Can smoke and tar odours be properly removed when renovating a house?

[ByRubyStork]

Hi, we’ve accepted an offer on our house which is newly renovated and decorated, and seen a house we like.
The house needs some renovating as it is owned by an elderly couple. But the biggest issue is one of the owners is a heavy smoker.
Has anyone bought a property in a similar state and knows a company that can remove tar and smoke from a house? We both work and have children, so no time to do this ourselves. We would rip out all of the carpets. We are in Buckinghamshire.

A decorator told us that you can just paint over the walls with zinnier paint, but I am not convinced it will remove the smell.

I have read a few threads on here about this. Many of them have said that the tar stains comes through blocking paint and that they have had to re-plaster in the worst affected rooms.

Oh no, thank you for letting me know.

My first house was like this, both heavy smokers and believe it or not, the windows had been sealed shut with mastic!😱🤢

I was a single FTB so had time to work on the place before moving in. Stripped the wallpaper, three out the carpets and gave it a good scrub down with sugar soap solution.
After decorating and new carpets it was fine.👍

yep. current house was currently lived in by a heroic smoker. We got it professionally cleaned and decorated and it's fine. We changed carpets and removed curtains that had been left too

Had a situation like this myself a few years ago. Lots of washing with sugar soap and a few more times, paint everything, new carpets, good as new!

Thank you, I feel a bit more relieved now.
I have factored in the cost of cleaning and redecorating. But replastering would be too costly for the amount the owners are prepared to sell at.

We had this. But we knew it was a full reno project. We stripped all the carpets and curtains out and washed down all surfaces ceilings and walls with sugar soap (the best thing was a sponge floor mop!). We still get a whiff every so often when the house has been closed up when we have been on holiday but it's fine now.

We did get some local cleaners in who said they could do it but they were a waste of money so do get the specialists in if you are having it cleaned.

We discovered an old smoke smell in our living room when we stripped the wallpaper. I cleaned with sugar soap before it was replastered (skim), but you could still smell a faint whiff of smoke. We had to use zinsser odour blocking primer to fully get rid of the smell.

I would be negotiating hard on the property and factor in some replastering costs - they won’t be getting many (or any) other offers due to the smell. And do you really want to run the risk you’re left with a house that you can’t get the smell out of without replastering if needed (totally new flooring, curtains, zinsser etc are not cheap either).

My first house was like this, it was horrendous, when we started washing the walls brown liquid came off them. Once they were washed and sanded and repainted the smell went.

I am a decorator’s daughter, dad was one for 50 years so knew the tricks of the trade. Zinsser is very good, they do a range of sealants, I personally would empty each room, scrub from ceiling to floors and get a professional in to redecorate.

Zinser BIN paint worked for us. He was an extremely heavy smoker we painted numerous coats and the yellow kept seeping through until we used that specific paint, locked it all in. Changed all flooring and didn’t get the smell either anymore