smoke abatement - TheDenverSmokeGuy

While it is possible to treat part of the home, there are a couple reasons that we rarely do. Most importantly, we can only offer our “Outcome Guarantee” if we treat the entire home.

An example – I was recently asked to treat the upstairs of a home and not treat the finished basement. I was told that nobody ever smoked in the basement and there isn’t any smoke smell. Let me take a minute to discuss two of the main issues…

OUR NOSES FOOL US!!!

Because we rapidly adapt to odors, by the time you get to the basement, it is likely that you are somewhat desensitized to the smoke odor and interpret the lower odor level as being odor-free. It is likely that when the upstairs is truly odor-free, the odor in the basement becomes obvious.

Even if nobody ever smoked in the basement, it is likely that smoke has entered the ducts and the odor is in the basement at a lower level than upstairs.

Treatment vapor concentration levels tend to equalize

It would make sense that, if the upstairs and basement spaces were of comparable size (volume), we would only need half as many machines to eliminate the odor in approximately half of the house. For several reasons, it is likely that a significant amount of the treatment vapors will end up in the basement; the furnace is likely in the basement and many of the heating ducts are exposed to this space (some of them are likely have vents to heat this space).

The bottom line is that to successfully treat the designated treatment area, we must use enough equipment to make-up for this vapor loss to the “untreated” part of the house.

Other reasons for only treating the entire home include:

financial considerations (larger jobs are discounted),
containing treatment vapors to smaller spaces requires extra time/materials (poly, tape, temporary vapor barriers),
our inability to treat the HVAC ducts without treating the entire home (If the heater or air conditioner is on when someone is smoking inside, there will be smoke odor in the ducts.)

IF you have further questions, feel free to send me an email…

Many people think that painting the interior of a home is a way to eliminate the smoke odor. DON’T DO IT! In about 1/3 of the calls I receive the property owner has painted the interior of the house and it still smell like smoke! Unfortunately, at this point, I may not be able to solve the problem.

Paint is an imperfect sealer: it keeps our vapors from getting to the odor source, but the source continues work back through the paint. The effect is very short term, lasting only a day or so. When we treat first, the problem is solved – all surfaces, duct work, heater and A/C, the whole interior space of the house.

Everywhere that we can get the BioSweep vapors, we can eliminate the odor. BioSweep machines convert water vapor into a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, hydroxyl, and trivalent oxygen (ozone). At the proper saturation level, this vapor can destroy the odor causing molecules once and for all.

Tag: smoke abatement

Why We Only Treat The Entire Home

Call Before You Paint!