In this short video, Derek Cole and William Skipper explain the common cause of a burning smell when a home’s heating system is first turned on after a period of inactivity. They note that dust accumulates on heat strips in electric furnaces, on the heat exchanger in gas furnaces, and on the outdoor coil of heat pumps. When the system starts, the heating elements burn off this dust, producing a noticeable burning odor; in heat‑pump defrost cycles the odor can coincide with visible frost melting on the outdoor unit. The hosts reassure viewers that this is normal operation—not a fire emergency—and advise a pre‑season tune‑up to clear dust and avoid surprise smells. They conclude with a call‑to‑action, providing a phone number and website for 1Hour Air Carolina.
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Hey, this is Derrick Cole along with William Skipper, and welcome to the Comfort Experts. And today we're talking about a phone call we get quite a few times this time of year, which is, I just turned my heat on and there's a burning smell. What is happening with that? So William, what are— what's going on with the burning smell?
Most of the time what you find is that the heat hadn't been ran all year. So whether it's gas or heat pump, you've got a dust buildup on your heating side of your unit, and And once we start applying the heat, what's it gonna do? It's got to burn that dust off. And most— a lot of times you will— sometimes you can actually have smoke come out. It's so thick. But that's what we find. Your heat strips come on, they're burning the dust off. Your gas furnaces are coming on, it's burning the dust off the heat exchanger. And, and that's what you're gonna find with that most of the time.
Yeah, and especially when the unit— when it's really cold and you have a heat pump and it goes into defrost And you have two things going on at one time. You have the burning smell, and then you look outside and see the frost being burned off of the unit or melting off of the unit.
Uh, so you're gonna think fire, first response 911, get out, stay out.
But it's completely normal, uh, normal operation, so you don't really have a problem. Uh, it is a good tip to have it checked before you start heating, have that tune-up done. Go ahead and get this out of the way, uh, to make sure you're ready for the heating season when it arrives. That way you're not surprised. So for more information, give us a call at 910-534-4462 or go to 1HourAirCarolina.com.
