How To Get Rid Of Smoky Smell

[SmokyHouse]

Hello.

We've just found The One. The house we want to buy. It has a few minor bits to sort.

One of these is the smoky smell. The vendor smokes indoors.

The house doesn't have nasty yellow ceilings which is good. And I've been in worse smoky places.

But it's bad enough that we have a slight smoky smell on our clothes from visiting there.

What tips do folks have for getting rid of the smell? We can obviously freshen up some of the painted parts wirh another coat of paint, wash floors and wipe wallpaper with zoflora, there's not much carpet at all but what's best on that?

What do you lot think? I'm about 99.9999999999% sold on this place for a variety of reasons.

Look up "ozone generator".

Basically you have to vacate the room and run one of these things for some time. You can rent them.

Then my guess is you can probably paint it/redecorate. Then run again until the smell is gone.

I had brilliant success with a plug in air freshener specifically designed to be anti-tobacco.

Soft furnishings hold a lot of the smell too so you'll notice a difference when the vendors stuff is out. Give the carpets a good clean too.

Dehumidifier can draw out smells in the walls, and of course when you decorate you need to strip paper rather than painting on top.

But I got a chronic smoker's house into a sellable condition by using the airfreshener and getting rid of soft furniture.

Much of the smell will likely go with their furnishings and a good airing.

I'd be planning on stripping all wallpaper though - a wash down with anything is unlikely to be enough for wallpaper. Plus a thorough wash down of all other floors, ceilings, woodwork AND a repaint of them. Then a professional deepclean of any carpets you've kept.

Oh ace, OK. We really like the paper in the halls, kitchen and lounge area. Which is why I was hoping wiping down with something would work.

I've got a dehumidifier, which is good. Allergic to plug ins and other air fresheners, but we do burn a lot of nag champa.

Thanks all :)

I'll pop back on as and when I can - literally on the way home down the motorway (not the driver) and picking up the kids, it's all systems go, all of a sudden :)

Thank you 💜

Beware of any built in wardrobes too as the wood can absorb the smell and make it harder to get rid of.

Wash everything you can. (I use either diluted washing up liquid or flash). Walls, skirting boards, even ceilings. Washing machine for any soft furnishing that will
fir like curtains. Hire a carpet cleaner for the carpet. Mop by hand any hard floors.
Then redecorate painted surfaces if needs be. Not sure about wallpaper, you may get away with gently wiping it or by using good old fashioned airing of the room by opening windows.
we have an ozone machine at work - it’s crap and just masks the cigarette smell for a few hours and has its own horrible smell. (Big hotel chain).

Feeding this back to my partner (driving). Sounds like a small tax for a happy big payout :)

Re painting, I don't remember the details but there's special paint and/or primer, probably the latter, to use in those cases. Basically you want to seal off whatever's got into the walls.

@GrumpyPanda zinsser paint? Seems to come highly recommended on diy forums.

On the air fresheners, you sort of use them to absorb the smells then chuck them out, you don't need to keep using them if that makes sense.

Hall and kitchen might be OK for paper, it depends where they smoked really.

This stuff is like magic getting rid of the layer of yuk on hard surfaces. I scrubbed everything before we moved in, it looked clean, and then someone told me about this stuff, honestly the crap that came off the 'clean' surfaces was insane. I don't know what it would be like on wallpaper, but on painted walls and woodwork/kitchen etc I sprayed it on and could see stuff running down the wall.

www.rawlinspaints.com/home/cleaners/general-surface-cleaners/1772-zinsser-universal-degreaser-cleaner.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiAgaGgBhC8ARIsAAAyLfF6E5asE3MeuhaKxIe1Zq9SOI8M_omlx3-qBhVoQA6hPG-CqEbykrIaAmH2EALw_wcB

We moved into a smokers house - with tiled floors and no carpets - wasn't until we'd repainted most of it that the smell went.

It's not until you put some white paint on the ceiling that you realise how yellow it was.

Kirsty Alsop years ago on Location Location told a buyer that the smoke absorbs right into the plaster of the walls. She said the only way to get rid of it completely and permanently was to strip all the walls back to brickwork, air the house, then replaster. Otherwise, the toxic chemicals and smell keep being slowly released into the rooms.

Elbow grease is good. I used that to get rid of nicotine stains and smells in my kitchen when I moved in. 🙂

Zinnser is a brand that make a lot of problem solving primers which I use quite frequently. They do one for painting over fire damage for blocking the smell and the stains so that could work for your issue. You can always phone them up for advice if you're not sure they are always helpful.

www.zinsseruk.com/howto/paint-interior-fire-damage/

Another vote for zinsser

A good clean and airing plus repaint will help but we found replacing the radiators got rid of the last of the lingering smell

We bought a house that smelled of smoke. Fortunately, most of thé walls weren't papered. A lot went with her furniture, and as we had to rewire, the repainting after and airing did the rest.

It couldn't get into plaster if the walls were painted. The paint seals the plaster.

I'd just redecorate, wash down wood, air well, throw out any old furniture and wash carpets really well.That should do it.

You're all amazing and ill check out zinser. Thanks so much. So glad I posted :)