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I’m at a loss with this one. We renovated a run down house and have lived in it now for about 16 months. We had a new Greenstar 8000 Style 35 installed. Just before Christmas - about 12 months after install - we came home to a funny smell like paint, shoe polish etc - a very chemical smell, starts like some opened 50 tins of shoe polish, then turns into an acetone type smell, then dies of to a smell of strong paint. The first time the smell was so bad, wife and kids stayed out of the house for 2 days until it went. I bought a Ridgid micro CD-100 Combustible Gas Detector, and already had a VOC detector (basic - EVE Room detector). Neither showed up any issues whatsoever. We had the boiler serviced by the installer, no issues were found - and although the smell had gone, he didn’t think smells like this would have come from a boiler.

6 weeks ago, just before Easter, the smell came back, not as bad, only lasted about 6 hours before it had gone completely. The only difference is that we were not using the boiler as much in late March as we were in December.

Tonight, we came home, my son jumped in the shower, and I pretty much immediately smelt the shoe polish smell and it has got worse from there - worst than the first time. I used the Ridgid again, nothing, and EVE shows VOC air quality as 5 stars (as in nothing significant being picked up).

So, the question is, has anyone come across this smell, scenario like this?

I have looked at what could have possibly gone down the sink - but it‘s the same stuff as every day, so it would not be intermittent like this.

The only other thing is that there is a private sewer pipe for our row of hold houses, and I’m wondering if it is possible if someone else is putting something down their drains.
 
Do you have a car/lawnmower that might be leaking petrol on the ground outside?

A leak in the cooling circuit of a fridge/freezer can smell pretty much as you describe.
 
Do you have a car/lawnmower that might be leaking petrol on the ground outside?

A leak in the cooling circuit of a fridge/freezer can smell pretty much as you describe.
The car, lawnmower no, they are nowhere near and would notice the smell there. The fridge/freezer isn’t in the same room as this smell and doesn’t smell near there. One thing I have noticed is the sink in the bathroom directly above the utility room has always taken ages to drain. It is a McAlpine Anti-Syphon Bottle Trap. Is it possible there is a build of chemicals from products over time or is that bonkers?
 
First thing would be to eliminate the drain, is it going into the sewer directly or a trapped gulley outside? if its sewer then try and cap the sink waste by removing the trap and adding a cap (Easily bought through screwfix) and any washing machine upstands etc, cut the boiler condense and run it into a bucket.

Possibly get a second engineer to give the boiler a once over. It may be easy to miss something you've done if you're inspecting your own installation. I'm thinking case seals would be a good one, on the 8000 it has an internal one that contains the combustion process and then the rest of the electronics isn't sealed, a visual inspection of these components to ensure no burning/shorts etc would be good.

Do you have a tumble dryer in the utility? Try taking the top of that off and just visually inspect the insides and make sure nothings melting/burning. Or burning clutch on your washing machine, try running that a few times on a heavy load and high spin

That should cover a lot of the things it could be, its then just a case of reinstating them one by one to check when it starts to do it. Or move the washing machine and tumble dryer to another room so they can still be in action and just keep the drain capped
 
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First thing would be to eliminate the drain, is it going into the sewer directly or a trapped gulley outside? if its sewer then try and cap the sink waste by removing the trap and adding a cap (Easily bought through screwfix) and any washing machine upstands etc, cut the boiler condense and run it into a bucket.

Possibly get a second engineer to give the boiler a once over. It may be easy to miss something you've done if you're inspecting your own installation. I'm thinking case seals would be a good one, on the 8000 it has an internal one that contains the combustion process and then the rest of the electronics isn't sealed, a visual inspection of these components to ensure no burning/shorts etc would be good.

Do you have a tumble dryer in the utility? Try taking the top of that off and just visually inspect the insides and make sure nothings melting/burning.

That should cover a lot of the things it could be, its then just a case of reinstating them one by one to check when it starts to do it. Or move the washing machine and tumble dryer to another room so they can still be in action and just keep the drain capped
Cheers for the advice, is this kind of smell possible from a boiler. We’ve got the Bosch extended warranty so might get them out. What puzzles most is that it has only happened 3 times in the last 4.5 months, we’ve been using the boiler for over 16 months. Can’t think why it would happen only sometimes. Dryer hasn’t been on today, and washing machine was on 12 hours ago - so probably rule them out.
 
I'd say not. If your nose is accurate solvents like turps and paraffin make up the majority of a shoe polishes consitituent ingredients and those types of smells emanating from a boiler malifunctioning doesn't seem likely. No harm in getting it checked over again but I'd concentrate on it coming another source, an acetone like smell suggests it may be a refridgerant leak but it's intermittency suggests drainage.
 
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Cheers for the advice, is this kind of smell possible from a boiler. We’ve got the Bosch extended warranty so might get them out.
It's not impossible but I doubt that the boiler itself will be the root cause of the problem. If you are sure that the smell is strongest around the boiler I'd want to check the integrity of the the flue and the condensate drain and its connections. Also, the pipework, flue, etc. around the boiler will pass through holes that will probably allow air ingress from the wall cavity and floor voids into the space around the boiler.

Apparently some types of mould / mildew can smell like acetone when they generate spores, which might explain the intermittent / seasonal nature of your problem.

Have you talked to your neighbours to see if they are experiencing similar problems? It may be significant that the times you've noticed the smell have both been holiday periods. Perhaps a neighbour has been using their holiday to do some DIY, e.g. painting.
 

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