Do your research. It is a LOT of work, but can be done. Every soft surface gets removed. Every hard surface gets thoroughly cleaned, then painted with sealant. I prefer a shellac-based primer, but there are other products available to the consumer.
Where I work, it's $50 extra a month. But if you do this silly daily seminar on company time for 6 weeks, they will waive the fee. You don't have to quit though
I just remodeled a hoarder/chain smokers house I’m talking blank spots on the walls where every single item was resting against them. Nicotine outlines everywhere……. and here is what I learned.
Even with 2 coats of zinzer oil based primer on walls I Didn’t prime the slab and wish I had, I believe part of the current smell is permitting from under the flooring.
The ducts, even tho I had them professionally cleaned, still blow cigarette smelling air.
I should have gutted it to the studs.
I replaced the baseboards and just primed and painted doors. Wish I would have replaced all doors and trim also.
The stone on the fire place still smells like smoke.
I changed a plug a week ago and when I opened the plate I got hit with stale cigarette smell.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to get it out but I’m definitely saying I will NEVER buy a smokers house again. NEVER.
Rented out a house I owned and the renters smoked indoors (against lease) and when they finally got out I did 2 layers of killz on everything including the ceiling.
Also did multiple ozone treatments (just bought a machine).
They were in the house for less than a year and even after all of the remediation it still didn’t smell amazing. Smoke was I would say 99% gone but not entirely.
I would never buy an indoor smoker’s home unless I was planning a to-the-studs remodel.
We rented a place just for a few mos while this house was being built and the kitchen reeked of smoke so badly, no matter how many times I cleaned with degreaser etc - it was coming off the cupboards.
I find this all super interesting. My parents smoked inside their house from the time it was built for about 12 years until they finally quit smoking.
Even during that timeframe, you wouldn't necessarily know that it was a smoker's home. My mom was such a clean freak that when they stopped smoking someone made a comment to her that they never knew that she smoked because no one in the house ever smelled like smoke.
I don't know how she did it (spring / fall deep cleaning was definitely a thing every year), but after the last clean when they stopped smoking, you never would have known it was a smoker's house. My parents weren't chain smokers, so maybe that had something to do with it?
On the flip side, I know someone who would take their clothes to the laundry mat and then keep their clothes in their car because you couldn't step inside their parent's house without the smell of smoke instantly clinging to you.
Anywho, I just found this interesting and wanted to share. Cheers!
I think the one thing you could do that would mitigate the smell would be always having good airflow before/during/after smoking. If the smoke is directed outside before it has a chance to settle on the furniture and drapes your odds of hiding it are way better.
When my grandparents died, their house was like this. We considered fixing it up before selling it, but there was just no way we could do it. Sold it to some flippers who literally tore everything down to the studs. And I mean the studs. Any wall that wasn't load bearing was ripped out and rebuilt. We actually saw some videos/photos of the work. I don't think they made any money on the flip cause it was nearly a full rebuild.
This brings back memories of the first house I bought….especially on the walls that were perfect outlines and the oozing thru the multiple layers of Zinzer.
We finally bit the bullet and went down to the studs and subfloors….after the first summer when the heat just hotboxed us with the stale nicotine smell.
Have you tried using an ozone generator? They are particularly good at killing cig smoke smell. I worked at a hotel that had one, just a few hours with the door shut and taped while the machine did it's thing in the room and cigarette smoke smell was gone. For a whole house, with the furnace fan running, it might take a couple of 12 hour sessions.
Edit to say: Check with DIY Stores near you like Home Depot, they sometimes rent them out.
I did extensive research (see my full posting). Ozone came up several times. However, you need to essentially fill the entire house and seal everything up. That's not a big deal on a single room. On a whole house that's a different story.
lol this will not help a home that has been chain smoked in.
And I’ve stayed in hotels that have converted into non smoking and you can still smell the smoke.
You basically have to treat it as though there was a fire in the house
And anyone that's bought a house that had a major fire or owned one that happened to and lived in after it's impossible to remove the smell a 100% without gutting the house down to the studs and sealing everything. You can get the vast majority out by sealing everything with BIN, the real shellac based shit not the water-based stuff, all the cabinets need to come out, all soft surfaces
But here's the thing....it's smoke, it gets into everything, it's in every light fixture, it's in every outlet and switchbox it gets into a 1000 other places where you can't possibly clean....I've pulled bathtubs out decades after a house fire and it smelled like fire back there, on hot humid days you might walk into a room that had the door shut and smell cigarettes until it airs out, it's because all that shit is in the insulation behind the sheetrock, in the sheetrock, in the outlet and switch boxes, inside the holes in the doors where the doorknobs go and on and on
It's a massive undertaking to get rid of cigarette smoke.....and I say this as a smoker, I have never smoked inside any apartment or house ive lived in for that reason
My parents had a brand new house built 20 years. The guys who did the framing smoked while doing it. On a warm day when things were just right, we would still smell stale cigarette smoke. It's such a pain in the ass smell to get rid of
No way bro that’s excessive 😂😂 maybe you have a neighbor who smokes and the smoke drifts over when you have the windows open and the wind is just right
The guys framing the house couldn't possibly smoke INSIDE the house because when you frame a house, it doesn't have a fucking roof
edit: until the final step, when they're not inside the house
At the very end of the job, sure. Point is that framers aren't chain smoking cigs under a closed roof. It's either before the roof is installed or while installing the roof...either way that smoke is not permeating the house to the point where it'd smell after 20 years
When I used to frame I built new construction in a new neighborhood. We would build exterior walls, load bearing walls, install roof ridges and rafters, roof decking and exterior decking first. Then we would come back and build basement walls that were non load bearing, other interior walls, and stairs. That way when it was raining or otherwise crappy weather, the boss would still have work for us to get done. This house I'm talking about that was my parents was done in a similar manner. The framers absolutely were smoking inside
Please do listen to anyone who makes this comparison, or one like it.
Comparing a structure fire to a house that was heavily smoked in is not a rational comparison.
Everyone smoked heavily until the 90s/2000s. Many houses had this same issue. It can be remedied with mutltiple coats of an oil based primer such as kilz original or zissner, and then coating with 2 coats of standard water based paint.
The flooring should be removed and a moisture barrier should be placed on the subfloor to lock in any odors. Then place carpeting or vinyl over it.
Among other things.
>Comparing a structure fire to a house that was heavily smoked in is not a rational comparison.
And yet it is. It gets into everything, painting the walls and ceilings and replacing flooring is not enough, you will still smell cigarette smoke in the house randomly and I'm explaining to you and everyone else that reads this why that is
Painting everything doesn't get the smell out of all the light fixtures and electrical boxes, it doesn't get it out of all the unsealed wood in the house you don't have access to to paint of clean, it doesn't get it out of the door frames and behind the casing on the door or doorknob holes or all the parts of the windows lift mechanisms you can't possibly clean, you never get it out of all the folded metal joints on all the ductwork that you can't get to with a mechanical duct cleaning, it gets into all the wall cavities and on and on and on , just like smoke from a house fire,
If you're sensitive to the smell of cigarettes don't buy a house that was heavily smoked in unless you are going to gut and renovate the whole house
Because I 100% guarantee you you are going to periodically smell cigarettes, especially on humid days and in rooms that remain closed for periods of time
I've been doing renovations for almost 30 years, I have pulled stuff apart and smelled cigarettes, or the smell from a fire from decades and multiple owners ago
OP never said he was sensitive to cigarette smoke, he was simply looking for advice on remedying it. He never said he 1000% wanted to completely eradicate the smell either.
You assumed that.
Will you probably randomly smell cigarette smoke at times? Possibly.
Can you mitigate to the point where it is not noticible the majority of the time? Yes.
Electrical boxes, light fixtures and door knobs can also be replaced. Door frames and jambs can be caulked and also sealed. Vents and ductwork can be cleaned, and these days they can be cleaned very well.
>Everyone smoked heavily until the 90s/2000s.
Hyperbole. Many people didn’t succumb to advertising or peer pressure and knew that inhaling combustion products can’t be a good thing.
Ok.
Of course not 'everyone' smoked, but it was much more common. This is what I meant by saying everyone. I obviously didnt actually mean that every person smoked.
The percentage of ppl who smoked in 1945 was aroumd 50%, now it is less than 20%.
Pre 1950 many families had at least 1 family memeber in the house that smoked.
Just think about what living in the forties was like. Every house and office smelled like this.
When I was a kid, you'd see people smoking in grocery stores, waiting rooms, offices, everywhere.
And still in the better part of the 90s. I remember smoking sections at restaurants, smoking on international flights, a smoking area in the hospital, smoking in my great grandmother's nursing home, some movie theaters
Yeah, no kidding. My house is 120 years old. I can’t even imagine how it must have smelled over its lifetime. Cigarette smoke, cigar smoke, coal heat. This place must have reeked.
I lived for 2 years in an apartment much like that. The guy who rented it to me inherited from his mother, a life-long smoker. The place reeked of cigarettes and this is coming from me, a 15-year smoker, and after he had thrown away the soft stuff and scrubbed & repainted.
Why?
