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Old 10-20-2019, 01:41 PM   #1
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Heater smells like bleach when it kicks on

I've had a 2004 Fleetwood Terry TT for about two years now, and recently I've noticed that I can smell bleach / chlorine when the heater kicks on. I have not spilled or used bleach prior to the smell. The heater is directly beneath the fridge. I'm not having any issues with the fridge.

Any ideas what it cold be?
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Old 10-20-2019, 02:09 PM   #2
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Originally Posted by happy cynic View Post
I've had a 2004 Fleetwood Terry TT for about two years now, and recently I've noticed that I can smell bleach / chlorine when the heater kicks on. I have not spilled or used bleach prior to the smell. The heater is directly beneath the fridge. I'm not having any issues with the fridge.

Any ideas what it cold be?
When you say bleach, could it be an ammonia smell? It would be prudent to open the reefer hatch outside and see if the absorption fridge (I assume yours has one) could be leaking.


Stay cool
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Old 10-20-2019, 10:49 PM   #3
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No, it's more like a chlorine smell.

I did pull the outside fridge panel--no leaks.
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Old 10-20-2019, 11:06 PM   #4
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Overheating motor?

Did an online search and one site mentions an overheated motor or loose electrical connections causing sparking that may produce ozone that may smell like chlorine.
So if you haven't, a thorough check of the heater... a bit of a pain I will guess.
If the heater has not been running much until now, maybe just some dust heating up.

Good luck.
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Old 10-20-2019, 11:14 PM   #5
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If you haven't used it much yet, which is likely, I would suspect dust bunnies burning off. Try running it until it gets nice and hot. Give it at least half an hour of run time. It should burn everything off by then and not smell next time it starts up. If it's just coming on for 5 minutes at a time, it might not be getting hot enough to burn it all off.
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Old 10-21-2019, 03:49 PM   #6
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Did an online search and one site mentions an overheated motor or loose electrical connections causing sparking that may produce ozone that may smell like chlorine.
So if you haven't, a thorough check of the heater... a bit of a pain I will guess.
If the heater has not been running much until now, maybe just some dust heating up.

Good luck.
I did clean and vacuum it real well, but I may need to pull the whole thing out. Thanks for the info!
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Old 10-21-2019, 03:52 PM   #7
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If you haven't used it much yet, which is likely, I would suspect dust bunnies burning off. Try running it until it gets nice and hot. Give it at least half an hour of run time. It should burn everything off by then and not smell next time it starts up. If it's just coming on for 5 minutes at a time, it might not be getting hot enough to burn it all off.
Good advice. We're expecting freezing temps for the next week, so I should have a few opportunities to try this.
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