A smell on a hot day.

[TheMartins]

Good Evening.
Looking for a few opinions on a certain house matter.

My fiance and I bought a small older 1000sq ft house 2 years ago, I have attached a small picture of the shape of our house which is also the same shape of the main bedrooms on the second floor.

The main bedroom has tiny door on the side of the wall, and when you open it, it's not that big and has a few extra small backs of fiberglass insulation. There is another door on the opposite side of the room that when you open it, it's rather tall, goes back a decent amount and is fairy wide and the walls are made of wood. If I wanted to walk in it with a slouch in my posture, I probably could.

The past 2 summers I have noticed that during the hot summer days there is a smell that comes from this one particular space. The space with the aroma is the tall space with the wooden walls. We open the door to this space and it is always warm in the summer even when the A/C is on. It's also cooler in the winter when we open the door to this space.

During cool nights, and during the winter there was no notice of this and when the Center Air is on the smell is no longer as heavy and sometimes non-existent. I now anxiously await the cooler/cold days just so the smell goes away. This smell does not exist anywhere else. The other bedrooms, basement, and main floor. This is the only room with this and the only room with this wooden space area with a door.

I've always had a hard time explaining the smell, but if I had to, it's the smell of old musty wood.

Looking for opinions, answers, ideas... Anything you've got!

Thank you

 

[nealtw]

If I understand it correctly, I think you are talking about the attic space front and back. The attic should have a good flow of air from the soffets behind the gutters front and back to some vents near the peak of the roof usually on the back of the roof. If someone made that in to a closet of sorts they should have allowed it to vent like the rest of the attic or conditioned the space with HVAC and air return.
I hope that helps and welcome to the site.

 

[TheMartins]

Thanks for the welcoming.

It should be my fiance on here explaining this as I am sure he would be able to do this much better.

I am guessing it is a version of an attic. I'm used attics being, well, directly below the roof, not a walk in attic with doors.

I just don't know what to do with the smell, thankfully it's not year round.

There is no circulation of air, no type of ventilation for this space. Nothing.

 

[nealtw]

It appears in your photo that the bedrooms are in the attic, so the walls and ceiling that make up the room cut the attic into three spaces. The front the back and the little space above the ceiling. Proper ventulation would allow air in at the bottom front and back, above the sloped side walls and out thru the top of the roof. The smell could be an indication of mold growing in an area.
In the summer you could have warm moist air through out the house. If you keep the doors closed after the moisture gets into the space and then cools some the moisture would condence on the wood and with out air movement it has no chance of drying and could promote mold growth.
So now the big question is, mold, if it is there, how bad is it and how to get rid of it and then what to do to prevent it in the future.
If you can find anything growing on the wood in that area, there is a test kit you can get to test it. Or there are people who can come in and test the air quality in the house. It is really up to you to figure out how bad this is and how to chase it down. It does sound like the insulation and ventulation should be looked at for how everything is functioning.