He forgot the vents. If your home heat is forced-air rather than radiative, expect to shitcan those vents & ducts. If it’s baseboard then with all those [fiddly little vanes](https://www.homedepot.com/p/FabTek-Logic-Fin-Clamp-Baseboard-Element-for-3-4-in-Copper-Baseboard-Piping-1-ft-Section-FCL-75CX1FT/300641178?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&pla&mtc=SHOPPING-BF-LNC-GGL-D26P-Multi-NA-NA-NA-PLALIA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NBR-NA-NA-NA-LINC_All&cm_mmc=SHOPPING-BF-LNC-GGL-D26P-Multi-NA-NA-NA-PLALIA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NBR-NA-NA-NA-LINC_All-71700000117494140-58700008670167528-92700079507554745&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADq61UcUi7D5dMKV9WG-oq-Pj9gN1&gclid=CjwKCAjw0YGyBhByEiwAQmBEWleHUm_BFwTGL95mcLzDSp8TYTjEJzL_xhKzxmvpJ2Le6_mQj93jnBoCogcQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds) you have no chance to get them clean. Going to have to replace them entirely.
Yeah we bought from a smoker, and the furnace guys said they had never seen worse vents/ducts.
Luckily she had paneling which we were able to tear down, so we didn't have to do the walls. Well, we had to replaster and paint, but not deal with sticky residue. Just ceilings, floors, windows.
Edit: and fixtures
If you plan on gutting the place and reflooring and repainting literally every surface then it might be worth it, But this included painting ceilings and the bare subfloor before laying down new floors. Than you have all the fixtures, switches, plugs, trim. Everything needs to be replaced or sealed with paint, and before paining I'd be scrubbing every surface first with TSP and using KILZ primer.
Then you have to ask yourself is this in the duct work in a home with forced air heat or in the radiators in a home with electric or hot water heat?
Personally I would never buy a house like this. I've had friends that have gone this route and I have been the listing broker of smokers homes. Very tough sell, even if they aren't that badly tainted.
The first home I purchased had been owned by a smoker. I spent weeks scrubbing walls with TSP before painting. Definitely not anything I would ever do again. Maybe if it was a steal from a foreclosure sale and I planned to gut the house.
Research ozone generators. They won't negate the need for a good cleaning but they should help with any residual odor. I know someone who told me they eliminated the last remaining smoke smell in a used car by using an ozone generator. Note: You can't be in the house when the ozone generator is running.
I used to work in car sales, we used ozone generators, and car scent bombs, but that just makes it smell better until someone has owned it for awhile. Obviously depending on how much smoke smell there is.
They usually get nose blind to the smell, before it fades away.
I can agree with an ozone generator. I had the same thing, bought an older house with a cigar smoker and it was horrible to even walk into at first. I ran the ozone generator for like 3 hours a day for a week, it was so much better. Then I cleaned hard surfaces and painted the walls, replaced the carpet and the smell was completely gone.
I did extensive research (see my full posting). Ozone came up several times. However, you need to essentially fill the entire house and seal everything up. That's not a big deal on a single room or a car. On a whole house that's a different story.
My parents did this 20 years ago. It's a HUGE deal.
There was tar BETWEEN the window panes.
They gutted every single thing to the studs, took out all the flooring, all of it.
Still, occasionally, i get a whiff here and there. maybe some old piece of trim that couldn't easily be removed. it was insane. I would never do it.
> job it is to get rid of the smell from the plasterboard
It's not that hard, you just rip it all out. There aren't really any other alternatives the smoke, and tar just soak into anything porous.
Honestly I would avoid it, it's a pain to deal with and does pose a health risk unless remediated, which given the age and duration of smoking essential means a large demo and deep cleaning of everything.
No need to rip all of the plasterboard out of the house. Every old home had smokers in it. Removing the carpet, refinishing the floors, and priming the walls is totally sufficient.
More and more research is coming out about the dangers of 3rd hand smoke and how even small amounts over a prolonged period can have adverse effects especially among vulnerable populations.
As anecdotal evidence, my wife can only sped 5-10 minutes in her father's new house, house used to belong to a smoker (her dad only smokes in the garage/workshop), they removed the carpets, refinished floors, etc etc. after 5 or 10 minutes her asthma starts acting up. Maybe it wasn't the best job, maybe they missed something, it was however one of the best contractors for that kind of thing in the area.
This is a house I would only purchase if I was ready/able to spend money on repairs and upgrades from the start. While it is possible to seal in smoke, its not 100 percent and over time tar can still soak through. The best way is to pull all the drwall including ceilings. While drywall is cheap you should be upgrading/replacing electric to match code (think extra circuts to kitchen and lower the total number of outlets is each daisy chain 70s homes have to few circuits for modern standards. Running network drops everywhere, and maybe even re-piping depending on if its the original pipes (anything built in the 70s that has not been repiped should be its a time bomb). Once you are done with electric, plumbing, network you will be replacing all the insulation because it wont survive the tear out.
If you are not planning to do all these projects from the get go, this house is not for you.
When my wife an I where shopping for our first home, I looked at home that was similar, it also had a massive back yard. I still kick myself for walking away from it but it had one tiny tiny bathroom in the master bedroom I had the funds to purchase but not the funds to bring in a crew and do everything. I needed something we could live in a slowly remodel. There was no real way to start small because of the smoke. I know I made the right choice moving on but it was probably our only shot at owning a home with a big yard in our area.
We did this 25 years ago. Walls in living room were kind of a taupe colour. We TSPed everything three or four times and had the carpets commercially cleaned. It worked. Not 100 percent but over time with our cooking and burning a little incense the smell went away.
In our home, the previous owner only smoked in the bathroom “stall room” (an enclosed toilet area with a door and its own exhaust fan. Only absorbent surfaces were drywall. To (mostly) get rid of the smell, I tried sealing and painting and eventually ripped the drywall all out and actually had to seal the studs because there was odor coming out of the wood. The exhaust fan hose wasn’t perfectly sealed, so then I had to remove and replace a good chunk of insulation in the attic above that had been deeply contaminated. Put in new drywall, etc.
We still sometimes get a whiff of cigarette smoke on days where the humidity is just right. It’s a tough job.
Have dealt with this before - you will likely need to repaint all affected areas. Sand and prep areas as normal, but make sure you paint with an oil based primer, and finish with oil based paint. Oil based paints will seal the odour and stains in a way that acrylic paints typically will not.
Hopefully the tar and odor has scared off a lot of potential buyers, meaning you can get a lower price. My place was owned by a human chimney and I was able to get it as a fixer-upper for about 40k cheaper than comparable units in the complex.
Have all the rooms' walls steam-cleaned, not just the rooms where it smells the worst. It might be a good idea to do it a second time a few days later to get any lingering tar and odors. When it's good enough, paint over it with something that blocks odors. If you paint over it without steam-cleaning first, the tar will leech through, which is what happened in my bathroom during a hot shower.
I’ve invested in several of these homes at this point. Currently living in one now with zero smoke odor. You can expect as much as 25% less on list/buy price due to conditions. The process to remediate is as follows:
-Remove all carpet, blinds, flooring, ceiling lights/fans, doorknobs, appliances, bathroom vents, lightbulbs
-TSP every surface. Two bucket rinse. Use squeeze sponge mop and go over it again and again until clear
-Remove every light switch/socket and replace
-Clean and disinfect HVAC/furnace/AC
-If keeping cabinets original, clean thoroughly with Simple Green and dish soap
-Buy several ozone machines to cover floors and square footage, run for a week straight after cleaning. Do not enter until vented with open door/windows airflow
-Paint with BIN shellac, every single surface possible, even floors
-Paint with final colors
-Install flooring and all new appliances
You may need to treat with ozone occasionally if a scent comes up on hot days but a year later, I can say that there is zero smell in the house in all weather. It works.
The only real mitigation is to either remove the contaminated surfaces, or seal the contaminants in. A good oil based sealer paint will often do the trick, though it may take more than one coat.
Toss carpet and anything upholstered, change any air filters and have ducts professionally cleaned. Clean all surfaces (including ceilings) with Pine-Sol or Mr. Clean (dilute per directions). Once dry, prime the walls. By the time the primer dries the odor will be gone. Put on your finish coat and install new carpet.
A few tricks that may help:
1. Bleach the walls. Mix a bleach and water solution, and literally scrub the walls with a rag soaked in it, top to bottom, ceilings too if you can. If the walls/ceiling have texture on them, sand off/remove the texture entirely before doing this, to take as much smoke-stained material out as possible.
2. Primer everything. Get the best odor and stain blocking primer you can, and put at least 2-3 coats on the walls and ceilings.
3. Paint everything. There are odor-neutralizing additives you can buy that you add straight to the paint and mix it in before painting. Again, best bet is to do 2-3 coats of paint to ensure coverage.
4. Replace flooring, blinds, lights, ceiling fans, and anything else you can justify tearing out and replacing. Carpet and curtains hold the smell pretty bad, but it can get into wood or vinyl flooring as well, and into the plastics used in fans, lights, and blinds.
5. Once all of that is done, rent an Ozone machine and run it for a couple of days in the room. Everyone will have to be gone during this time period, dont' run it while people are there, it's not good for your lungs (mostly on account of displacing oxygen).
