Cleaning and Stain Removal - Cleaning a Smokers house

We are buying a house of a smoker. It is concentrated in one area of the house but of course the whole house needs a good cleaning. It has forced hot air so first off I would replace the air filter. But beyond that and a good cleaning, I don't know what else to do. Is there special cleaning solutions for such problems? We have all kinds of time, do ionizers work? Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks
Barry

Basicly to rid the smell of the house. You are going to have to most likely clean the carpets, walls, duct work (not just the filter) and ceilings. Ozone machines can help, but really shouldnt be used if the house is occupied at the time. You can contact a professional cleaner for details on that.

Basicly to rid the smell of the house. You are going to have to most likely clean the carpets, walls, duct work (not just the filter) and ceilings. Ozone machines can help, but really shouldnt be used if the house is occupied at the time. You can contact a professional cleaner for details on that.

Thanks for your reply. How do you clean duct work? We won't be occupying the house right a way, we have a considerable amount of time for cleaning, painting or ionizing.

Thanks
Barry

Taking any intake or exhaust vents off and cleaning what you can is a good start. Also, any duct work from the furnance or heat pump you can easily get to. The rest you may be able to do just using ozone or like u mentioned ionizer. For the first few weeks, i would change the filter often. Since you are going to be doing alot of cleaning and such you are going to stir up more dust and particles in the air. Some carpet cleaning professionals offer ozone and duct work cleaning as add ons.

All hard surfaces should be scrubbed. Depending on severity of odor problems, latex paint on walls may need to be washed and sealed and primed with a primer/sealer like Zinnser. Carpets can be professionally cleaned, but if odor is in padding then you will be unable to clean it. There are restoration service companies who specialize in odor removal. Vent fans may need to be cleaned or replaced, because everytime the fan is turned on the odor will recirculate.

Thanks for your reply. Thankfully we have a considerable amount of time to work with the situation before we will actually move in. We were there yesterday and added to our information about the house. The smoke is concentrated in two areas. One of which doesn't have carpeting and one that does. It is amazing how much this kind of thing can affect a house in only two years. The Kitchen area has what they call a morning room, it is just as you walk into the house, so you can get knocked out with the smell of smoke before you even enter the house. This area has painted walls and ceiling, the ceiling is actually yellow from smoke, yuck. We were already going to paint the walls and ceiling, but you suggest a primer as well? The other area is a small bedroom, that isn't quite as bad, but it does have carpeting. When I think of smoke, I think of it rising, and the yellow ceiling really backs up that theory. We will shampoo the carpets, actually in the whole house, years ago we bought a buffer/carpet cleaner, works great. It is forced hot air and we will be putting a central air unit in that scares me, not sure what this is going to take. Will probably look into what it would take to rent an ionizer capable of doing the job.

Thanks again for your response, I will take your advise and prime and probably put down two coats of ceiling paint and walls, although I suspect we will probably wall paper.

Thanks again for your reply.
Barry

You will want to scrub painted surfaces with a degreaser before priming/sealing to seal in odors before painting or wallpapering.