Fishy Electric Smell (Plastic Around Outlets, Lamps, Switches)
Five months after we moved into our townhouse, we started to notice a bad odor in the unfinished part of our basement. The smell is difficult to describe, but it reminded me of bad fish. The most frustrating part about it was that I couldn’t determine where the bad smell originated.
I spent many nights sniffing, poking and crawling in my attempt to find the source. One instant, I’d feel like I was getting near it, only to ”locate” it again somewhere else. I began thinking there might be a decomposing animal in my dryer, duct work, walls, or floors.
It became even more interesting when I discovered that Fred and Kim had the same scent in their unfinished basement. We turned to Google to find a solution. Here’s what we learned:
A lot of people have odors or scents in their houses and it’s rather difficult to describe them with words. Descriptions we found online included moldly, animal-like smells, new house / material and water/moisture, to name a few. None seemed to fit until Fred found something about light fixtures giving off bad smells when they are heated up.
We learned that some old cermic-based lamp fixtures were made with a plastic collar at the base of the fixture, which when hot, gives off a bad fishy odor. We both had these lamps in our basement. This also explains why the smell was intermittent and infrequent: the light needed to heat up for a few minutes before the odor was strong enough to smell. We both removed these rings/collars from the lamps and have been odor free ever since.
We later learned that this same odor occurs when shorts in receptacles/outlets or switches melt the plastic eletric parts nearby - it’s actually a very common problem.
There are a lot of good resources for locating/identifying a strange smell (just search for ”weird/strange/fishy house smells”) But first, be sure to check all of your receptacles and lamps!
February 13th, 2008 at 7:39 am
I’ve had lights with that very same stinky ring!
We also had a strange intermittent fishy smell awhile back. I thought it was just bradford pears in bloom or something coming through the AC from outside.
I finally realized what it was when I accidentally bumped against an outlet and burned myself. It was an electric short burning away; it had melted half of the outlet and the AC plug that was going into it. We had to replace the entire plug. I went around feeling all the outlets around the house and replaced a few more warm ones. Scary stuff!
February 13th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I saw a lot online about electic outlets / boxes burning away sheilding or worse. It is scary. All the more reason to find those awful smells!
February 13th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Amalie,
Did you ever find out what was making the other outlets warm (if they weren’t shorting?) Was it that the outlet had corroded somehow? Or, was the outlet not rated for the circuit?
February 13th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Pretty sure they were all shorting– the one that actually melted was glowing red behind the receptacle. Now that I’m typing this, I’m being told that all the outlets were on the same circuit and the melty one was shorting the whole circuit. None of the others were quite as warm, but I figured that was because they weren’t used as much as the one with the AC.
Once you know the smell is electrical, you’ll never forget it!
October 5th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
We have had problems with a fishy/ammonia smell in our house not long after it was built six years ago. This smell only occurs in our den and spare bedroom, both at the front of the house.
It often occurs during rainy or low-pressure weather, and only in spring and fall. These rooms are close to the municipal sewer connection in the front yard, but it doesn’t really smell “sewery.”
We at first thought the odour was coming from the air exchange vents in the rooms but we’ve had it checked and that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Any suggestions as the possible source of this smell - which can be so bad as to be headache-inducing - would be appreciated.
October 5th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
@John, Unfortunately, it could a lot of different things. Any chance it’s moisture related? Small leak helping fungus grow? Any idea if the rain “brings out” the smell somehow?
October 5th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Thanks for quick reply. I would think the odours would be more persistent if it was mould. And the smell is so strong, can mould produce something like that?
We have speculated that temperature and air pressure changes during rainy weather in autumn and fall might be causing some kind of air movement in the HRV system, bringing the bad air from somewhere.
But we do plan on pursuing the mould possibility - we’ve had plumbers, HRV techs, home inspectors, etc. trying to figure this out. It’s really stressful.