Why is there a burning plastic smell near an outlet?

If you smell a burning odor in your house, regardless of the location, you need to take action and should not ignore it. People often say the burning odor smells like electrical or plastic burning. If you smell a strange odor coming from an electrical socket, please take caution and be careful. Always be careful when dealing with electricity and be sure to call your local Mister Sparky electrician for the safest way to fix the issue.

Where is the smell coming from?

At the first scent of the burning, try to find out which socket the smell is coming from. This means you might have to use your nose and get fairly close to each suspected socket to find the burning odor. When you find out which socket the smell is coming from you will need to hit the breaker that controls that socket and turn it off until an electrician comes to fix the issue.

There are various reasons in which you smell a burning odor from an electrical socket. One reason is you can have an exposed wire that is causing the burning odor smell. Do not try to fix an exposed wire by yourself. This can be an extremely dangerous task that only a licensed professional electrician can deal with.

Also, compact florescent lamps (CFL’s) smell like electrical or plastic burning. Fluorescent light fixtures smell when the ballast fails and the light will fail to work. If this is the case, turn off the breaker related to that light.

There are many more reasons in which you might smell a burning odor coming from a socket. The best advice is to find out where it is coming from, turn off power to the source and call your local electrician to come assess the issue immediately.