In this Ask Derrick Cole Show episode, Derek explains why a burning smell can occur when a heat pump first turns on after a period of inactivity: dust accumulates on the electric heat strips and burns off when the strips are energized, producing a harmless odor unless it overloads the circuit and trips a breaker. He advises that this is normal and not a fire hazard. Derek then outlines recommended service intervals, stating that manufacturers and his company suggest biannual HVAC maintenance for residential systems (spring and fall, or every six months) and more frequent service for commercial units. He emphasizes the need to clean the outdoor unit after a hot summer—removing debris such as grass clippings—to maintain energy efficiency and prevent heating issues during the first cold snap. The overall message is to be proactive with maintenance to avoid unexpected heating failures.
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Hey, on this episode we talk about why is my unit having a burning smell and how often should I get maintenance? You ask your comfort and energy questions and they get answered. This is the Ask Derrick Cole Show. Hey everybody, this is Derrick Cole. Welcome to episode 96 of the Ask Derrick Cole Show, answering your home and energy questions. And we're also doing Facebook Live. What's up? Nice weather. I mean, we've gone from this nice in-between season of cool nights, hot days, cool nights, hot days. So some of the questions we've gotten have kind of reflected that. Why do I have a burning smell when my heat comes on? Because you have a heat pump. So it has 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. Um, 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 hazard. 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 these 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're having 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. That make sense? Mm-hmm. How often should I have my unit serviced? The manufacturers of the equipment recommend twice a year, and we recommend twice a year. Now this is for residential. We're talking about commercial, we're talking about more often than twice a year because that unit is obviously running more often than a residential unit. But residentially, spring, fall, summer, winter, every 6 months. It doesn't matter really if it's spring or if it's fall or if it's middle of summer or dead of winter. Just get it serviced every 6 months to make sure you're good to go because One thing coming out of this long hot summer, which we're apparently still in because it's like 86 degrees today, that unit needs to be cleaned from that time period and needs to be ready for heating season. So you want to get everything checked out, make sure it's good to go. And again, that first cold snap, you want to be one of the hundreds of people who call in saying, I have no heat. So you want to go ahead and be proactive and make sure you're not having any problems in your house. And also clean the unit from the hot summer because I promise you there's about a million grass clippings on the outdoor unit and it's having trouble being energy efficient. So we need to clean it up, check it, tune it up, start the heat on, make sure everything's good there and you don't have any problems. So the answer is twice a year. And we can do that. All right, that's— that was like quick. That's episode 96 of the Ask Derrick Cole. Be sure to hashtag your questions #AskDerrickCole, or in the current style, just when you see me out in public, ask me a question.
