas Smell Coming from Fireplace

We’ve smelled gas on and off since we bought our brownstone 4 years ago. We’ve had plumbers come over twice, but they couldn’t detect gas with whatever tool they use to sniff it out. Because of a fire downstairs in our unit, we’ve been living in our top floor rental unit. I smell gas a lot up here. With new tenants about to move in, I think we need to try to get to the bottom of this. On the garden level there is a fireplace, on the parlor level, there’s a large mirror over a wood “bench,” on the 2nd and 3rd floors there are fireplaces. It’s hard to imagine that there’s some gas line that was never turned off, but where else could the smell be coming from. Anyway, would you recommend we call a plumber or a chimney specialist to investigate. We think they’ll need to remove the fireplace cover, or maybe start in the basement. If a chimney specialist is more appropriate, the brownstoners have recommended Big Apply Chimney, 2nd Opinion Chimney, A&A, and Manny LaSalle. Anyone use any of these companies recently? Looking for recs. Thanks.

Guest User | 10 years and 2 months ago

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anderssonp49 | 10 years and 1 month ago

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So how was work done by the plumber at your home?? As you said about the smelled gas on and off. The same problem I also faced at my home, then I called best cleaning expert [chimney cleaning nassau county](http://www.chimneygenie.com/chimney-services/nassau-suffolk-long-island-chimney-company/) team to solve this problem . They helped me out and now I am very much satisfied.

Guest User | 10 years and 2 months ago

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The plumber is coming tomorrow. Will let everyone know how things go.

cate | 10 years and 2 months ago

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Sounds like an active gas line is open or leaking behind the fireplace (these fireplaces were frequently gas, not wood or coal burning). A chimney/mason/mantel expert could easily open it to have a look. However, a much better option would be to simply have a licensed plumber disconnect the active gas line in the basement. I must warn you that if you have a gas stove line that is active on a floor higher than the garden level, particularly if it’s original to the house, the lines could be interwoven, so you run the risk of destroying your gas line. Of course you should be able to test by shutting off first before permanently disconnecting. As for any gas stove line on the garden floor, usually the pipe is visible in the cellar. Of course the plumber should make sure it’s not on the same line before doing anything.

Guest User | 10 years and 2 months ago

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Thanks everyone for your helpful suggestions. The situation I’ve described is in the fireplaces in the front of the house. In the fireplace on the parlor level in the back of the house, there’s a capped pipe that comes up through the tile floor. However, there is no such thing visible in any of the fireplaces in the front of the house, so it is possible that there’s an open pipe somewhere. There’s no way for us to know exactly what the previous owner — or the ones before him — did or didn’t do when it comes to gas lines. We do know there aren’t any light fixtures hanging from old gas lines. We do have a couple of old gas fixtures attached to the walls on the garden level. At any rate, we’ll have a plumber come over and look at all the gas lines and see if we can figure this out without having to open up one of the fireplace covers. They don’t seem to come off easily. See pic attached of one of them.

ventilated | 10 years and 2 months ago

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Actually, it?s NOT that hard to imagine that there?s some gas line somewhere that was never turned off. Did previous owners remove a gas fixture, fail to properly turn off gas, and hide pipes behind a new wall? Are light fixtures hanging from old, still active gas lines? Or, as suggested above, is the gas smell coming from an adjacent property? Not all plumbers are created equal. Follow Rick’s suggestions using a different–and thorough–plumber.

shahnandersen

in About Brooklyn 10 years and 2 months ago

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Have you tried calling National Grid? They will come by with a sniffer (plumbers should have one too) which can detect the presence of any unburned hydrocarbons such as natural gas. (Just be prepared to have your gas shut off if methane is detected. But better than having your house explode).

brokelin | 10 years and 2 months ago

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Good suggestions above. If you don’t find the source in your home, it may be in the adjacent house – smells like smoke travel easily between the walls of adjacent brownstones, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the smell of gas did as well.

Guest User | 10 years and 2 months ago

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Thanks, Rick, for your helpful recommendations. We haven’t had a plumber thoroughly explore so we will. The gas smell has been present off and on since we moved in four years ago, but it’s worse on the top floor, where we’ve been living for 8 months. The gas smell doesn’t have to do with the fire. It was caused by a microwave that self-combusted (it came with the house and after the fire found out it was on recall).

Rick | 10 years and 2 months ago

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You have had plumbers over already, I would imagine they started in the basement and checked your gas feed pipes? They should check the pipes and be sure that you no longer have old gaslight lines hooked up to your light fixtures and fireplaces. Check your gas stove line hook up. Have a plumber do a pressure leak test. If all that checks out you shouldn’t be smelling gas, it could be something else like exhaust from you boiler and hot water heater. That should be inspected by a chimney company. You say you had a fire. What was the cause of that ? are you sure you are not just smelling charred old wood from that accident?