# Getting rid of smoke smell



## kambrooks (Apr 24, 2012)

Doing a few odds and ends in a home a friend has up for sale. It was his parents home and they were both smokers. 

I remember from my Paul Davis days we used to use ozone machines or something like that..

Smell is probably 5/10, 10 being the worst I've smelled. Mostly hardwood, all furniture is out.

What are some good ways to get rid of the smell? Will the ozone help?

Thanks!!


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## griz (Nov 26, 2009)

You need to wipe cigarette smoke down as it is the Nicotene you need to remove. TSP works well, also try some of the Citrus cleaners.


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## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

griz said:


> You need to wipe cigarette smoke down as it is the Nicotene you need to remove. TSP works well, also try some of the Citrus cleaners.


Not the tar?


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## kambrooks (Apr 24, 2012)

griz said:


> You need to wipe cigarette smoke down as it is the Nicotene you need to remove. TSP works well, also try some of the Citrus cleaners.


So walls, floors, ceilings? Ughhh

Not my line of work. However, thank you.


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## griz (Nov 26, 2009)

Inner10 said:


> Not the tar?


My bad, yes also the Tar....:thumbsup:

Still has to be wiped down...


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## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

griz said:


> My bad, yes also the Tar....:thumbsup:
> 
> Still has to be wiped down...


I'm just here to be an *******, don't mind me.


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## thom (Nov 3, 2006)

Repaint throughout
Wash non-paint surfaces (cabinets, fixtures, floors)
Ozone. 

Ozone works, get some very heavy duty ozonators, put them by the cold-air return, run the HVAC fan constant for overnight, maybe a day, and it should be fine. You want to really flood the entire place with ozone for quite a bit of time. That means keep the place closed. Obviously no one in the place during the ozone flooding. 

There's a guy who sells very inexpensive ozone generators on-line. No cabinet, no fan, just a transformer and a "generator". you've got to provide your own air flow. Air flow is critical for these things to work. You may need to put fans in rooms if the air doesn't move enough.


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## dsconstructs (Jul 20, 2010)

Some will depend on just how bad it really is. The worst I've done was a house that hadn't been touched for over 25 years and a very heavy, recluse chain smoker. The tar was still bleeding out of the paint even after two really good wash downs with tsp. You could literally watch the brown ooze out of the paint right after washing it down/rinsing. We ended up washing what we could, including cabinets/insides and sealing everything off with shellac. Even the first primer we tried (think it was cover stain) did not do the job.....

Most cases however a good tsp wipe down and Cover Stain primer does the trick quite well. And definitely the HVAC system is going to need a good treatment :thumbsup: The above example worked out that the wall furnace, and swamp cooler were just replaced with central heat/air so it was all new.


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## VinylHanger (Jul 14, 2011)

We're in the middle of one of these. We washed down the whole house with TSP sustitute so we didn't have to rinse. Then we sprayed the whole house with Kilz Original. It took two coats of Kilz in the downstairs where the smokers lived. 

This was after washing the semi-gloss kitchenette ceiling 10 times. Yes, 10 times.  Now we are dealing with the smell stuck in wood cabinets and cupboards we can't paint. We also had pet odors, which made it doubly tough, but the smoke was worse.


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## ohiohomedoctor (Dec 26, 2010)

Shellac everything is whatd I do..


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## m1911 (Feb 24, 2009)

I've done the wash with TSP, rinse, 2 coats of oil primer. It normally gets rid of most, but not all the oder. Problem is it stays in the vents and in cabinets, and every other opening in the damn house!


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## CO762 (Feb 22, 2010)

Good duct cleaning as the air passes thru those, dust, dingleberries, smoke and all, and the obvious but often overlooked, make sure all filters are changed. Some folks like to put air fresheners in the ducts too.


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## nelson.peter (Apr 7, 2013)

We had a lady who chain smoked in an apartment for 20 years before she died. (Gee, I wonder what she died from?!!) We washed the walls with TSP, then had to rinse them. We used sponge mops for the ceiling.

But because it is an old building with lots of trim we also did a LOT of hand work. Big job. 

But after a coat of Kilz and a finish coat, voila'! No smell. Clean. Looks great.

Cigarette smoke is not hard to get rid of -- just labor intensive!


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## nelson.peter (Apr 7, 2013)

*In an apartment building*

We have a separate, but related problem.

We have an apartment building that was non-smoking. One of the units downstairs didn't know what that meant and started smoking. Now we have a general smoking smell, but can't pinpoint the source. 

Any ideas on how to get rid of the smell? Thanks in advance.


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## wyly (Aug 23, 2011)

many years ago I repainted a home with fire/smoke damage we used smoke seal a pigmented shellac, one coat and it was done, then latex paint over that.

http://www.generalpaint.com/catalogue/Product/Smoke-Seal-1.aspx


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