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I’m not sure what other lemmy community might be fitting for this post, so here I go. Feel free to redirect me if you know of another community that might have an answer for me.

Starting this year, my whole kitchen starts smelling really weird whenever I turn on my electric oven.

It’s not inside the oven. I just turned it on, and when the smell was starting to appear, I opened the oven and smelled the warm air. It was smelling as normal, so it’s something outside the oven.

It’s an odd smell that doesn’t smell like anything I’ve ever experienced. I’ve talked about this with a friend, they suggested it might be the insulation around the oven that might contain some kind of bacterial growth. My washing machine did flood my kitchen a bit between the years, but since the oven has a drawer underneath, I’d be surprised if the insulation got wet somehow. Could the insulation get bacterial growth from just high air humidity for a few days?

Are there things I could to to test whether the air is safe to breathe? The smell just smells… off. It’s not a sharp smell, but I do feel like I get a slight headache whenever I smell it, which might just be placebo because of the deeply unpleasant smell.

I’m at a loss as to what I can do short of replacing the whole thing, which seems overkill.

Is it gas? If so get a carbon monoxide detector immediately if you don’t already have one.

I’d probably do my best to pull out the oven and see if there’s a way to open any of it (WITH IT UNPLUGGED) to check that there’s no burning wires or insulation that needs replacing. Easiest place to start might just be lifting the range up, but if it’s the oven itself that’s causing an issue the problem might be deeper in.

Check under the range to make sure mice didn’t get into the insulation between the oven and range top. Mice will drag all kinds of weird stuff up there, causing weird smells.

Read the post before commenting advice. The 3rd sentence says it’s electric.

Ok. Nevermind. Do not get a carbon monoxide detector.

Electric parts tend not to burn (and thus smell) that long. My guess is something touches the heating element (loosend part or rodent). I’d open it up to check the inside. If you are not confortable doing that, get someone to do it.

It’s been an issue for two months which might cause one to think it’s not urgent, but an oven usually isn’t daily use. Just check it asap you don’t wanna risk a fire (not saying it will burn, but it’s a risk)

I’ve been told that if it smells sweet, it’s usually bad. No one told me why though.

They’re still good to have (unless you have no gas appliances at all), but any good smoke alarm will also have carbon monoxide detection built in.

I’m with the mice poster. I had one nest in my oven once. You might be smelling their peepee and doodoo.

I had an extension coord that started to sizzle slowly, it was a sweet and sort of like decaying flesh smell.

Yeah I know but because I missed a sentence I should not be giving any advice about such things.

No gas in my house at all :)

I’d be surprised if its mice but good shout. I’ll try to check

Hmm that might have something to do with it. I didn’t really consider plastic because it doesn’t smell like any burning plastic I’ve ever smelled. I’ll try to check the cables behind the unit

Yeah I was considering if my cat peed begin the thing. But I never leave the kitchen open when I’m not using it so I doubt it was my cat. Mice are a possibility, though, I guess. Never had mice so far.

We had some electrical wiring that was overheating and burning/melting the insulation around the wiring. It was a super weird smell that the best description we could come up with was a mild, but gross fish smell. It would start 5-10 min after turning on the light that the wiring ran to and then take 30+ min to dissipate after turning off the light. We had to have an electrician track down the failure point and replace the wiring.

Except on chili night.

Meh, you meant well.

And franky a CO detector is like a smoke detector - better to just have.