Help ????? smoke damage to quilts and fabric
#1
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: CA Cental Coast
Posts: 41
Help ????? smoke damage to quilts and fabric
DH left a pot of beef boiling on the stove and left the house. When he returned smoke had filled the whole house--luckily --no fire. My quilt area is next to the kitchen area. The restoration company wants to just wash my quilts-- no way. I have antique ones, one on the design wall, others cut out and lying vulnerable to that awful smoke, plus lots of fabric piled around the room. I am not forgetting the thread. Please help me with your brain-trust wisdom to assist my clean up. Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
#2
Power Poster
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 41,538
Is it just smoke smell or black smudges as well? If it is just smoke smell, I would air the antique quilts outside. I would wash my currents quilts and fabrics with baking or washing soda and colour catchers. The threads I would seal into a ziplock bag with charcoal packages or an open box of baking soda.
#3
Super Member
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: in the heart of the awl
Posts: 1,015
My daughter worked for a restoration company and she said they had a room that had a machine in it and they put smoky smelling things in there and ran the machine. When it was done, the things no longer smelled. I'm not sure what the machine was or if every restoration co. has one, but she said it worked. You can ask if your co has one and then request they use it.
#7
The machine to use is an ozone generator. They are available as air cleaners, but not recommended by some because ozone is also a pollutant. I bought one for my inlaws when they quit smoking, and it cleaned out the smoke stench in their house in 3 days. But for a smoker's house, you have to keep it running because the smoke continues to come out of fabrics for a long time. There are also the ozone cleaners that hotels use that will clean out the smoke in a room in 30 minutes (if someone smoked in a non-smoking room).
Look up air cleaners. There are 3 types: HEPA filters which require new filters frequently; electrostatic precipitators which have filters that can be washed in a dish washer (and produce some ozone); and ozone generators, which have plates that have to be cleaned periodically. For the ozone generators, you want to control the amount of ozone produced to be just enough to clean the smell, without smelling the ozone.
I hadn't heard anything about ozone harming the fabrics.
Look up air cleaners. There are 3 types: HEPA filters which require new filters frequently; electrostatic precipitators which have filters that can be washed in a dish washer (and produce some ozone); and ozone generators, which have plates that have to be cleaned periodically. For the ozone generators, you want to control the amount of ozone produced to be just enough to clean the smell, without smelling the ozone.
I hadn't heard anything about ozone harming the fabrics.
#8
Junior Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 255
I am currently working with a cleaning/restoration company after a fire in a 4 apartment condo bulding. They have been using a huge machine they call an air scrubber to mitigate the mold and smoke from the building. You can trust these people. They would not be in business if they ruined people's stuff.
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