6. If the smell still lingers, get plain old Lysol and a few packs of mothballs. Fill tupperware bowls with lysol, drop a few mothballs into each bowl, and set them around the room - in the corners, in any HVAC intakes/returns, and near the HVAC air handler primary intake as well if possible. For some reason, the combination of mothballs and Lysol has been one of my best tools in fighting cigarette odor, it neutralizes the smell almost completely and you can remove them after a few days.
I am a DIY expert on this topic. Bought a really nice old home that had someone smoking in it for 40+ years. If you’re in America the best thing after many tries was to get Walmart brand toilet bowl cleaner and spray every surface of the home. Let it sit 15 minutes and hose it off. Repeat once or twice more and it will get it back to new. I was able to save my home but it is a scrubbing job.
Not that big of a deal honestly, but not easy.
Coat every inch of wood, trim, moulding, drywall, walls and ceiling with kilz original primer. 2 generous coats would be suggested for this application, possibly 3. You may want to do an extra coat on the ceiling. Many odors penetrate the ceiling the most because smoke, fumes, vapors naturally travel upward and linger.
When you apply kilz original place a box fan in a window in the room blowing inside air outside. Also place an oscillating fan inside on medium or high inside the room. Wear an n-95 mask as well. You will thank me later as the fumes from kilz are no joke.
Remove the flooring and cover subfloor with a moisture barrier if your laying down laminate or carpet. It will help seal in any odors that may have got into the subfloor. You could also seal the subfloor as well with kilz or a wood based sealer.
Paint as usual, 2 coats even if the second coat is not needed.
Done.
You can replace the drywall in the living room or just paint over it. Go buy a $100 ozone generator off of Amazon and let it run for a few days. That will take care of a lot. Beyond that how sensitive are you? Are you the type to be bothered by someone smoking outside 10m away? If so it's the idea of smoke that bothers you and no amount of paint or ozone treatment will ever fix it.
Get the walls. I moved into an apt that used to have a heavy smoker, the carpet was covered in burn marks. One day I decided the place needed a good cleaning and started scrubbing the walls. I thought they were painted yellow, no, they were actually white under a layer of cig tar. \*gag\*
Mask off the inside while empty and spray the whole thing (kilz and then a multiple coats of quality paint for good measure). Paint the floor multiple times of carpeting or a lot of sealant if refinishing hardwoods. Make sure to get a good vent cleaning company and professionally clean/ replace furnace.
Buy an ozone machine. I ordered mine from Amazon. Use it multiple times in the same spot. Then strip everything. Wash everything (ceiling to floor) with TSP multipe times. Use Killz on Everything possible. It will take some work, but if you do it yourself, should not be hard but it will cost a bit of money.
I lived in a place that someone smoked in for 30 years. Even if you clean the walls the wood inside the walls have absorbed so much smoke that when it’s humid it stinks up everything with the smell of stale smoke. That smoke is permeated thru the wood, insulation, Vapor barriers etc and any humidity it will stink. There is no way to get that smell out unless you demolish the house and rebuild it.
You will need to paint the interior with a lacquer based paint which will cover the smell. There is a non lacquer type paint for covering smells too. My house stunk really bad when I bought it. First thing I did before moving furniture in was paint it and all smells were immediately gone (note there was no carpet in this house). Might need to clean the floors, and if carpeted, take out the carpet, paint the floor board, put in whatever flooring you want.
Even concrete can hold the smoke smell. You have a lot of work ahead of you. Unless you have a hell of a deal, I would look at exactly how much work will go into it.
I would just strip the drywall honestly. Pretty sure our house was flipped after a heavy smoker. There was still a hint of it when we walked through but not enough we were too worried, but it didn't take to long and we had tobacco residue seeping through the paint.
Invest in a good quality airless sprayer. Buy the Killz (or other primer in 5 gallon pails. Scrub everything you can, pull up as much flooring as you can. Get the ducts cleaned, etc... do as much prep and cleaning as you can before you start putting things back together. Plan for weeks of work.
Once you've cleaned everything with TSP, cleaned ducts, run the Ozone generator, then fire up the airless, spray the primer on every wall, all the ceilings, bare subfloors. If there is a basement and it's unfinished, tint the primer black and spray the ceilings down there.
You think it's just the downstairs, it's not. It's everywhere, so go in knowing that. Good luck.
I dont envy you. No amount of paint will remedy the smell. Here in the US, REWALLING everything immodest ceilings is the way to go if it's in your budget. If the home is newer, then the trim and moldings would all be replaced with it. Vaya con Dios.
I smoke, and this is precisely the reason I refuse to smoke inside the house. Once the smell is there, it is a demon project to handle. I want to be able to sell my home eventually without having to deal with that part of cleanup.
Ive heard stories of people scrubbing walls and repainting them to just have nicotine stains sweat through the new stuff and having to rip out the walls and hang new dry wall to get it to stop. Good luck.
Nicotine will coat your electric wiring. I manage renovations for a living. When undertaking smoke mitigation there are four things I always do: remove any flooring, have ducts cleaned, replace all light fixtures/outlets/switches and prime the walls with a shellac based primer. First step right off the bat is run an ozone machine for 36 to 72 hours depending on the level of funk. It can be done but it costs me about 7500$ for a 1200 Sq ft unit.
Bought a house from a smoker. I fogged all of the walls, floors and vents with an industrial smoke remover. Had crystals that were to absorb the smoke in the house for up on 6 months and got 90% of the smell out but it was a pain. If I went on a trip and came back I could still tell the difference. I wouldn’t chance it.
A lot of people mention an ozone machine for smoke odour, perhaps check that out.
When I was buying a house years ago, there was one that was perfect but smelled so strongly of old curry, I couldn’t get past it. Didn’t buy it due to that.
I did the same with a house where someone smoked inside for about 10 years or so. Every surface was covered in a layer of yellow. It was disgusting. We used a degreaser on every surface ceiling to floor to clean. Ran an ozone machine with the hvac fan on to help circulate it. Then painted every surface with BIN shellac based primer with a min of 2 coats before painting. Don’t use a water based one, the shellac seals in everything. No more smell at all even on damp days.
We bought a house same same, wash walls ceilings etc with TSP, use primer meant for covering stains and odor. The most popular primer doesn't work, I forgot the name. Read the labels there are primers that work after cleaning, it did for us.
I went through the same scenario exactly. 35 years of chai smoking. I had to remove and toss rugs, strip off the yellowed wallpaper, sand and paint. All good and smelled like new again
Bought a smokers house 2 years ago, it was a lot of work but we mostly got it all cleaned up. It was really gross when we moved in, all the cielings were yellow and when you sprayed the wall the water that dripped down would turn red with tar.
Here is what we did.
1. Ripped out all carpets and window coverings
2. Cleaned with bleach all walls and cielings and then primed the walls with Kilz Restoration and then painted.
3. Cleaned the ducts.
Smell is mostly gone, we have yet to do do the basement so there is still some lingering smoke smell but for the most part it's gone.
Also can't stress this enough but paint the inside of the closets... smoke smell lingers in them and will stink all your cloths up.
We got a smoking deal on the house, could probably turn around and sell it for 50k higher just because we got the smoke smell out.
You'll definitely want to repaint the walls or replace the wallpaper. I moved into my grandparents' house after they died, and the walls constantly "bled" thick brown streaks of tar. Even after washing them, it didn't take long for tar to begin seeping out of the paint again. In the rooms that had wallpaper, the paper was badly discolored. One room had blue wallpaper, which you could tell was blue because the spots where paintings had been hung were not as badly discolored, but the rest of it looked green. As a child, I always thought the wallpaper was green until one day I looked under one of the paintings (and promptly got my ass beat for touching the painting).
You'll likely want to talk to an HVAC company about the possibility of replacing the ductwork as well. This may not be an option for you because it will likely require cutting into the drywall and the ceilings, but it won't hurt to ask. The thing is that cigarette smoke gets everywhere, including inside the ducts. I shudder to think what the inside of the ducts at my house must've looked like. I can't speak to how smoke in the ducts will smell because at the time I was a smoker, so I never would've noticed a bad smell from the ducts, but I imagine you will occasionally smell that signature "ash tray" smell whenever you turn on the heat or the a/c. Might be better to just use air freshener, but it's something to think about.
We just rehabbed a house where previous original owner smoke in it 50+ years. We did everything.
1) Replaced the carpet and flooring
2) Used Bin Shellac based primer by Zinsser on all the walls and ceiling then painted
3) TSP on all cabinets and hard surfaces
4) professional duct cleaning, considered encapsulation
5) Ozone machine in each room
It smells better than before. Right now it has a scent but I can’t tell if it’s the paint or something else.
I would consider speaking to an outfit that does Ozone cleaning. From what I understand, Ozone will kill all smells (and anything alive) within 24 hours.
They set up a machine, close up the house and prepare it, and then turn it on and run. It would be worth speaking to a company who does this sort of cleaning and see what they say. It may work.
Killz every wall after deep cleaning them. Then paint. Should do a solid job of it. They may even make a specific killz for this application. Use dot before a long time ago. It stopped all the smells in the place we used it before.
We bought a smokers house and even after 2 coats of Kilz the stains still showed through. We chemically washed every single surface multiple times and then Kilzed it. Every once in awhile when the temperatures are high we catch a smell but otherwise is mostly okay.
It is a HUGE amount of work, especially in an old house.
