How to remove smoke smell from a room or a whole house

Step by step: how to remove smoke smell from a room or a whole house

Safety first. Wear gloves and eye protection when washing walls and ceilings, and use a stable step ladder. Never mix vinegar, ammonia or other cleaners with bleach. If you use trisodium phosphate (TSP), follow the label: it is caustic. Do not run an ozone generator in an occupied home.

1. 1

   Air the house out with cross-ventilation

   Open windows on opposite sides of the room or house and put a box fan in one window blowing out. Run it for several hours while you work. Remove ashtrays, butts and anything that has absorbed smoke, such as old candles, from the house.

2. 2

   Wash every fabric that can go in the machine

   Take down curtains and wash them with bedding, throws, pillow covers, rugs and clothes. Add 1/2 cup of baking soda or an oxygen booster to the wash. Smell items after drying; heavily smoked fabrics often need two or three washes.

3. 3

   Wash walls and ceilings from the top down

   Start with the ceiling, then walls, then trim, using a degreasing all-purpose cleaner or a 1:1 mix of white vinegar and water. Wring the sponge well so the drywall does not soak. The rinse water will turn yellow-brown; change it as soon as it does.

4. 4

   Clean windows, blinds and fixtures

   Wipe window glass, blinds, light fixtures, ceiling fan blades, switch plates and the insides of closets and cabinets. Smoke residue settles as a sticky yellow film on every hard surface, including the ones you do not see.

5. 5

   Treat carpets and upholstery

   Sprinkle baking soda over carpets and fabric furniture, leave it overnight, then vacuum thoroughly. Follow with a hot-water extraction clean using a carpet cleaner. If the smell returns after drying, the padding underneath has absorbed smoke and may need replacing.

6. 6

   Replace the HVAC filter and clean the vents

   Put in a new furnace or air handler filter, and wash the vent covers and return grilles. In a home that was smoked in for years, have the ducts professionally cleaned, or the system will keep spreading the smell.

7. 7

   Run a carbon air purifier

   Run an air purifier with both a HEPA filter and a substantial activated carbon filter in the room that smells most, on high, for several days. Carbon absorbs odor gases; HEPA alone does not.

8. 8

   Prime and repaint walls that still smell

   Once walls are clean and dry, seal any that still smell or show yellow stains with a shellac-based or other odor-blocking primer, then paint. Primer seals the odor in but does not remove the residue, so wash first.

Why does smoke smell keep coming back?

Because the smell comes from residue stuck to surfaces, not from smoke in the air. Tobacco smoke leaves a film on walls, fabrics and dust that keeps releasing odor long after anyone last smoked, sometimes called thirdhand smoke.

The Thirdhand Smoke Resource Center (part of the California Thirdhand Smoke Research Consortium) explains that washable items such as clothes, bedding and dishes can usually be cleaned, sometimes with several washes, but that carpets, padding, upholstery, mattresses and books that cannot be fully washed keep releasing residue and often need replacing. In heavily smoked homes, chemicals can soak into drywall, wood and ducts. The EPA notes that ventilation, filtration and air cleaning can reduce exposure to smoke indoors but will not eliminate it, which is why cleaning the surfaces matters.

What can you clean and what should you replace?

Hard and washable things can usually be cleaned; deep, soft materials often cannot. Decide room by room before you spend days scrubbing.

Do air purifiers or ozone generators remove smoke smell?

An air purifier with an activated carbon filter can reduce the odor in the air, but neither it nor an ozone machine removes the residue on surfaces that keeps producing the smell.

The EPA’s guide to air cleaners says that to filter gases you need an activated carbon or similar gas filter, that carbon works when the filter holds a large amount of material, and that the CADR rating covers particles only. It also advises avoiding air cleaners that intentionally produce ozone, a lung irritant.

The EPA’s report on ozone generators sold as air cleaners says no federal agency has approved them for occupied spaces, that ozone at levels that meet health standards is not effective at removing many odor chemicals, and that ozone reacts with indoor chemicals to form new pollutants. Restoration companies sometimes use high ozone levels in empty buildings; that is a professional job with everyone, including pets and plants, out of the house.

How to get cigarette smell out of a room fast

You cannot remove cigarette smell instantly, but you can cut it sharply in an hour or two if the smoking was recent and light.

• Empty and wash ashtrays, then take the butts and trash outside.
• Open two windows and set a fan blowing out of one of them.
• Strip and wash the bedding and any throws, and hang the curtains outside or put them in the dryer on air fluff.
• Wipe the hard surfaces near where the person smoked: the desk, nightstand, window sill and door handles.
• Leave bowls of baking soda or activated charcoal out overnight, and run a carbon air purifier on high.

For a deeper reset of the whole home before a move, see our move-out cleaning checklist.

Mistakes to avoid

• Spraying air freshener, which masks the smell for an hour and adds fragrance to the residue.
• Painting straight over smoke-stained walls without washing, so the stain and smell bleed through.
• Steam cleaning a carpet once and calling it done when the padding underneath still smells.
• Running an ozone generator while people or pets are in the house.
• Forgetting the HVAC filter and ducts, which keep spreading smoke odor to every room.