Can a long-term smoking smell be removed from a house?

[AMillionPeopleCheering]

There is a house near us that we like, good location, right space. It has been on the market for a long time because it has been owned by smokers for about 30 years. I can't explain how bad the smell is. My question is can this be fixed? Some friends have said we would need to have the plaster stripped off the walls. Does anybody have advice on what would be needed?

No, it's embedded in the house.
We purchased a house from ex smokers thinking we could do the same. We re~plastered/wallpapered and changed the carpets.
It lingered on my freshly washed clothes, they smelt awful, even after 3 years.
Every time we left the house and walked back in the smell hit us. You can't smell it yourself after a while inside the house because your senses get used to it, but once outside we could smell it on our clothes and in the hallway when we walked in.
It wasn't a fresh smoke smell, but an awful unpleasant foisty old smoke smell that clinged to everything. It was embarrassing having people around and smelling yourself with your clothes all the time.
We sold in the end. It's a disgusting thing to do inside a home, and I do believe anyone that does it will have problems selling.
Cigarette smoke gets in the walls, the ceiling, the cracks, everywhere.
I would not purchase this home going from what I experienced.

Of course you can! Back in the day it was the norm and we used to smoke indoors before DC.

Assuming you want to redecorate, plastering or even just a new coat of paint, windows open, quickly and easily sorted.

If you didn't notice it while viewing then it can't have been that bad. Smoke does indeed seep into the superficial layers like wallpaper, which can be diffused with a clean or replacing.

The smell was very bad at the viewing - I had to walk out a few times to get away from it.

Pretty much every single house in the country that was built more than 50 years ago was at one point owned by smokers.

It does go eventually or most of the country would still smell of smoke.

I've always just found a good deep clean, including scrubbing down wooden floorboards even if you are going to carpet them later and stripping back old paintwork to repaint was enough.

You need to scrub inside cupboards and basically everywhere as smoke does get everywhere, but it does work.

I've never had a non smoker come into my house (which was owned by chain smokers for decades before I moved in) and think they can smell smoke or say they can smell it on themselves after they leave, so it seems to have done the job.
Some of those visitors are the type who would have mentioned it, so they weren't just being nice.

I moved into a house 5 years ago that was owned by smokers.

Do not underestimate how much work it is to get rid of the smell.

We ripped all the carpets out, pulled all the wallpaper off, washed the bare plaster walls and ceilings with sugar soap, sealed all the plaster walls with expensive zinsser paint, removed and replaced all the radiators (everytime you put heating on it was like someone lit a hundred old stinking ciggies), ripped the bathroom out and painted several layers of gloss over all frames/skirting/doors.
What made it even harder is we had to live in the house while doing all this. We had no idea how bad it was going to be.
I still walk through a certain door in the house and I can smell old, dank smoke (it's the doorframe, i've obviously not glossed it enough!) but I think the smell is mostly gone from the rest of the house.

What was disheartening was we were ripping out new-ish carpets/flooring/bathroom units. People just ruin things with their stinking smoke.

If you dont have to live in it during reno and you aren't overwhelmed by ripping everything back then go for it.

You need to be prepared to strip every carpet, scrub the walls, deep clean every inch of that house, leave windows wide open. We didn't live there during reno either.

We even stripped out wardrobes etc.

We had to have the rooms where a relative smoked re-plastered. The ceilings above where she sat smoking were painted over, but the nicotine had seeped into the plaster and the new paint had yellow stains appear after a while, so the plaster had to be skimmed.

Every soft-furnishing, carpet and piece of wallpaper had to be ripped out throughout the house. Then some woodwork like doorframes and doors had to be replaced too.

I'd work out the cost of stripping the house back to bare bones and if you'd need to live elsewhere whilst doing it.

You probably can eventually get rid of it, but it will take time effort and money, which you need to factor in to any offer you might make. I imagine the cost of re plastering, stripping out everything and deep cleaning, plus possibly new bathrooms and kitchen, as well as carpets and other soft furnishings.

It sounds as though it was owned by a die hard chain smoker. These days, the smell of cigarette smoke is really unpleasant to most people. DH once looked at a car that had been owned by a smoker. It was a fantastic bargain, because it had been owned by a smoker. Despite the garage’s best efforts at deep cleaning, the smell was ingrained in the roof, seats and carpets. He didn’t buy it.

Thanks for all the advice - think we will skip this as we don't have the time or energy to sort it out.