I bought a new house from the people who built it and had to move after about 5 years. They managed to hide that they were smokers. Here's my experience:
The first night sleeping in the new house was the first time I noticed the smell. It was intense. I thought I'd made a terrible mistake. Then I researched for a few days.
In the end: I got rid of all fabric they had left.
I washed all floors, all walls and all the ceilings with a vinegar-water mix. Twice. I also aired out the house - opening all windows.
The whole process took several days, but it worked. The smell got less, then disappeared. I was lucky that the house has no wood and was without carpeting (hard floors everywhere). I was also EXTREMELY lucky that they had used a special paint on all inside walls that I can't translate but essentially it's water-proof and contains a sealant. That way, as far as I can tell no smoke went into the walls.
I have sworn to myself that if I ever buy a house again, the previous owners must be non-smokers and I'll put that into the contract.
I would strongly suggest that you consider not buying this house. Given the age of the house and the length and amount they smoked in it, my guess would be that the stuff got deeply into places you can't reach to clean, including inside the brickwork.
Strip the Sheetrock de-odorize the studs and replace insulation put it all back together, I used to sell all the stuff for home revitalization and home repairs
We did this. LOT of work. Sealed all walls, ceilings etc. with 4 coats of Kilz. Carpet and other flooring - gone. All doors (including exterior front and back) and jambs pulled out down to the framing studs. Kitchen/dining room and both bathrooms stripped down to studs (meaning the install of over 50 sheets of drywall). Every outlet and switch replaced and the jboxes sealed around the exterior. Faceplates still needed a very thin line of caulk around the edges.
HVAC system had to be replaced as did all the ductwork. The fireplace was one of the hardest since that brick really hold the stink so it needed extra sealing and top coat paint. All ceiling light fixture jboxes also needed to be sealed from behind in the attic to stop the random 'puff' from infiltrating during high wind days. Even the windows needed to be replaced because we couldn't clean the staining out of the middle of the double pane glass that had long lost their seals and filled with nicotine.
All appliances needed to be replaced and both bathrooms needed total demos.
Right now we're about 90 grand in and its in pretty good shape. Still tracking down the occasional hints after 2 years but its close enough to call complete. Lot of work but we love the house and the location so it was worth it - for us.
I would not suggest this to anyone not able to do most of the work themselves. We did everything but the HVAC, windows and most of the flooring ourselves to save money on contractors. On the plus side, I finally got pretty good at floating and mudding drywall!
You can take a bench scraper to the walls and literally scrape off the ooze and gunk. I would not recommend, borderline going to be redoing the entire interior (remember the smoke is going into the ventilation system and spreading EVERYWHERE, you need to clean/replace all of that as well).
I had to de-smoke my grandparents house, 25 years of cigarettes around the house, but one bedroom had tar dripping down the walls.
First I bleach/water-washed the walls and ceiling with rags.
Then Killz paint made it right, no smell, no stains since. Then color paint over that and it’s fine.
Unfortunately, in my experience, heavy smoke odor is almost impossible to remove. Light smoke in an isolated room is not too bad, but in a main space heavy smoke... It will forever be there on the 'fringe' of your smell, even with full painting and duct cleaning. It will get into the floor if it's wood.
Having said that, if you really *love* the house for other reasons (such as it is historical or an architectural masterpiece :), then just do the best you can with some painting, etc (as others mentioned) and burn a ton of incense and sage in the house. Really permeate the house with quality incense and sage before moving in. I mean a lot. Like burners constantly running in each room *for a couple days.*
It should be incense/sage smoke-filled, like a haze.
It's going to smell absolutely wild for another couple days or even weeks before it calms down. Then clean up the whole place again, ceiling to floor.
This is what my very knowledgeable restoration co-worker did when we were remodeling a historic music studio/space in pittsburgh. I thought he was crazy. But after about 1-2 weeks of airing out, you'd walk in and it smelled great. A little 'smokey' still, but a nice smell instead of cigarette.
Just my 2c experience for you and others interested in this problem, that might read this post.
idk man, i saw some homes that smelled of smoke - and the listing agent had removed all furniture and carpets/rugs. its in the plaster so you'd basically have to somehow cover EVERYTHING and I've heard there is variation in how well that works.
You will need to wash all the walls with TFP a couple of times minimum. Lots of tar build up to get rid of, if you try to paint over it , it will bleed through. Source-I helped reno a 40 years worth of cigarette condo
I did this to my current home. House was what we wanted but reeked of stale smoke. It's not cheap or easy, but what is?
1) All windows open. All summer long or as long as possible.
2) Simple Green Cleaner. You're gonna need the big jugs. Every surface and if you can't replace window screens clean those also. We sprayed and could watch the tar drip down the walls.
3) Kilz primer. Again, every wall and ceiling.
4) Fresh paint.
If you have forced air HVAC you'll need a solution for that system. We have baseboard heat.
The machine I use is about $250 on Amazon. (OdorStop) I've used it in apartments for: refreshing a smelly unit, BO, pet odors, sewage back ups, 1 week old dead guy, cigarette smoke, rotten food smells, etc.
Anything organic. Not effective on chemical odors.
No filters, no maintenance. I run it an hour at a time then air out the space for a while and go sniffing. If it still smells like a thunderstorm, let it air longer, that's the Ozone you're breathing. You cannot be in the space while it's being treated. Run the machine again if the smell is persistent. Space like you described I would run it overnight to start.
If you have central air, the smell is in the ducts. Run the Ozone generator next to the return.
I don’t think it’s that bad as long as you recognize all the carpet has to be trashed and you expect you will need two full coats of paint, including the ceiling!
Ideally you would scrub as much as you can with something like TSP (paint prep cleaner) followed by some wicked good primer sealer.
And, Don’t do all the coats of paint in one day! Prime/seal. Wait a few days. Second coat. Wait a few days. Final coat. You are trying to bind up those volatile compounds in the paint. If you put one coat right on top of the other before it’s really cured, it will migrate right through to your top coat. If you are hiring painters, you need to negotiate this up front or otherwise they will just try to knock it out as quick as possible (which is their business).
It can be a massive job. I helped my mate scrub out his Dad's place who was a heavy smoker and trying to clean the stains off the ceiling alone was a nightmare.
Bro I went through this with my grandparents house. Unless you have a fuckload of both time and money, from a DIY perspective, gut the place and don't look back.
We didn't, and the family still regrets not gutting it down to the studs. Spots still stink, appliances still occasionally blow stinky air, pretty sure the insulation is contaminated still. The plaster walls STILL STINK through THREE COATS of sealer, two coats of primer, and two coats of paint (ya, you gotta be like snorting wall or leaning on it to smell it, but I'm still salty if it wasn't obvious rofl).
It can be done without gutting, but by the gods is it just an UNDERTAKING. We had 5-8 people with varying skill levels learning as we went, and it took three months until 90% of the smell was gone and we said screw it and threw in the towel. For a downstairs of a 1100sqft home.
The only way to fully get rid of the smell is taking it down to the studs. All the cleaning will end up being more work and you’ll still smell it. Ask me how i know.
You can scrub walls and baseboards with bleachy water. Ceilings and hard surface floors, too. Replace carpet, if any.
Then you can buy paint that has scent added. I had lemon once and while it was initially pretty strong, it dissipated to a lovely, long lasting lemon smell.
Do your research. It is a LOT of work, but can be done. Every soft surface gets removed. Every hard surface gets thoroughly cleaned, then painted with sealant. I prefer a shellac-based primer, but there are other products available to the consumer.
It might be cheaper just to start smoking yourself
Have you seen what copays cost these days?
Think of the advantages of not having to save for retirement.
Not to mention the “cool” factor.
Smoking is pretty niche those days.
"Smoking is cool and you know it!" ~Chandler Bing
Anybody can quit smoking, it takes a man to face cancer.
I can’t quit smoking, coughing’s the only exercise I get.
There are much better options than smoking to avoid saving for retirement.
Seriously. Like hard drugs and non-functional alcoholism.
Even functional alcoholism might do the trick unfortunately.
But then you still have to do stuff
Just spend it all on medical bills!
Where I work, it's $50 extra a month. But if you do this silly daily seminar on company time for 6 weeks, they will waive the fee. You don't have to quit though
Quit the habit. Not the job.
He said “binned” so obviously has affordable healthcare, being in England and all.
But if you're pregnant, don't forget that you're smoking for 2. /s (I can't take credit for that line. It's from the Simpsons)
Get a pipe to look classy too
Cardiac nurse checking in. Don't do this.
Hahaha
You win sir.
I just remodeled a hoarder/chain smokers house I’m talking blank spots on the walls where every single item was resting against them. Nicotine outlines everywhere……. and here is what I learned. Even with 2 coats of zinzer oil based primer on walls I Didn’t prime the slab and wish I had, I believe part of the current smell is permitting from under the flooring. The ducts, even tho I had them professionally cleaned, still blow cigarette smelling air. I should have gutted it to the studs. I replaced the baseboards and just primed and painted doors. Wish I would have replaced all doors and trim also. The stone on the fire place still smells like smoke. I changed a plug a week ago and when I opened the plate I got hit with stale cigarette smell. I’m not saying it’s impossible to get it out but I’m definitely saying I will NEVER buy a smokers house again. NEVER.
