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Advice: Burning Oil Smell Coming From Basement. — Brooklynian

Advice: Burning Oil Smell Coming From Basement.

owler
owler
edited November -1 in Park Slope

I live in a one hundred year old building pre-war, over the last three years my building has come under the ownership of a landlord who does very little to maintain the building. The super was sent to another building and not replaced, the garbage is only taken to the curb once a week and left sometimes to pile up and over the last few years the oil furnace in the building's basement has been neglected.

We came home today to discover a very pungent burning oil smell coming from the basement. Is this because the furnace has a crack? Is this just because it's starting up for the first time this winter? Is this something I should be concerned about?

The building is still being maintained by a management company. Is there anything I can let them be aware of?

Also any advice on my rights in this sort of situation?

Thank you for any suggestions.

Comments

  • veets
    veets

    This is the first time the furnace has been on this season? That sounds like a problem right there. An oil delivery that gets dumped in an empty tank will have that smell on start up. If you smell it by the morning call the Management Company. That would be the starting place. Hey Brooklyn in not a third world country. If you have a building that is being neglected by the owner you need to organize the people living in the building and be adamant with the landlord and if that doesn't work contact the City agencies one by one that can address each of these complaints.

  • abe
    abe

    It sounds like a cause for concern.

    A couple years ago, in my previous (and badly mismanaged) apartment on Washington Ave., a weird smell started emanating from the basement the first time the heat came on, and it turned out to be the lining of the boiler burning off-- there was no water in the boiler. Then for a few months there was a warning sign on the door from the city saying that the basement conditions were "imminently perilous to life."

    If you don't know your neighbors well, this is a good time to start; strength in numbers tends to work best with shady management.

  • owler
    owler

    Thank you for the swift responses, your insight is much appreciated.

    The heat is on much earlier and stronger then we had last year so they may have had the boiler filled yesterday. I'm concerned because from what you are saying that strong burning smell might indicate something is seriously wrong with the furnace and don't want my family and I to be breathing in anything toxic or dangerous.

    The smell is still in the hallway as of this morning, so I'll be giving the management a call.

    Thank you

  • homeowner
    homeowner

    If your boiler is burning oil, it requires that the scale be cleaned off the boiler and out of the chimney every couple of years. If the landlord isn't doing regular repairs, its possible that s/he neglected to have this work done and what you may be smelling is that scale burning. Another possibility is that your oil filter needs to be replaced. Finally, there may have been an oil spill when the tank was being filled, and you're smelling the oil from that.

    While all of those possibilities can be serious, they also are all pretty easy to fix. It really just requires getting someone in to look at the boiler, which may be the biggest problem you have. Get your neighbors together and ask everyone to call management and report the smell. If there isn't any action, you can always call the fire department and ask them to come out and investigate the smell of burning oil coming from the basement.

  • owler
    owler

    Thank you, super informational! It looks like they have someone coming to take a look at it.

  • booklaw
    booklaw

    My brownstone's boiler is maintained by my oil company. Notwithstanding annual maintenance, every time oil is delivered to the oil tank in my basement, there is an awful pungent odor which lingers most of the day.

    Just sayin' that OP's pungent odor doesn't necessarily indicate a serious problem... it just may be the awful smell of heating oil.

  • veets
    veets

    Ditto to what Booklaw said. the house I grew up in, one of those Midwood was oil heated and I remember the stink coming up from the basement after oil delivery. The worst was when the system shut off because we ran out of oil. When it was filled and boiler restarted the stench would linger for days.

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