Re: Rotten egg smell in bedroom

[TheOldFellow]

I'm looking for ideas as to what may be causing the rotten egg smell

> in our bedroom. We get a distinct smell of rotten egg near one wall, > opposite the window, near the door. The wall has a radiator on it. We > first noticed the smell sometime around when we decorated (lining > paper on 1930s plaster, wickes emulsion on the walls/ceiling and gloss > on the woodwork, cork underlay and bamboo flooring). > > The strength of the smell varies. It seems strongest at the end of a > hot day, like yesterday evening - the room stank! Sniffing various > wall, furniture etc doesn't help - non of them seem to be giving off > the smell, at least to our noses. > > Anyone have any further bright ideas?

Hydrogen Sulphide from a pinhole in the radiator. R.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember matthelliwell saying something like:

Don't eat boiled eggs for supper.

[BigGirlsBlouse]

such that gas escapes having less density than water before you appear to have a water leak?

[RobertL]

Hydrogen suphide is toxic in higher concentrations (over 50 ppm). take care.

Robert

[Rob G]

I appreciate that your description of the smell doesn't point to an electrical fixture overheating as the smell of that is typically slightly fishy, but have you checked for that.

The idea of H2S from the radiator is plausible - would be wothwhile openin the air bleed hole and seeing if that is the source of the smell as H2S is I belie one of the gas products of radiator corrosion, and I suppose it is possible to get some sort of perforation of the steel that is allowing gas molecules to escape but not the liquid ones.

Rob.

[matthelliwell]

Yep, visually inspected the fittings as well as sniffing around, all seems ok.

I'll try and bleed the rad, never smelt anything like that when I've bled them the odd occasion before but worth a try. Didn't know H2S was a by-product of the corrosion, thought it was just oxgen and hydrogen from the water. No sign of any leaking but I'll try anything to avoid repainting.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thats one thought. Another is a dead rodent in the interstitial spaces :-)

[The Medway Handyman]

Open the bleed valve & if 'air' comes out, try & light it. Hydrogen Sulphide is flammable as in lighting farts.

[David in Normandy]

The gas from radiators is hydrogen not hydrogen sulphide. Hydrogen gas is highly flammable and has no smell. I'm "rusty" :-) on the exact chemistry but I seem to remember it is created by the hot water reacting with the iron in radiators with a lack of oxygen present which creates hydrogen gas and black ferric oxide rather than the more usual ferrous oxide (rust). It is the black sludge you drain from heating systems. Interestingly this black form of ferric oxide will also respond to a magnetic field like iron filings.

[Andrew Gabriel]

It also numbs your sense of smell in higher concentrations, so you can easily be under the misapprehension that it's gone, when it hasn't.

[Theo Markettos]

IANAChemist, but I understood H2S was produced by anaerobic bacteria in the central heating... nicely hot, wet and the same old stuff going around and around, but no oxygen.

Theo

[The Natural Philosopher]

It is also hydrogen sulphide, as there are plenty of odd sulphur ions in water, and its not unknown in steel either. Hydrogen is quite good at reducing sulphates to oxides ..

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember [e-mail] (Andrew Gabriel) saying something like:

Blimey. Who knew farts were so deadly.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Reminds me of the notice you used to see on busses, "Please alight from both ends". I always though it was laking some youtube URLs underneath as reference examples...