On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 09:13:15 -0700, KingoftheBungle
wrote:

Hi
We have moved into a house with a flame effect oil stove (Harmony 2
for those in the know) set in the living room fireplace. It's been
serviced because we had a few problems with it, but there's one thing
still bothering me - the smell of oil fumes.

Are you burning the right oil? Paraffin oil for home heating used to
be de-odourised but the heaters will burn kerosene, are you being sold
the right stuff, or even is it still available?

Google for "Esso Blee Dooler". :-)

It's strong enough to
make my eyes smart a bit when sitting in the living room and is very
noticeable when going from outside the house to inside. I think I may
even be getting a headache from it.

Then I'd take it seriously, my eyes became sensitised to fumes from
burning fat after we got an electric oven to replace the previous gas
oven which was ventilated and had catalytic linings.

The service engineer said that the
smell was due to a bit of oil residue and it would soon burn off, but
the stove has been in operation now for a total of about 48 hours and
it still smells. If I open the windows and let fresh air in, then
close them again, the smell is back within a few minutes.

We have a new CO detector and that's not raising any alarm, but is
this strength of smell normal? The flue is the chimney liner type and
the service engineer says it's pulling OK. Could it be leaking?

It shouldn't smell of oil even if it were.

DG