Possible central heating oil leak

agh55

I live in a semi detached house, over the last number of days I have noticed a smell which smells like paint drying. A visitor to the house joked about my painting. My attached neighbour has a similar smell and I can smell it at a door saddle, on the patio doors which lead to the outside. Both houses have outside boilers, although the the neighbours boiler stopped working at the time the smell started. I would have thought the smell would been one of oil as in another house I spelt a small amount on the floor of the garage and the smell from this is nothing like what I'm currently experiencing. Appreciate if anyone can help or has had something similar

colinsmithathome

Could be oil. I had a serious leak which came into my cellar floating on flood water.
I thought it smelt like polish or turps (so paint drying a likely other interpretation) rather than the diesely (made up word) smell I would have expected.
Check your house insurance. We were covered. It is very, very expensive to decontaminate,

regards,
Colin

agh55

Hi Colin, thanks for the reply, I called out a business who specialise in this area, they found oil under my foundations. They have now installed a large extraction unit to remove the fumes. They are coming back on Tuesday to try and identify where the leak is. Yes your right it smells of polish. Initially I thought it was the fridge and nearly bought a new one. It's scary as they mentioned we could be out of the house for up to 12 months.