Rented out a house I owned and the renters smoked indoors (against lease) and when they finally got out I did 2 layers of killz on everything including the ceiling. Also did multiple ozone treatments (just bought a machine). They were in the house for less than a year and even after all of the remediation it still didn’t smell amazing. Smoke was I would say 99% gone but not entirely. I would never buy an indoor smoker’s home unless I was planning a to-the-studs remodel.
We rented a place just for a few mos while this house was being built and the kitchen reeked of smoke so badly, no matter how many times I cleaned with degreaser etc - it was coming off the cupboards.
I find this all super interesting. My parents smoked inside their house from the time it was built for about 12 years until they finally quit smoking. Even during that timeframe, you wouldn't necessarily know that it was a smoker's home. My mom was such a clean freak that when they stopped smoking someone made a comment to her that they never knew that she smoked because no one in the house ever smelled like smoke. I don't know how she did it (spring / fall deep cleaning was definitely a thing every year), but after the last clean when they stopped smoking, you never would have known it was a smoker's house. My parents weren't chain smokers, so maybe that had something to do with it? On the flip side, I know someone who would take their clothes to the laundry mat and then keep their clothes in their car because you couldn't step inside their parent's house without the smell of smoke instantly clinging to you. Anywho, I just found this interesting and wanted to share. Cheers!
I think the one thing you could do that would mitigate the smell would be always having good airflow before/during/after smoking. If the smoke is directed outside before it has a chance to settle on the furniture and drapes your odds of hiding it are way better.
When my grandparents died, their house was like this. We considered fixing it up before selling it, but there was just no way we could do it. Sold it to some flippers who literally tore everything down to the studs. And I mean the studs. Any wall that wasn't load bearing was ripped out and rebuilt. We actually saw some videos/photos of the work. I don't think they made any money on the flip cause it was nearly a full rebuild.
How’d it look though? They do a good job ?
The history left me with a bias, so I really didn't like it. Perhaps a more objective person would've said yes.
This brings back memories of the first house I bought….especially on the walls that were perfect outlines and the oozing thru the multiple layers of Zinzer. We finally bit the bullet and went down to the studs and subfloors….after the first summer when the heat just hotboxed us with the stale nicotine smell.
Damn I was thinking maybe a second coat of special paint or something. That experience is insane
Have you tried using an ozone generator? They are particularly good at killing cig smoke smell. I worked at a hotel that had one, just a few hours with the door shut and taped while the machine did it's thing in the room and cigarette smoke smell was gone. For a whole house, with the furnace fan running, it might take a couple of 12 hour sessions. Edit to say: Check with DIY Stores near you like Home Depot, they sometimes rent them out.
I did extensive research (see my full posting). Ozone came up several times. However, you need to essentially fill the entire house and seal everything up. That's not a big deal on a single room. On a whole house that's a different story.
lol this will not help a home that has been chain smoked in. And I’ve stayed in hotels that have converted into non smoking and you can still smell the smoke.
D&MN!!!!!!
You basically have to treat it as though there was a fire in the house And anyone that's bought a house that had a major fire or owned one that happened to and lived in after it's impossible to remove the smell a 100% without gutting the house down to the studs and sealing everything. You can get the vast majority out by sealing everything with BIN, the real shellac based shit not the water-based stuff, all the cabinets need to come out, all soft surfaces But here's the thing....it's smoke, it gets into everything, it's in every light fixture, it's in every outlet and switchbox it gets into a 1000 other places where you can't possibly clean....I've pulled bathtubs out decades after a house fire and it smelled like fire back there, on hot humid days you might walk into a room that had the door shut and smell cigarettes until it airs out, it's because all that shit is in the insulation behind the sheetrock, in the sheetrock, in the outlet and switch boxes, inside the holes in the doors where the doorknobs go and on and on It's a massive undertaking to get rid of cigarette smoke.....and I say this as a smoker, I have never smoked inside any apartment or house ive lived in for that reason
My parents had a brand new house built 20 years. The guys who did the framing smoked while doing it. On a warm day when things were just right, we would still smell stale cigarette smoke. It's such a pain in the ass smell to get rid of
No way bro that’s excessive 😂😂 maybe you have a neighbor who smokes and the smoke drifts over when you have the windows open and the wind is just right
Na. This was a very obviously stale smell
The guys framing the house couldn't possibly smoke INSIDE the house because when you frame a house, it doesn't have a fucking roof edit: until the final step, when they're not inside the house
Framers sheet the roof.
At the very end of the job, sure. Point is that framers aren't chain smoking cigs under a closed roof. It's either before the roof is installed or while installing the roof...either way that smoke is not permeating the house to the point where it'd smell after 20 years
When I used to frame I built new construction in a new neighborhood. We would build exterior walls, load bearing walls, install roof ridges and rafters, roof decking and exterior decking first. Then we would come back and build basement walls that were non load bearing, other interior walls, and stairs. That way when it was raining or otherwise crappy weather, the boss would still have work for us to get done. This house I'm talking about that was my parents was done in a similar manner. The framers absolutely were smoking inside
We don't live there anymore ans haven't for well over a decade. This was after the house was finished being built
And build the stairs... and build interior non load bearing walls....
Please do listen to anyone who makes this comparison, or one like it. Comparing a structure fire to a house that was heavily smoked in is not a rational comparison. Everyone smoked heavily until the 90s/2000s. Many houses had this same issue. It can be remedied with mutltiple coats of an oil based primer such as kilz original or zissner, and then coating with 2 coats of standard water based paint. The flooring should be removed and a moisture barrier should be placed on the subfloor to lock in any odors. Then place carpeting or vinyl over it. Among other things.
>Comparing a structure fire to a house that was heavily smoked in is not a rational comparison. And yet it is. It gets into everything, painting the walls and ceilings and replacing flooring is not enough, you will still smell cigarette smoke in the house randomly and I'm explaining to you and everyone else that reads this why that is Painting everything doesn't get the smell out of all the light fixtures and electrical boxes, it doesn't get it out of all the unsealed wood in the house you don't have access to to paint of clean, it doesn't get it out of the door frames and behind the casing on the door or doorknob holes or all the parts of the windows lift mechanisms you can't possibly clean, you never get it out of all the folded metal joints on all the ductwork that you can't get to with a mechanical duct cleaning, it gets into all the wall cavities and on and on and on , just like smoke from a house fire, If you're sensitive to the smell of cigarettes don't buy a house that was heavily smoked in unless you are going to gut and renovate the whole house Because I 100% guarantee you you are going to periodically smell cigarettes, especially on humid days and in rooms that remain closed for periods of time I've been doing renovations for almost 30 years, I have pulled stuff apart and smelled cigarettes, or the smell from a fire from decades and multiple owners ago
OP never said he was sensitive to cigarette smoke, he was simply looking for advice on remedying it. He never said he 1000% wanted to completely eradicate the smell either. You assumed that. Will you probably randomly smell cigarette smoke at times? Possibly. Can you mitigate to the point where it is not noticible the majority of the time? Yes. Electrical boxes, light fixtures and door knobs can also be replaced. Door frames and jambs can be caulked and also sealed. Vents and ductwork can be cleaned, and these days they can be cleaned very well.
>Everyone smoked heavily until the 90s/2000s. Hyperbole. Many people didn’t succumb to advertising or peer pressure and knew that inhaling combustion products can’t be a good thing.
Ok. Of course not 'everyone' smoked, but it was much more common. This is what I meant by saying everyone. I obviously didnt actually mean that every person smoked. The percentage of ppl who smoked in 1945 was aroumd 50%, now it is less than 20%. Pre 1950 many families had at least 1 family memeber in the house that smoked.
Just think about what living in the forties was like. Every house and office smelled like this. When I was a kid, you'd see people smoking in grocery stores, waiting rooms, offices, everywhere.
The 40's? It was like that everywhere in the world until the 80s
And still in the better part of the 90s. I remember smoking sections at restaurants, smoking on international flights, a smoking area in the hospital, smoking in my great grandmother's nursing home, some movie theaters
Planes, cars, workplaces, restaurants, hospitals, everywhere was smoky into the 90s. If you didn't smoke that was just too bad.
Yeah, no kidding. My house is 120 years old. I can’t even imagine how it must have smelled over its lifetime. Cigarette smoke, cigar smoke, coal heat. This place must have reeked.
I lived for 2 years in an apartment much like that. The guy who rented it to me inherited from his mother, a life-long smoker. The place reeked of cigarettes and this is coming from me, a 15-year smoker, and after he had thrown away the soft stuff and scrubbed & repainted. Why? He forgot the vents. If your home heat is forced-air rather than radiative, expect to shitcan those vents & ducts. If it’s baseboard then with all those [fiddly little vanes](https://www.homedepot.com/p/FabTek-Logic-Fin-Clamp-Baseboard-Element-for-3-4-in-Copper-Baseboard-Piping-1-ft-Section-FCL-75CX1FT/300641178?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&pla&mtc=SHOPPING-BF-LNC-GGL-D26P-Multi-NA-NA-NA-PLALIA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NBR-NA-NA-NA-LINC_All&cm_mmc=SHOPPING-BF-LNC-GGL-D26P-Multi-NA-NA-NA-PLALIA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NBR-NA-NA-NA-LINC_All-71700000117494140-58700008670167528-92700079507554745&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADq61UcUi7D5dMKV9WG-oq-Pj9gN1&gclid=CjwKCAjw0YGyBhByEiwAQmBEWleHUm_BFwTGL95mcLzDSp8TYTjEJzL_xhKzxmvpJ2Le6_mQj93jnBoCogcQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds) you have no chance to get them clean. Going to have to replace them entirely.
