How to Remove the Smoke Smell from Your Home in 6 Steps

If you’ve made the decision to quit smoking, you deserve a commendation. The vast majority of smokers die early and have a very low quality of life during their declining years. The majority of smokers also fail to quit, but maybe you beat the odds with the help of some Elf Bars or other vaping devices. Regardless of the method that you used to help yourself quit smoking, though, one thing is certain: You’ve still got a bit of work ahead of you because you’ve got do something about the nasty smell of smoke in your home.

When you were a smoker, were you ever overwhelmed by the stale smoke smell when you walked into your house at the end of the day? Well, that’s nothing compared to what you’ll experience now that you’ve quit smoking. Over the next several days and weeks, your sense of smell will start to return – and then you’ll discover what your home really smells like.

So, you’ve got a bit of work ahead of you. Smoke has the ability to stick to just about everything in your home, creating an awful smell that you can’t remove just by vacuuming the floors and spraying some air freshener. Removing the smoke smell in your home is going to require a good amount of effort and a bit of money. The work will be worthwhile, though, because it’ll make your home a much more pleasant environment in which to live. It’ll also increase your home’s resale value by as much as 29 percent.

Let’s get started! Here’s how to remove the smoke smell from a home in just six steps.

Discard or Professionally Clean Drapery and Linens

To remove the smell of smoke from your home, the first thing that you’ll need to do is take down all of your curtains and gather your linens such as towels, sheets and blankets. Soft cloth items always trap the smell of smoke, and it’s difficult to remove the smell even through laundering. Your best bet is to simply discard and replace all of your drapery and linens. If you can’t do that, the next best option is to send those items out for a professional cleaning. If you want to try cleaning your linens at home, try adding some white vinegar to your normal laundry detergent. Vinegar helps to break up the smoke residue sticking to the fabric.

Vacuum and Steam Clean Carpets and Furniture

Now that you’ve addressed the smoke smell in your drapery and linens, it’s time to remove the smell from the other major fabric items in your house: the carpets and furniture. As with the items in the previous section of this article, your best bet is to replace whatever you can afford to replace. It’s very difficult to remove the smoke smell from carpets and furniture, and you may find that the many hours of work – only to achieve an imperfect result – simply aren’t worth it. If you want to try cleaning your carpets and furniture instead of replacing them, start by sprinkling a generous amount of baking soda on all surfaces and leaving it there overnight. Follow up with a thorough vacuuming. Don’t forget to vacuum under the furniture. You’ll also need to clean the cushions on all sides. Once you’ve done that, clean all surfaces a second time with a steam cleaner.

Clean Your Home’s Air Conditioning System and Ductwork

Your air conditioner recirculates the air in your home, and that means you’ll have a great deal of smoke residue in your climate control system. To remove the residue, you’ll need to clean the coils of your air conditioning system along with all of your home’s ductwork. You’ll also need to replace the air filter. It’s easy to make a mistake when performing these tasks if you’re untrained, so it’s usually best to hire an HVAC cleaning specialist to do the work for you.

Wash Your Walls and Windows

Smoke molecules don’t just stick to fabrics; they cling to absolutely everything in your home. That includes flat surfaces such as walls, ceilings and windows. Vinegar will be your friend once again here; it’ll help to loosen and remove stubborn residue. Clean all of your home’s hard interior surfaces with a strong vinegar solution. If you’re not pleased with the result, consider repainting your home’s interior. At your local home improvement store, you can find odor-encapsulating paint that’s specifically designed for remediating a smoker’s home.

Use Activated Charcoal in Hard-to-Clean Areas

One of the frustrating aspects of removing the smoke smell from your home is the fact that some areas are hard to reach or difficult to clean. You might experience difficulty, for instance, removing the smoke smell from under sinks, in closets and in your home’s crawlspace or attic. In these cases, activated charcoal can work wonders. Activated charcoal is a form of porous carbon that has an extremely high surface area. It’s sold in mesh or canvas bags, and you can find it online and at home improvement stores. It’s quite affordable. When air passes through a bag of activated charcoal, the charcoal traps odor-causing molecules. If you refresh the bags every couple of months by placing them in direct sunlight, they’ll last for up to two years before their effectiveness decreases.

Buy an Air Purifier

Once you’ve done everything you can to remove the smoke smell from your home’s surfaces, you may still find that some small portion of the smell remains. Although you could simply wait at this point and let time do the rest, you can remove those stray smoke molecules from the air much more quickly with an air purifier. An air purifier uses a fan to force air through a set of filters, and the filter media will usually consist of an activated charcoal stage and a HEPA filter stage. It’ll trap odor-causing molecules – and since air purifiers usually reduce allergens such as pollen and pet dander, it’ll help you breathe easier as well. Within a few months of use, it’s entirely possible that you’ll no longer notice any smoke smell in your home at all.