Ok so my 10 yr old furnace started having issues with oil smell coming out of vents throughout house. Repair guy said it had to be a cracked heat exchanger because of the force of air that was blowing back into to house from the unit (he had me feel the air blowing back from one of the covered holes in the furnace). He cleaned and checked everything including taking apart the pipe to the chimney and pulling out the blower. He could not see the crack but was sure it must be on top where he could not get to. So we elected to install a new Armstrong furnace. It has been 6 days and I can still smell the faint smell of oil through the vents, is this normal? He checked for blockages by the way. Also would the wrong nozzle installed cause a heat exchanger to crack?
It's one of two things. Either you are burning off the new from the heat exchanger or you have major problems. Those heat exchangers are coated in oil (or similar anti-oxidant) for preservation and they WILL smell for a bit after initial fire off. Give it 2 weeks and see if it dissipates. If it doesn't, call the original installer. I guess you could have aromatics in the ducts from the previous failed furnace, but those should have been gone about 3 or 4 days ago. Bottom line? Give it some time. ------------------ Yeah, if you had the wrong venturi, you could get increased air pressure and atomization and fuel pressure leading to increased combustion temperatures, but that's insane. No competent installer would do that or allow it to happen. On top of that, your high limit temp switch would kick and shut the whole combustion process down long before the heat exchanger cracked. Either you have a real sensitive nose or you are just burning off the factory oil coat from the heat exchanger, like I said before. You have nothing to fear, but if it bothers you, get a CO2 detector. I guess it's possible that you have had a failure of your high limit temp switch, a failure of your control board, and a mismatch with your orifice (venturi). Have you recently gotten off a plane with a group of friends that subsequently blew up or something? Like Final Destination?
The same thing happened to me about 2-3 years ago. Nothing much happened and the small goes away in a day or so.
Only if the nozzle was way to big gph, which would cause it to over heat and stress the heat exchanger.As for the new system you had installed it is most likely the residue left behind from the old furnace with the crack that contaminated your ductwork. It will take awhile for it to go away on its own. Or you might want to attach a air fresh pad to the airfilter at the returnair supply.
No matter what anyone says you owe it to yourself to have them come back in to check that nothing is unsafe.
