Another potential source of attic odor is from a combination of rodent droppings and urine when mice or rats take refuge in the attic they are naturally going to do their business here.
House smells like hot attic.
Sniffed the walls the floor outlets ac vents no moldy window sills and it s mostly in the doorway.
This is a combination of lumber insulation shingles all getting cooked in this hot attic air.
The musty mold odor can creep down from your attic and take up residence in other areas of your home.
Musty dirty animal and moldy smells in an attic create an unpleasant surprise when you go up to this easily overlooked space in the house.
The unpleasant odor can also attach itself to items stored in the attic.
It might be you have a gap or air leak in the returrn air duct that is allowing this smell to get into ductwork.
And infiltrate the airr in the duct even though it s not running.
Where those wires punch through to the attic are rarely sealed properly or at all and that is just one more path for hot air to travel down into your house bringing that lovely odor with it.
Most likely the smell will be knock you out strong in one particular area and that should be able to help you identify the source whether it s in the attic basement or some specific wall.
However attics can also have problems such as a musty mold odor that are normally associated with basements and cellars.
I would say eliminate the smell through ventilation.
If that s not the problem vacuum and then scrub the firebox the area that contains the fire at the base of the chimney.
Rodent droppings urine.
On cool days no smell but when the attic gets hot the one bedroom has the smell.
There are other holes as well like where the wire from your light switch travels up into the attic.
If the smell persists after the firebox has dried following this cleaning call in a chimney sweep to clean and inspect your chimney.
Little ventilation high humidity and darkness says bill carroll jr an adjunct professor of chemistry.
What causes that old house smell three things that musty old houses have in common.