We had a tankless water heater and it was inside the house over the washer/dryer. You could smell the gas when it first ignited but after that no. And outside you could not smell gas at all. I would contact the installer and have it checked out....I am thinking it is not normal. What do you have on the left side of your house? Is it the gas container or pipe for the water heater? I would have someone out to check on it.....either the heater installer or the gas company.

Smelling lots of gas is never going to be normal (since you smell the unburned stuff, not the burned)--get it checked! (OK, I'm somewhat stunned it took your neighbors 6 months to mention this, but maybe they didn't notice 'till the good weather came? Me, I'm against my neighbors houses going boom...)

My washer and dryer are upstairs ^^ not in the basement. Here is the setup. The water heater is located at the far right side of the house. The as you see in the picture, the tubes are also in the right, the left is the fence.

This post was edited by appdude on Mon, Jun 24, 13 at 19:07

Those pipes ONLY take in combustion air dispel water vapor along with combustion gases - which is not unused nat gas. Those things are also around 95% efficient , so there is not a lot of waste going out of the pipe.

I don't think it's possible to smell NG from those pipes !

Do you smell gas when it's running ?

BTW - how do they know when it's running anyway ? In the winter they could see the vapor discharge when running - but that's something entirely different.

Where does your gas line enter the house ?

the gas line and gas meter are at the left side of the house. and we just smelled it and it made me feel like barfing. but by the smell it is NOT normal. the installers are coming to check it over tomorrow and if they say thats normal, were calling the gas company.. well i will update you guys soon