We received a slightly panicked call from one of our customers last week.

During the heat wave we had over the easter weekend, they were having a family barbeque.  As the evening got on, they took their kids up for a bath before bed.  While running the bath, the combi boiler turned on to supply hot water to the bath.  While doing this, other family members who were still enjoying the evening weather noticed a mild gas smell in the air.  Initially they thought it was from the gas BBQ itself but after a little investigating, they discovered it was coming from the combi boiler flue exhaust that is located just around from the garden patio.

So in a panic, they shut down the boiler and called JSL Heating.

Because it was a potential gas issue, we arrived as quickly as we could and began examining the boiler.

The smell of gas is actually added in as a safety feature because gas itself is odourless.  So what they were smelling was the unburnt chemical that was coming from the flue.  This is actually fairly normal.  However the smell was stronger than it should have been.   We discovered that the flue itself did not have a strong ‘angle’ to allow any moisture collection at the bottom of the flue to drain away.  This was causing a build up of moisture containing the strong gas smelling chemical to build up and THAT was why they would smell the gas so strongly.

We checked the flue exhaust and slightly altered the angle of the exhaust pipe which should rectify the situation.

As always, keeping your homes central heating system in tip top shape is important.  While you may think that having a working boiler is only important for Winter time, having a working boiler is vital for so much of your daily activity from washing dishes to having a bath.

So if you want a professional gas boiler engineer to check over your boiler system, give JSL Heating a call today.