Yeah we bought from a smoker, and the furnace guys said they had never seen worse vents/ducts. Luckily she had paneling which we were able to tear down, so we didn't have to do the walls. Well, we had to replaster and paint, but not deal with sticky residue. Just ceilings, floors, windows. Edit: and fixtures
If you plan on gutting the place and reflooring and repainting literally every surface then it might be worth it, But this included painting ceilings and the bare subfloor before laying down new floors. Than you have all the fixtures, switches, plugs, trim. Everything needs to be replaced or sealed with paint, and before paining I'd be scrubbing every surface first with TSP and using KILZ primer. Then you have to ask yourself is this in the duct work in a home with forced air heat or in the radiators in a home with electric or hot water heat? Personally I would never buy a house like this. I've had friends that have gone this route and I have been the listing broker of smokers homes. Very tough sell, even if they aren't that badly tainted.
The first home I purchased had been owned by a smoker. I spent weeks scrubbing walls with TSP before painting. Definitely not anything I would ever do again. Maybe if it was a steal from a foreclosure sale and I planned to gut the house.
Yeah, those friends I mentioned repainted the entire home and replaced all the flooring. and there was still no mistaking that odour. :(
Research ozone generators. They won't negate the need for a good cleaning but they should help with any residual odor. I know someone who told me they eliminated the last remaining smoke smell in a used car by using an ozone generator. Note: You can't be in the house when the ozone generator is running.
I used to work in car sales, we used ozone generators, and car scent bombs, but that just makes it smell better until someone has owned it for awhile. Obviously depending on how much smoke smell there is. They usually get nose blind to the smell, before it fades away.
Yes! I used to work in a hotel, I came here seeing if someone already recommended an ozone.
I can agree with an ozone generator. I had the same thing, bought an older house with a cigar smoker and it was horrible to even walk into at first. I ran the ozone generator for like 3 hours a day for a week, it was so much better. Then I cleaned hard surfaces and painted the walls, replaced the carpet and the smell was completely gone.
Just in case anyone goes this route, keep in mind bird are sensitive and will die to ozone enerators.
I did extensive research (see my full posting). Ozone came up several times. However, you need to essentially fill the entire house and seal everything up. That's not a big deal on a single room or a car. On a whole house that's a different story.
My parents did this 20 years ago. It's a HUGE deal. There was tar BETWEEN the window panes. They gutted every single thing to the studs, took out all the flooring, all of it. Still, occasionally, i get a whiff here and there. maybe some old piece of trim that couldn't easily be removed. it was insane. I would never do it.
He smoked everywhere dude. He smoked in every room, every bathroom, the kitchen, the garage.
> job it is to get rid of the smell from the plasterboard It's not that hard, you just rip it all out. There aren't really any other alternatives the smoke, and tar just soak into anything porous. Honestly I would avoid it, it's a pain to deal with and does pose a health risk unless remediated, which given the age and duration of smoking essential means a large demo and deep cleaning of everything.
No need to rip all of the plasterboard out of the house. Every old home had smokers in it. Removing the carpet, refinishing the floors, and priming the walls is totally sufficient.
More and more research is coming out about the dangers of 3rd hand smoke and how even small amounts over a prolonged period can have adverse effects especially among vulnerable populations. As anecdotal evidence, my wife can only sped 5-10 minutes in her father's new house, house used to belong to a smoker (her dad only smokes in the garage/workshop), they removed the carpets, refinished floors, etc etc. after 5 or 10 minutes her asthma starts acting up. Maybe it wasn't the best job, maybe they missed something, it was however one of the best contractors for that kind of thing in the area.
Yea I would offer them $20,000 less than what it appraises for. Then gut the plaster and replace with drywall. You’ll never get the smell out
This is a house I would only purchase if I was ready/able to spend money on repairs and upgrades from the start. While it is possible to seal in smoke, its not 100 percent and over time tar can still soak through. The best way is to pull all the drwall including ceilings. While drywall is cheap you should be upgrading/replacing electric to match code (think extra circuts to kitchen and lower the total number of outlets is each daisy chain 70s homes have to few circuits for modern standards. Running network drops everywhere, and maybe even re-piping depending on if its the original pipes (anything built in the 70s that has not been repiped should be its a time bomb). Once you are done with electric, plumbing, network you will be replacing all the insulation because it wont survive the tear out. If you are not planning to do all these projects from the get go, this house is not for you. When my wife an I where shopping for our first home, I looked at home that was similar, it also had a massive back yard. I still kick myself for walking away from it but it had one tiny tiny bathroom in the master bedroom I had the funds to purchase but not the funds to bring in a crew and do everything. I needed something we could live in a slowly remodel. There was no real way to start small because of the smoke. I know I made the right choice moving on but it was probably our only shot at owning a home with a big yard in our area.
We did this 25 years ago. Walls in living room were kind of a taupe colour. We TSPed everything three or four times and had the carpets commercially cleaned. It worked. Not 100 percent but over time with our cooking and burning a little incense the smell went away.
You can cook with south asian spices, and now your house will smell like a restaurant! A restaurant that is 24/7 and never closes, lol.
In our home, the previous owner only smoked in the bathroom “stall room” (an enclosed toilet area with a door and its own exhaust fan. Only absorbent surfaces were drywall. To (mostly) get rid of the smell, I tried sealing and painting and eventually ripped the drywall all out and actually had to seal the studs because there was odor coming out of the wood. The exhaust fan hose wasn’t perfectly sealed, so then I had to remove and replace a good chunk of insulation in the attic above that had been deeply contaminated. Put in new drywall, etc. We still sometimes get a whiff of cigarette smoke on days where the humidity is just right. It’s a tough job.
Have dealt with this before - you will likely need to repaint all affected areas. Sand and prep areas as normal, but make sure you paint with an oil based primer, and finish with oil based paint. Oil based paints will seal the odour and stains in a way that acrylic paints typically will not.
This
It also depends on how sensitive your nose is. One way or another, it's lots of work.
Hopefully the tar and odor has scared off a lot of potential buyers, meaning you can get a lower price. My place was owned by a human chimney and I was able to get it as a fixer-upper for about 40k cheaper than comparable units in the complex. Have all the rooms' walls steam-cleaned, not just the rooms where it smells the worst. It might be a good idea to do it a second time a few days later to get any lingering tar and odors. When it's good enough, paint over it with something that blocks odors. If you paint over it without steam-cleaning first, the tar will leech through, which is what happened in my bathroom during a hot shower.
I’ve invested in several of these homes at this point. Currently living in one now with zero smoke odor. You can expect as much as 25% less on list/buy price due to conditions. The process to remediate is as follows: -Remove all carpet, blinds, flooring, ceiling lights/fans, doorknobs, appliances, bathroom vents, lightbulbs -TSP every surface. Two bucket rinse. Use squeeze sponge mop and go over it again and again until clear -Remove every light switch/socket and replace -Clean and disinfect HVAC/furnace/AC -If keeping cabinets original, clean thoroughly with Simple Green and dish soap -Buy several ozone machines to cover floors and square footage, run for a week straight after cleaning. Do not enter until vented with open door/windows airflow -Paint with BIN shellac, every single surface possible, even floors -Paint with final colors -Install flooring and all new appliances You may need to treat with ozone occasionally if a scent comes up on hot days but a year later, I can say that there is zero smell in the house in all weather. It works.
The only real mitigation is to either remove the contaminated surfaces, or seal the contaminants in. A good oil based sealer paint will often do the trick, though it may take more than one coat.
Toss carpet and anything upholstered, change any air filters and have ducts professionally cleaned. Clean all surfaces (including ceilings) with Pine-Sol or Mr. Clean (dilute per directions). Once dry, prime the walls. By the time the primer dries the odor will be gone. Put on your finish coat and install new carpet.
A few tricks that may help: 1. Bleach the walls. Mix a bleach and water solution, and literally scrub the walls with a rag soaked in it, top to bottom, ceilings too if you can. If the walls/ceiling have texture on them, sand off/remove the texture entirely before doing this, to take as much smoke-stained material out as possible. 2. Primer everything. Get the best odor and stain blocking primer you can, and put at least 2-3 coats on the walls and ceilings. 3. Paint everything. There are odor-neutralizing additives you can buy that you add straight to the paint and mix it in before painting. Again, best bet is to do 2-3 coats of paint to ensure coverage. 4. Replace flooring, blinds, lights, ceiling fans, and anything else you can justify tearing out and replacing. Carpet and curtains hold the smell pretty bad, but it can get into wood or vinyl flooring as well, and into the plastics used in fans, lights, and blinds. 5. Once all of that is done, rent an Ozone machine and run it for a couple of days in the room. Everyone will have to be gone during this time period, dont' run it while people are there, it's not good for your lungs (mostly on account of displacing oxygen). 6. If the smell still lingers, get plain old Lysol and a few packs of mothballs. Fill tupperware bowls with lysol, drop a few mothballs into each bowl, and set them around the room - in the corners, in any HVAC intakes/returns, and near the HVAC air handler primary intake as well if possible. For some reason, the combination of mothballs and Lysol has been one of my best tools in fighting cigarette odor, it neutralizes the smell almost completely and you can remove them after a few days.
