So I had some recent electrical work done by a licensed electrician. I have an Eaton BR panel.

He installed a 30A breaker for a generator inlet with a safety-interlock device to prevent backfeed, and he installed an Eaton surge protector because I have a LOT of IT equipment.

Back in July, I had a 60A breaker installed with 240v going to my new jacuzzi in the backyard.

Wanted to mention the above just as a "what has changed recently" bit of information.

Now my garage has two single doors, and it's where my breaker panel resides. There is a smell that two electricians have now confirmed for me, is definitely not an "electrical burning smell" but rather it smells like this - Imagine placing a 2x4 on the concrete outside, then get a magnifying glass and use the sun to start burning it. That's the smell we all detect.

This smell, only occurs when the house power is on, when you turn off the main breaker...the smell goes away.

I wanted the opinion of two licensed electricians, and both of them cannot pinpoint the issue. I had the utility company come out and they confirmed the smell as well, they checked the main lines going into the panel and determined no fault on their end.

Both electricians confirmed the presence of rodents in my attic, so a pest control tech is coming out to take care of them, but both electricians inspected all wires going up into the attic and they haven't seen anything of concern that maybe rodents chewed something up.

Placed our hands on all breakers in the panel, nothing seems hot whatsoever. Each electrician also said readings all look normal, nothing running really hot, they checked behind all the breakers for any indicators, and everything seems totally kosher in the breaker panel. One "hypothesis" by an electrician was main breaker could be going bad, but the other electrician said "they just want to sell you a new panel, main breaker is fine or else it would exhibit signs that we could see"

Everybody is stumped, and we can all certainly confirm the "wood burning smell" when power is on. All appliances in the garage are turned off, and we pulled out the one wall outlet plug to check it for bad wiring, it looked fine. So nothing in the garage is plugged in at all. Smell only happens when there is power to the panel, when the main breaker is turned off, the smell goes away.

Any ideas?