The rental suite in our basement (it’s a legal one!) has a 24″ wide stove with a hood fan vented to the outside. We used to get cooking smells from time to time in the upstairs of the house, and just tried to ignore them. But lately I can smell even coffee in the morning, and certainly know when our tenant is cooking anything. The odour comes through the cold air return on the main and second floors of my house. It was built in 1999. Tenant says she is using the fan every time she cooks. So, do I need a better hood fan? (And if so, does anyone have a suggestion of a decent 24″ one?) Or should I be worried about it being more serious than that?
SO
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Does this house have separate furnaces for each unit?
The suite has radiant (in-floor) heat. The rest of the house has forced air. So my fear is that somewhere between the floors, there is some ducting that isn't quite right?
Could be that the smells are getting into the gaps around the filter in your cold air return, if that's in the basement. Unless they start using something to get rid of the odors, you're going to smell them. If the vent fan moves a lot of air and there's a way to replace the vented air with fresh air, you'll have a negative pressure situation and with any gas appliances(furnace and water heater, mainly), you can have carbon monoxide problems.
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