Gas smell from flue?

[KennyPowers]

Hi,

I notice there is a smell of gas outside the house coming from the flue, when the boiler is on.

Is this normal, or something that might need sorting out? (like maybe boiler not burning efficiently or something?)

There isn't a smell of gas inside the house, plus I have a carbon monoxide monitor near the boiler. As it only appears when the boiler is on, I don't think it is a leak.

(I don't have the boiler serviced anymore)

 

[Iamchamps]

Someone I am sure will correct me if I am wrong but older boilers can sometimes misfire when lighting so a little bit of gas will go through before it actually lights.

 

[Madrab]

You can get a 'smell' of the gas being burnt, natural gas has virtually no smell and has a smell added (mercaptans)to aid in detection. That sometimes doesn't fully burn off at start up so you get a whiff of that, if you are getting the smell constantly though then get it looked at. What boiler is it? You really should get it serviced as that will highlight any potentially dangerous issues with the combustion

 

[KennyPowers]

Its a Potterton Prima F

 

[breadnbutter]

a smell of gas is only normal when it first lights up, if your getting a constant smell, then turn it off,and get it checked.

 

[Iamchamps]

My answer comes from a funny story. Woken up at 6am by the emergency gas call out people who look for leaks telling me there is gas leaking from my boiler and they have turned off the supply. What he had actually done is arrived because of a smell of gas in the street and unable to find it was probing everything and everywhere, my boiler had fired up about 10 minutes before he arrived and he had probed my flue on the outside. Anyway I follow instructions and got a gas safe engineer out who checked everything for a leak and advised me on the small amount of gas that can come out the flue if it takes a sec to fire up. The boiler in question was a potterton envoy and about 17 years old. I have since had it replaced for a more efficient one.

 

[McCombi]

Its a Potterton Prima F

Get someone out to have a look. Get this a lot on these boilers. Could be a bad flue issue or an issue with a gas component.

 

[KennyPowers]

Are these boilers known for being dodgy then?

 

[McCombi]

Are these boilers known for being dodgy then?

Wouldn't say dodgy but need to be maintained like any other boiler.

Common boilers.