How to Get Smoke Odor Out of Fabric

9/26/2017 (Permalink)

After experiencing a fire loss in your home, there may be a lingering smell of smoke, especially in any upholstery items.  The harder, nonporous surfaces can have the smoke odors easily removed with simple, everyday cleaning solutions. However, removing smoke odors from more porous surfaces like fabric couches, rugs, draperies, and clothing becomes much more difficult. So, how does one remove these smoke odors from porous surfaces from your home?

The Baking Soda Method

Using baking soda to eliminate smoke odors seems to be a popular method. The idea is to sprinkle baking soda onto the surface and the baking soda will absorb the odors. While this may work with surface odors, this doesn't work well to get deep-seated smoke odors out of the foam cushions of sofas and the carpet pads under carpets.

Airing It Out

Another popular remedy to get the smoke out is to set the furniture or rug out in the fresh air. While this may work for a rug or thin fabric, it most likely won't help with thicker upholstery items like sofas and fabric furniture. Also, due to the chemical nature of smoke, airing it out won't cause the odorous smoke particles to break down and dissipate.

The Best Way to Remove Smoke Odor

If you are looking for the most effective way to remove smoke odor from fabrics and porous surfaces, then you will want to call a professional fire remediation company like SERVPRO of Archuleta, La Plata, Montezuma, & San Juan Counties. We have specialized equipment, like our ozone generators, which are able to oxidize the particles residing in porous surfaces causing residual odor.  An ozone generator creates a high level of ozone, which contains three atoms of oxygen, rather than the naturally occurring two atoms we normally breathe.  Ozone is a powerful sterilizer, able to destroy the particulates in bacteria, viruses, and odors, utilizing its short life cycle and unstable composition.  When the ozone is released into a contaminated environment, the odorous particles connect with the extra oxygen atom and, through oxidation, become completely destroyed and consumed, leaving only non-odorous (and breathable) oxygen behind.  Our highly trained SERVPRO^® technicians are certified and trained to safely operate all of our specialized mitigation equipment as well as utilize our industry specific cleaning products.

Please call today for any odor removal needs!

SERVPRO of Archuleta, La Plata, Montezuma & San Juan Counties

24/7/365 at 970-259-6184.