left in the cold...

My BF and I have been having some weird problems with our heat in the last week or so. Every once in a while we smell gas in the apartment when the furnace is running. Well, one day last week I mentioned this to my neighbor upstairs and he said that he had smelled something funny in the back of the building when he walks up the stairs.

Well, my BF and I kind of let it go since there was nothing consistent about the pattern...Until last week. There were 3 days, spaced apart, that the smell was very strong. So, I called my landlord...he didn't get back to us until yesterday! Usually if something goes wrong we let him know first so he can choose who he has come out to do service, and so we don't get stuck with bills related to upkeep of the property. When he finally called back, he told us that we should be calling the gas company and that it's not for him to take care of...this, of course, made me a little frustrated.

After hearing this message and having a really bad incident on Sunday night, I called washington gas. They sent someone out last night...about 2 hrs after I made the service call. I had turned the furnace off while we waited, so there was no smell when the tech got there. He told us that he had already checked the lines outside and there was nothing unusual...so we showed him the furnace. That's when we got our scared-straight talking to.

Our furnace and/or flue are so backed up with soot, that the furnace has been trying to burn that off. In the process, it has been putting off carbon monoxide and aldehydes! It wasn't gas that we had been smelling, it was the burning aldehydes. The tech asked us if we had been waking up thirsty or with scratchy throats. We said yes, but figured it was because we just got the cat. Based on the amount of soot he saw, he said, we should be glad we woke up at all! As standard practice, he had to disconnect the gas that goes to the furnace and deam our apartment an unsafe environment!

Thankfully, we had bought space heaters at the beginning of winter. It was a little colder in the apartment overnight, but not freezing. Our landlord said he would call someone today...