Two weeks ago the local fire department came out and did a “control burn” of a home that sits directly across the street from us. The home owner sold the house and the new owners wanted the house burned down & demolished. To save money on that process, they donated the home to the local fire department for fire school training. The firemen and students came out and deliberately set fires and burned the house down, except for the brick and cement areas (they don’t burn). You can read all about it and see some of the photos by reading my House Fire and House Burning Post that I previously wrote.
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Throughout the day the wind was blowing all of that heavy smoke directly on top of our home and just about “smoked” us out. For 36 hours our eyes watered and burned, our nostrils burned and we had a mild cough. The smell was chokingly nasty, especially since we’re not used to heavy smoke smells. They weren’t burning down our home, so we had no water damage, just smoke!
Over the course of a week…I tried several things to get that nasty smoke odor out of our home. Some things that I tried didn’t work and others worked quite well. Here are some of the things that worked to remove the odors from our home.
1. Come up with a cleaning plan! You’ll need to clean every room in your home, including the garage, basement and attic if you truly want to get the stench out! To keep your cleaning organized, come up with a plan and work on ONE ROOM at a time. Get your family involved in the process.
2. Go out to the store and purchase several products. We bought a slew of things and many were a waste of our money. Here are some of the things that we bought that worked: Febreze Extra-Strength Odor Eliminator Spray, White Vinegar, 8 boxes of Baking Soda, 6 bottles of Liquid Laundry Detergent with built-in Odor Eliminators (you can also buy separate laundry products that are made specifically for removing odors), Carpet & Rug Deodorizers (powder that contained Febreze), 3 Canisters Antibacterial Cleaning Wipes, All-Purpose Liquid Lemon Cleaner, 2 Cans Lysol Spray, Sponges, Paper Towels, microfiber cloths, and other cleaning supplies.
Note: Don’t buy regular laundry products that don’t contain special odor eliminators. You really need to use ONLY the products that have them…as regular detergents were NOT working for us. Don’t buy nice smelling air fresheners because they just cover-up the stinky smells and don’t do anything to get rid of them. The secret is to buy cleaning products that are made specifically to remove foul odors!
3. Starting in the first room – Take down and pile up everything that can be safely washed in your washing machine. That includes pillows, blankets, throw rugs, curtains, table linens, bed linens, bath linens, etc. Take your pile to the laundry room and start your laundering process. While those items are washing…go back into the room and wipe down all of your hard surfaces with an all-purpose cleaner and cleaning wipes. You’ll most likely see a lot of dust and soot…we did! Wipe down all of the hard surfaces that you safely can wipe down! When it came to our furniture we hit our sofa, chairs and other items with a lot of baking soda and left it sit on the item for several hours. You will then go back and vacuum it up. Baking soda is great for removing the stinky smells, but you’ll need a lot of it! For our carpet and large area rugs..we treated them first with baking soda and then a few hours later treated them again with a carpet powder that contained Febreze. Treating them first with the baking soda and then with the carpet powder worked fabulously!
4. Put your dishwasher to work! We used it to wash all of our dishes, pots & pans, fruit bowls, ceiling fan glass globes, glass lighting fixtures, glass candy dishes and other glass, ceramic and stoneware items around our home. Only put decorative items in the dishwasher that are safe to do so and ONLY use the gentle cycle.
5. Don’t forget to clean the little things you normally don’t think about cleaning! Use cleaning wipes to clean your light switch plates, windowsills, to wipe down phones, kid’s toys, the outside of your flower planters, knick-knacks, etc. Use a damp microfiber cleaning cloth to clean your electronics (television screens, DVD players, stereo equipment, surround sound systems, humidifiers, etc.) You need to at the very least wipe that stuff down.
6. Toss things out!!! You will need to toss out any books, magazines, newspapers, restaurant menu’s, and other paper items that you had laying around the house. Sorry, but the nasty smoke odor will stay in those paper products for a very long time. If it’s something that you absolutely need to keep…seal it up with a plastic storage bag and store it away. You may need to toss out non-paper items too…so be prepared!
7. Don’t be tempted to open up your windows and doors to let the air into your home until all of the smoke and stinky smells have left your neighborhood. The stench lingered outside for about 3 days. Once it no longer smells outside, open up your windows and doors. Let the fresh air in and if needed, run a few fans to pull the air into your home and to suck it back out.
8. Be patient! You might have to vigorously clean your home for a few weeks before the odors are completely gone. Give it a good overall cleaning and then every few days give it a spot cleaning on the areas that still have lingering smells.
9. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help or to hire professional help! There are Fire Damage Restoration Services that specialize in removing fire & smoke odors from commercial businesses and residential homes. Your local fire department can recommend a few of them to you.
Well there you have it! A few tips that we personally learned and used during our big ordeal a few weeks ago. The tips that I’m sharing with you today are ones that personally worked for us and I think they will work for you too! Thankfully, the ordeal is now over and everyone is fine!
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This is a very detailed list on what to do to remove the smoke odors. I would be confident in following it.
This is such good information that I hope to never have to use. I can only imagine the many hours that you had to spend to clean up your home and I am glad to hear that it is better now.
This controlled burn sounds like it was a total ordeal for you guys. These are some really great tips and thank you for sharing them. We have a lot of wild fires during the summer months in our area and these tips will help us out a lot with fighting the smoke in the house. Hope you have a very nice Mother’s Day.
This is a very well thought out post. We had a house fire many many years ago caused by faulty wiring it was a mess. We did have pro cleaners in because we had insurance, but there wer some things that the smell remained. I think the bakin soda worked really well . Some other things that worked well was charcoal briquets (they absorb odor) and also hanging out things outside for a few days.