Can You Remove the Smoke Smell from Your Belongings?

6/29/2021 (Permalink)

If your Mooresville home has a fire, don't worry — we can eliminate the lingering odors!

If your Mooresville, NC home has had a fire, you know firsthand how strong the smell of smoke is. The odor is often headache-inducing, and it seemingly blankets everything in the home. In fact, sometimes the smell is so pungent that people are more than willing to discard affected items.

Although the malodor can be overwhelming, in most cases, it can be removed. At SERVPRO of Iredell County, we have several techniques at our disposal to remove smoke and other strong odors.

Cleaning Your Smoke-Damaged Possessions

We smell things when a substance releases odorants into the air, and then receptors in our nose transmit a signal to our brain [1]. Because smoke is highly volatile, it gives off a lot of odorants. So before our team can begin to remove the odor, we have to clean your damaged belongings so we can address the source. We have several different cleaning methods, depending on the type of material.

Clothes, linens, and other textiles are taken to our textile-cleaning facility, where our Mooresville cleaning experts use various products and equipment to remove soot from your soft goods. We even have an Esporta, a high-powered machine capable of cleaning heavily-sooted items—including uniforms and stuffed animals.

Furniture and more durable items are sent to our cleaning warehouse where we clean belongings with either propriety cleaning products or by using advanced technology. Our ultrasonic machines, for example, can remove soot from jewelry, small electronics, and other objects that require fine cleaning. Depending on the item and the cleaning requirements, we have a process to save many damaged items.

The Odor Removal Process

Just as with the cleaning process, SERVPRO of Iredell County has several different odor removal options. The method we use often depends on what and where we’re cleaning.

In most cases, we will place items in an ozone chamber, which is a special room where we purposefully generate ozone to neutralize smells. The ozone reacts with the odorants and effectively makes the smell go away. (NOTE: Because ozone can be dangerous even with low exposure levels, this is not something we recommend you do on your own.)

Another commonly used odor removal method is chlorine dioxide (CLO2). Similar to ozone, CLO2 reacts with molecules to neutralize the smell. In the case of CLO2, however, the molecules are incredibly small, which means it can more effectively penetrate porous material, which is why it’s sometimes preferable to ozone.

We Can Eliminate Nearly Any Smell

At SERVPRO of Iredell County, we invest in the best products and methods to save and restore your damaged belongings. If your Mooresville home has a fire, and you need our experts to get rid of the smell, know that we’re available for the entire cleanup and restoration process. Call us today at (704) 872-7466!

[1] Source: https://askabiologist.asu.edu/explore/sense-smell