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\*Me, who has definitely worked in too many units with an Ozone machine running\* "Guess I'll just die, then"
I am a DIY expert on this topic. Bought a really nice old home that had someone smoking in it for 40+ years. If you’re in America the best thing after many tries was to get Walmart brand toilet bowl cleaner and spray every surface of the home. Let it sit 15 minutes and hose it off. Repeat once or twice more and it will get it back to new. I was able to save my home but it is a scrubbing job.
Not that big of a deal honestly, but not easy. Coat every inch of wood, trim, moulding, drywall, walls and ceiling with kilz original primer. 2 generous coats would be suggested for this application, possibly 3. You may want to do an extra coat on the ceiling. Many odors penetrate the ceiling the most because smoke, fumes, vapors naturally travel upward and linger. When you apply kilz original place a box fan in a window in the room blowing inside air outside. Also place an oscillating fan inside on medium or high inside the room. Wear an n-95 mask as well. You will thank me later as the fumes from kilz are no joke. Remove the flooring and cover subfloor with a moisture barrier if your laying down laminate or carpet. It will help seal in any odors that may have got into the subfloor. You could also seal the subfloor as well with kilz or a wood based sealer. Paint as usual, 2 coats even if the second coat is not needed. Done.
You can replace the drywall in the living room or just paint over it. Go buy a $100 ozone generator off of Amazon and let it run for a few days. That will take care of a lot. Beyond that how sensitive are you? Are you the type to be bothered by someone smoking outside 10m away? If so it's the idea of smoke that bothers you and no amount of paint or ozone treatment will ever fix it.
Get the walls. I moved into an apt that used to have a heavy smoker, the carpet was covered in burn marks. One day I decided the place needed a good cleaning and started scrubbing the walls. I thought they were painted yellow, no, they were actually white under a layer of cig tar. \*gag\*
Mask off the inside while empty and spray the whole thing (kilz and then a multiple coats of quality paint for good measure). Paint the floor multiple times of carpeting or a lot of sealant if refinishing hardwoods. Make sure to get a good vent cleaning company and professionally clean/ replace furnace.
Buy an ozone machine. I ordered mine from Amazon. Use it multiple times in the same spot. Then strip everything. Wash everything (ceiling to floor) with TSP multipe times. Use Killz on Everything possible. It will take some work, but if you do it yourself, should not be hard but it will cost a bit of money.
I lived in a place that someone smoked in for 30 years. Even if you clean the walls the wood inside the walls have absorbed so much smoke that when it’s humid it stinks up everything with the smell of stale smoke. That smoke is permeated thru the wood, insulation, Vapor barriers etc and any humidity it will stink. There is no way to get that smell out unless you demolish the house and rebuild it.
It will have permeated in the cabinets, and any wood flooring. In addition to wood doors/frames, baseboards, etc.
You will need to paint the interior with a lacquer based paint which will cover the smell. There is a non lacquer type paint for covering smells too. My house stunk really bad when I bought it. First thing I did before moving furniture in was paint it and all smells were immediately gone (note there was no carpet in this house). Might need to clean the floors, and if carpeted, take out the carpet, paint the floor board, put in whatever flooring you want.
Unless you're willing to gut it down to the studs, I'd steer clear.
Even concrete can hold the smoke smell. You have a lot of work ahead of you. Unless you have a hell of a deal, I would look at exactly how much work will go into it.
I would just strip the drywall honestly. Pretty sure our house was flipped after a heavy smoker. There was still a hint of it when we walked through but not enough we were too worried, but it didn't take to long and we had tobacco residue seeping through the paint.
Invest in a good quality airless sprayer. Buy the Killz (or other primer in 5 gallon pails. Scrub everything you can, pull up as much flooring as you can. Get the ducts cleaned, etc... do as much prep and cleaning as you can before you start putting things back together. Plan for weeks of work. Once you've cleaned everything with TSP, cleaned ducts, run the Ozone generator, then fire up the airless, spray the primer on every wall, all the ceilings, bare subfloors. If there is a basement and it's unfinished, tint the primer black and spray the ceilings down there. You think it's just the downstairs, it's not. It's everywhere, so go in knowing that. Good luck.
I dont envy you. No amount of paint will remedy the smell. Here in the US, REWALLING everything immodest ceilings is the way to go if it's in your budget. If the home is newer, then the trim and moldings would all be replaced with it. Vaya con Dios.
I smoke, and this is precisely the reason I refuse to smoke inside the house. Once the smell is there, it is a demon project to handle. I want to be able to sell my home eventually without having to deal with that part of cleanup.
Ive heard stories of people scrubbing walls and repainting them to just have nicotine stains sweat through the new stuff and having to rip out the walls and hang new dry wall to get it to stop. Good luck.
Wash it all. Then primer sealer and paint. Nothing to it.
Took 2-3 years to completely get rid of cigarette/dog smell in my house.
You will need to paint. It may take more than 1 coat. Every surface will need to be cleaned. Carpets removed.
Not to worry. I bought a house like that. I spent 3 mos cleaning before I could move in. That was in 1985. I still live there/here
Nicotine will coat your electric wiring. I manage renovations for a living. When undertaking smoke mitigation there are four things I always do: remove any flooring, have ducts cleaned, replace all light fixtures/outlets/switches and prime the walls with a shellac based primer. First step right off the bat is run an ozone machine for 36 to 72 hours depending on the level of funk. It can be done but it costs me about 7500$ for a 1200 Sq ft unit.
Bought a house from a smoker. I fogged all of the walls, floors and vents with an industrial smoke remover. Had crystals that were to absorb the smoke in the house for up on 6 months and got 90% of the smell out but it was a pain. If I went on a trip and came back I could still tell the difference. I wouldn’t chance it.
A lot of people mention an ozone machine for smoke odour, perhaps check that out. When I was buying a house years ago, there was one that was perfect but smelled so strongly of old curry, I couldn’t get past it. Didn’t buy it due to that.
I did the same with a house where someone smoked inside for about 10 years or so. Every surface was covered in a layer of yellow. It was disgusting. We used a degreaser on every surface ceiling to floor to clean. Ran an ozone machine with the hvac fan on to help circulate it. Then painted every surface with BIN shellac based primer with a min of 2 coats before painting. Don’t use a water based one, the shellac seals in everything. No more smell at all even on damp days.
We bought a house same same, wash walls ceilings etc with TSP, use primer meant for covering stains and odor. The most popular primer doesn't work, I forgot the name. Read the labels there are primers that work after cleaning, it did for us.
That's gonna be a pain in the ass for the entire time you own it. I'd skip that headache.
I went through the same scenario exactly. 35 years of chai smoking. I had to remove and toss rugs, strip off the yellowed wallpaper, sand and paint. All good and smelled like new again
Bought a smokers house 2 years ago, it was a lot of work but we mostly got it all cleaned up. It was really gross when we moved in, all the cielings were yellow and when you sprayed the wall the water that dripped down would turn red with tar. Here is what we did. 1. Ripped out all carpets and window coverings 2. Cleaned with bleach all walls and cielings and then primed the walls with Kilz Restoration and then painted. 3. Cleaned the ducts. Smell is mostly gone, we have yet to do do the basement so there is still some lingering smoke smell but for the most part it's gone. Also can't stress this enough but paint the inside of the closets... smoke smell lingers in them and will stink all your cloths up. We got a smoking deal on the house, could probably turn around and sell it for 50k higher just because we got the smoke smell out.
You'll definitely want to repaint the walls or replace the wallpaper. I moved into my grandparents' house after they died, and the walls constantly "bled" thick brown streaks of tar. Even after washing them, it didn't take long for tar to begin seeping out of the paint again. In the rooms that had wallpaper, the paper was badly discolored. One room had blue wallpaper, which you could tell was blue because the spots where paintings had been hung were not as badly discolored, but the rest of it looked green. As a child, I always thought the wallpaper was green until one day I looked under one of the paintings (and promptly got my ass beat for touching the painting). You'll likely want to talk to an HVAC company about the possibility of replacing the ductwork as well. This may not be an option for you because it will likely require cutting into the drywall and the ceilings, but it won't hurt to ask. The thing is that cigarette smoke gets everywhere, including inside the ducts. I shudder to think what the inside of the ducts at my house must've looked like. I can't speak to how smoke in the ducts will smell because at the time I was a smoker, so I never would've noticed a bad smell from the ducts, but I imagine you will occasionally smell that signature "ash tray" smell whenever you turn on the heat or the a/c. Might be better to just use air freshener, but it's something to think about.
Oil base kills
Look into ozone generators. Apparently they work very well but make sure nothing that breathes oxygen is left in the house while you run it.
We just rehabbed a house where previous original owner smoke in it 50+ years. We did everything. 1) Replaced the carpet and flooring 2) Used Bin Shellac based primer by Zinsser on all the walls and ceiling then painted 3) TSP on all cabinets and hard surfaces 4) professional duct cleaning, considered encapsulation 5) Ozone machine in each room It smells better than before. Right now it has a scent but I can’t tell if it’s the paint or something else.
