Derek Cole explains why your house smells like burning when you turn on electric heat strips for the first time in months. Dust accumulates on the heating elements and burns off when they're energized, creating a temporary odor that's usually harmless. He recommends running them during maintenance to avoid the smell on the first cold night.
So it is gone from, I don't know, March, April. So March, April till now without running heat strips, without running heat. So what happens is dust builds up on those electric wires and once those are activated, it burns it off. Therefore you get a burning smell. So that is what you're getting in the house. Usually it's nothing dangerous. Now if it was dangerous, it would obviously be too much for the wiring and trip the breaker and be a safety. So if none of that is happening, then it's probably just burning off the excess dust from not being used. So that burning smell, when we come out and do a maintenance, we activate the heat strips this time of year to get out of the way so that really first cold night, if you haven't used it already, you won't have that problem. But if you've already used it, obviously you have that burning smell. And so that's what that is. It's not a huge deal. It just smells like something's burning and you're like, is something on fire? And it's not.
How to Prevent Mold and Odor in Your Air Conditioning System with UV Light #shorts
