One of the most important responsibilities our customers entrust us with is the restoration of their homes after a fire. Our restoration professionals work hard to return fire-damaged homes to their pre-loss condition, eliminating all signs that a blaze ever took place. Besides repairing burned areas, our team cleans scorch marks and removes soot and ash from the surrounding location.
Even after we’ve performed all these jobs, however, one key sign of the fire often remains: the smell of smoke. This can permeate every room of an otherwise pristine home. Due to its tendency to cling to walls, furniture, carpets, and fabrics at a molecular level, removing smoke odor from house structures is one of our most challenging tasks of fire restoration.
In the following post, we’ll discuss some of the best tactics for removing the lingering smell of smoke from your home and restoring normalcy and your peace of mind in the process.
Why Does the Smell of Smoke Linger?
To understand why the odor of smoke saturates areas so completely, sets in so strongly, and is so difficult to remove, it helps to understand what, exactly, smoke is and from what materials it is composed. In simplest terms, smoke is the byproduct of a fire. When a fuel source becomes hot enough, a chemical reaction known as combustion occurs. The fuel source combines with oxygen to produce fire. This, in turn, breaks the fuel source into its component parts, of which carbon is typically the primary element.
If the fire is hot enough, it can vaporize materials completely. However, most house fires don’t burn this hot. This means that many particles of the original fuel source will simply be released and carried into the surrounding environment by heated carbon dioxide gas. These particles include carbon atoms, ash, soot, and often many toxic chemicals as well.
These chemicals, which include ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and many others, give smoke its signature smell. They’re also what causes that smell to linger: The chemicals carried through the air by smoke have a tendency to spread everywhere they can reach and stick to everything they touch.
Start by Deep Cleaning
Since lingering smoke odor is largely the result of toxic chemicals attaching themselves to surfaces in your home, the first step in removing smoke odor from a house is deep cleaning. A cleaning product that specializes in eliminating odors must be used. If you do this on your own, it doesn’t necessarily mean investing in an expensive chemical cleaner. You can often achieve excellent results with simple vinegar, which naturally breaks down the compounds that cause odors.
Note that when we refer to deep cleaning, we mean more than just wiping down the walls and countertops. After a fire, it’s likely that the damage will have pervaded surfaces and into the areas underneath walls and floors. For example, it’s possible the wood and wiring drywall have been burned and saturated with odor-causing smoke chemicals. This is why the team at Biodynamic is trained to address all affected areas during professional restoration services.
Invest in Specialized Air Purifiers
Of course, if you can smell smoke in your home, it doesn’t just mean that your walls and carpets are saturated with the chemical byproducts of a fire. It means that those chemicals are continuously being released into the air, where they are reaching your nose every time you breathe.
To reduce the amount of smoke odor in your indoor environment, you’ll need to be able to filter even the most microscopic particles from the air. Installing a HEPA-certified air filter can help eliminate a great deal of the smoke odors that are permeating your home. It can capture both the largest and smallest impurities from the air.
Treat Your HVAC System
As we’ve mentioned, the odor of smoke isn’t just sitting on surfaces in your home. It finds its way to hidden and hard-to-reach areas as well, which is another reason it may linger for so long. It’s likely that a lot of the smoke particles that have saturated your home’s internal structures have made their way into your HVAC system. Your HVAC system circulates air throughout your house. If the air is full of smoke particles, then those particles will enter the HVAC system as well.
In your HVAC system, smoke odors can permeate your air filter and coat the insides of your ductwork. Having your HVAC system’s ducts cleaned and the air filters replaced after a house fire can help permanently remove lingering smoke odor from your home.
What Advanced Technology Are the Professionals Using?
Of course, even implementing all the above techniques won’t necessarily entirely eliminate smoke odors from your living space. That’s why the professional team at Biodynamic implements advanced technology in our quest to restore our clients’ homes to their pre-loss condition.
We now utilize BioSweep technology in removing smoke odor from a home. This technique is specifically designed to eliminate unwanted airborne particles, including odors, using a revolutionary five-step process.
BioSweep begins with HEPA filtration to capture airborne particles. Next, the process utilizes hydroxyl radical generation, which essentially recreates the ultraviolet radiation created by the sun. This particular radiation is excellent for breaking down compounds into their component parts, effectively destroying odor-causing chemicals and eliminating the smell of smoke. BioSweep also utilizes reactive oxygen compounds to bind to and remove odor-causing chemicals. This process eliminates smoke odors from homes entirely, leaving no trace of them and making your house comfortable again.
To discuss your restoration needs or learn more about removing smoke odor from your home, contact Biodynamic. We’ll help get your home back to normal so you can move forward after the fire.