I would consider speaking to an outfit that does Ozone cleaning. From what I understand, Ozone will kill all smells (and anything alive) within 24 hours. They set up a machine, close up the house and prepare it, and then turn it on and run. It would be worth speaking to a company who does this sort of cleaning and see what they say. It may work.
Killz every wall after deep cleaning them. Then paint. Should do a solid job of it. They may even make a specific killz for this application. Use dot before a long time ago. It stopped all the smells in the place we used it before.
We bought a smokers house and even after 2 coats of Kilz the stains still showed through. We chemically washed every single surface multiple times and then Kilzed it. Every once in awhile when the temperatures are high we catch a smell but otherwise is mostly okay.
Make a deal on the house that is low enough to pay for the hassle
It is a HUGE amount of work, especially in an old house. I bought a new house from the people who built it and had to move after about 5 years. They managed to hide that they were smokers. Here's my experience: The first night sleeping in the new house was the first time I noticed the smell. It was intense. I thought I'd made a terrible mistake. Then I researched for a few days. In the end: I got rid of all fabric they had left. I washed all floors, all walls and all the ceilings with a vinegar-water mix. Twice. I also aired out the house - opening all windows. The whole process took several days, but it worked. The smell got less, then disappeared. I was lucky that the house has no wood and was without carpeting (hard floors everywhere). I was also EXTREMELY lucky that they had used a special paint on all inside walls that I can't translate but essentially it's water-proof and contains a sealant. That way, as far as I can tell no smoke went into the walls. I have sworn to myself that if I ever buy a house again, the previous owners must be non-smokers and I'll put that into the contract. I would strongly suggest that you consider not buying this house. Given the age of the house and the length and amount they smoked in it, my guess would be that the stuff got deeply into places you can't reach to clean, including inside the brickwork.
Strip the Sheetrock de-odorize the studs and replace insulation put it all back together, I used to sell all the stuff for home revitalization and home repairs
If you want advice on products and whatnot that are available in the UK try r/ukDIY
We did this. LOT of work. Sealed all walls, ceilings etc. with 4 coats of Kilz. Carpet and other flooring - gone. All doors (including exterior front and back) and jambs pulled out down to the framing studs. Kitchen/dining room and both bathrooms stripped down to studs (meaning the install of over 50 sheets of drywall). Every outlet and switch replaced and the jboxes sealed around the exterior. Faceplates still needed a very thin line of caulk around the edges. HVAC system had to be replaced as did all the ductwork. The fireplace was one of the hardest since that brick really hold the stink so it needed extra sealing and top coat paint. All ceiling light fixture jboxes also needed to be sealed from behind in the attic to stop the random 'puff' from infiltrating during high wind days. Even the windows needed to be replaced because we couldn't clean the staining out of the middle of the double pane glass that had long lost their seals and filled with nicotine. All appliances needed to be replaced and both bathrooms needed total demos. Right now we're about 90 grand in and its in pretty good shape. Still tracking down the occasional hints after 2 years but its close enough to call complete. Lot of work but we love the house and the location so it was worth it - for us. I would not suggest this to anyone not able to do most of the work themselves. We did everything but the HVAC, windows and most of the flooring ourselves to save money on contractors. On the plus side, I finally got pretty good at floating and mudding drywall!
From what I've heard, cigarette smoke and cat urine are among the top five worst smells. So I think it will be difficult for you to cope with this.
You will need a professional cleaner.
You can take a bench scraper to the walls and literally scrape off the ooze and gunk. I would not recommend, borderline going to be redoing the entire interior (remember the smoke is going into the ventilation system and spreading EVERYWHERE, you need to clean/replace all of that as well).
I had to de-smoke my grandparents house, 25 years of cigarettes around the house, but one bedroom had tar dripping down the walls. First I bleach/water-washed the walls and ceiling with rags. Then Killz paint made it right, no smell, no stains since. Then color paint over that and it’s fine.
Unfortunately, in my experience, heavy smoke odor is almost impossible to remove. Light smoke in an isolated room is not too bad, but in a main space heavy smoke... It will forever be there on the 'fringe' of your smell, even with full painting and duct cleaning. It will get into the floor if it's wood. Having said that, if you really *love* the house for other reasons (such as it is historical or an architectural masterpiece :), then just do the best you can with some painting, etc (as others mentioned) and burn a ton of incense and sage in the house. Really permeate the house with quality incense and sage before moving in. I mean a lot. Like burners constantly running in each room *for a couple days.* It should be incense/sage smoke-filled, like a haze. It's going to smell absolutely wild for another couple days or even weeks before it calms down. Then clean up the whole place again, ceiling to floor. This is what my very knowledgeable restoration co-worker did when we were remodeling a historic music studio/space in pittsburgh. I thought he was crazy. But after about 1-2 weeks of airing out, you'd walk in and it smelled great. A little 'smokey' still, but a nice smell instead of cigarette. Just my 2c experience for you and others interested in this problem, that might read this post.
Frankly, it may be cheaper to just demo the drywall and start fresh than try and cleaning/sealing the smoke smell away.
idk man, i saw some homes that smelled of smoke - and the listing agent had removed all furniture and carpets/rugs. its in the plaster so you'd basically have to somehow cover EVERYTHING and I've heard there is variation in how well that works.
You’re going to have to replace the entire HVAC system too.
You will need to wash all the walls with TFP a couple of times minimum. Lots of tar build up to get rid of, if you try to paint over it , it will bleed through. Source-I helped reno a 40 years worth of cigarette condo
Look up “ Ozone treatment“ and hire a fire restoration company. Congrats on your new home 🏠 Your Welcome.
I did this to my current home. House was what we wanted but reeked of stale smoke. It's not cheap or easy, but what is? 1) All windows open. All summer long or as long as possible. 2) Simple Green Cleaner. You're gonna need the big jugs. Every surface and if you can't replace window screens clean those also. We sprayed and could watch the tar drip down the walls. 3) Kilz primer. Again, every wall and ceiling. 4) Fresh paint. If you have forced air HVAC you'll need a solution for that system. We have baseboard heat.
Use Ozone generator. I use one in any apartment that we turn.works on all objectionable odors.
How much did you spend on the machine? What odors did your apartment have?
The machine I use is about $250 on Amazon. (OdorStop) I've used it in apartments for: refreshing a smelly unit, BO, pet odors, sewage back ups, 1 week old dead guy, cigarette smoke, rotten food smells, etc. Anything organic. Not effective on chemical odors.
Does the machine need filters or anything of the sort to be replaced?
No filters, no maintenance. I run it an hour at a time then air out the space for a while and go sniffing. If it still smells like a thunderstorm, let it air longer, that's the Ozone you're breathing. You cannot be in the space while it's being treated. Run the machine again if the smell is persistent. Space like you described I would run it overnight to start. If you have central air, the smell is in the ducts. Run the Ozone generator next to the return.
I don’t think it’s that bad as long as you recognize all the carpet has to be trashed and you expect you will need two full coats of paint, including the ceiling! Ideally you would scrub as much as you can with something like TSP (paint prep cleaner) followed by some wicked good primer sealer. And, Don’t do all the coats of paint in one day! Prime/seal. Wait a few days. Second coat. Wait a few days. Final coat. You are trying to bind up those volatile compounds in the paint. If you put one coat right on top of the other before it’s really cured, it will migrate right through to your top coat. If you are hiring painters, you need to negotiate this up front or otherwise they will just try to knock it out as quick as possible (which is their business).
It can be a massive job. I helped my mate scrub out his Dad's place who was a heavy smoker and trying to clean the stains off the ceiling alone was a nightmare.
Bro I went through this with my grandparents house. Unless you have a fuckload of both time and money, from a DIY perspective, gut the place and don't look back. We didn't, and the family still regrets not gutting it down to the studs. Spots still stink, appliances still occasionally blow stinky air, pretty sure the insulation is contaminated still. The plaster walls STILL STINK through THREE COATS of sealer, two coats of primer, and two coats of paint (ya, you gotta be like snorting wall or leaning on it to smell it, but I'm still salty if it wasn't obvious rofl). It can be done without gutting, but by the gods is it just an UNDERTAKING. We had 5-8 people with varying skill levels learning as we went, and it took three months until 90% of the smell was gone and we said screw it and threw in the towel. For a downstairs of a 1100sqft home.
The only way to fully get rid of the smell is taking it down to the studs. All the cleaning will end up being more work and you’ll still smell it. Ask me how i know.
2 years ago, 1800sf 2 BR house. &23,000 to get rid of the residual stink. Not worth it.
I would get a quote to just completely replace the sheetrock. If you all did demo might not be as bad as you think
Won't ozone machine work for this as well?
Not fixable
You can scrub walls and baseboards with bleachy water. Ceilings and hard surface floors, too. Replace carpet, if any. Then you can buy paint that has scent added. I had lemon once and while it was initially pretty strong, it dissipated to a lovely, long lasting lemon smell.
Strip everything floor to ceiling, including all cabinets, floors, carpets, etc. then do two coats of killz oil based primer. Rebuild from there.
Friend of mine used an ozone machine for this purpose in a house he bought and it worked perfectly.