Fire earns the headlines, but smoke is what lingers and quietly devalues the home. It creeps into cavities, doubles back through returns and soffits, and settles into the porous things that make a house feel like home. I’ve walked into properties where the visible soot cleaned up in a day, yet the smell clung for months because the wrong steps were taken in the wrong order. Restoration isn’t a single “deep clean.” It’s a sequence, and skipping or shuffling the sequence can lock in odors and force costly do-overs.
What follows comes from years on job sites, from garden-variety kitchen flares to full-structure fires. The specifics vary by construction type, season, and the kind of smoke involved, but the working principles hold. If you understand what you’re dealing with and why certain materials behave the way they do, your technique gets sharper and your results more reliable.
Smoke is not one thing
When a client says “it smells like smoke,” the chemistry behind that smell can be wildly different. That difference decides your approach.
Wet smoke comes from low-heat, smoldering fires. Think synthetic fabrics, plastics, or a stovetop that burned down to goo. It produces a sticky, smeary residue that smudges when you wipe it. Wet smoke clings hard to painted walls, varnished trim, light fixtures, and cabinet interiors.
Dry smoke comes from hot, fast-burning fires. Paper, wood, or a brief flashover in a small area tends to leave a fine, powdery soot that travels easily and can be vacuumed before it etches surfaces. It’s less smelly than wet smoke but reaches farther through the house.
Protein smoke is the troublemaker. Overheated meat, oils, and dairy leave a nearly invisible, amber film with a rancid odor that saturates kitchens and HVAC systems. You may not see anything on the walls, yet the smell persists until the invisible film is removed.
Fuel oil soot and furnace backdrafts are their own category. If a burner puffs back, a greasy soot distributes through supply lines and registers. It’s acidic and stains textiles quickly.
Cigarette and cannabis smoke live in the same family as long-duration, low-concentration contamination. Over years, tars embed in paint films, drywall paper, and carpet cushion. The restoration looks less like post-fire cleaning and more like prep for an extensive renovation.
Knowing which type you have guides your solvent choice, agitation method, and whether you’re likely to save or replace certain materials.
First hours: stabilize before you scrub
The impulse to start washing the nearest sooty wall is strong. Hold off until you’ve stabilized the building. The way smoke moves immediately after a fire determines how hard the rest of the job will be.
Ventilation comes first, but controlled ventilation. Throwing every window open on a humid August afternoon can force moisture into soot, turning it acidic and sticky. If outdoor air is dry and cool, open windows on the leeward side and use box fans to establish a single airflow path out. In high humidity or in winter, rely on HEPA air scrubbers with carbon filtration to reduce particulate and odor while keeping the building envelope reasonable.
Power safety matters. If the panel or wiring was heat-exposed, bring in a licensed electrician before anything gets plugged in. I’ve seen more drywall ruined by running dehumidifiers off questionable circuits than by the original smoke.
Document and triage. Photograph every room before moving contents. Separate salvageable items from obviously unsalvageable ones so you don’t contaminate clean zones with heavily sooted goods. If insurance is involved, this record saves arguments later.
Protect what’s clean. Close off unaffected rooms with plastic sheeting and painter’s tape, and establish a basic containment at the work area. Even a single 6-mil poly barrier with a zipper opening keeps cross-contamination down and your final deodorization shorter.
Personal safety and cross‑contamination control
You can’t see the small particles that do the most harm. Use a NIOSH-rated half-face respirator with P100 filters at minimum during demolition and aggressive cleaning. For heavy protein residues or where odors slap you at the door, swap to a combination cartridge that includes organic vapor filtration. Nitrile gloves, eye protection, and washable or disposable coveralls prevent you from becoming the vector that spreads soot from room to room.
Set up a clean/dirty workflow. Tools and hoses should live in the work zone or be wiped before traveling. Use sticky mats at thresholds. If you run a HEPA air scrubber, orient it to pull from the active cleaning area toward your exhaust, not the other way around. It’s easier to keep the house clean than to reclean it.
Assess materials like a restorer, not a remodeler
What you keep and what you toss isn’t just a budget decision. It’s about how materials absorb and later re-emit odor.
Hard, nonporous surfaces such as glass, glazed tile, metal, and many plastics will clean to pre-loss condition with the right detergent or solvent. Painted surfaces often can be cleaned and sealed rather than replaced, unless the paint blistered or discolored deeply.
Semi-porous surfaces like finished wood, sealed concrete, and varnished cabinets occupy a gray zone. If the fire was brief and heat exposure low, cleaning and sealing that locks in residual odor works. If the finish has become tacky or alligatoring, it has absorbed enough contamination that stripping or replacement makes more sense than endless wiping.
Porous materials are the sponges: drywall paper, unfinished wood, insulation, carpet cushion, drapes, and mattresses. For small, light smoke events, laundering textiles and hot-water extraction can be successful. For heavy wet smoke, protein residues, or if the structure was closed while smoke cooled and settled, the rule of thumb is to remove insulation, carpet pad, heavily sooted drywall, and anything with visible soot inside layers. Saving porous items rarely pencils out when reodorization pulls the smell right back during the first warm spell.
HVAC is its own category. If the system ran during the fire or in the hours after, assume the ductwork contains soot and odor. Intake filters won’t catch the submicron fraction. Plan for a full duct cleaning with negative pressure, rotating brush agitation where compatible, and replacement of filters with higher MERV ratings for the first months after restoration. In some cases, fogging ducts with a deodorizing agent post-cleaning helps, but only after mechanical cleaning.
The order of operations that prevents do‑overs
Restoration follows a top-down, outside-in philosophy. The biggest wins happen when you keep this order tight.
Dry removal before wet cleaning. Vacuum soot with a HEPA vacuum using soft brush attachments before introducing any moisture. Dry soot comes off walls and ceilings easily when undisturbed; water turns it into a smear. For textured ceilings or popcorn finishes, hold the tool just off the surface to avoid dislodging texture.
Ceilings before walls, walls before floors. Gravity isn’t negotiable. If you wet clean floors first, everything above will track down onto your fresh work.
Primary rooms before adjacent rooms. Treat the source room and nearest spaces first so your air scrubbers are pulling from clean toward dirty, not dragging odor across the house.
Clean before you seal, seal before you paint. Odor-blocking primers are excellent, but they are not magic. They lock in residuals after you remove the bulk of contamination. If you try to seal over greasy protein film without a proper detergent wash, the film can cause adhesion problems and bleed-through.
Odor control after source removal. Ozone, hydroxyl, and thermal fogging can neutralize odors, but they are at their best when you’ve already removed char, soot, and contaminated porous materials. Otherwise, you’re deodorizing a moving target.
Wet smoke: sticky residues that fight back
Wet smoke values patience and product selection. An all-purpose cleaner won’t cut it. You need a surfactant system that breaks down oils and resins without dulling finishes.
Start with a hot detergent wash. Mix a professional-grade alkaline cleaner designed for smoke residues according to the manufacturer’s ratio. Work a small test area behind a door or inside a cabinet. Apply with a microfiber pad or sponge, agitate lightly, then rinse with clear water, changing the rinse frequently. Work in manageable sections to avoid drying lines. On semi-gloss paint, pressing too hard can burnish the finish, so let the chemistry do the heavy lifting.
For heavy, greasy films on kitchen cabinets and hoods, a degreaser with controlled alkalinity is appropriate, followed by a neutralizing rinse. Overcleaning with high pH can haze clear coats; again, test first.
Textured surfaces need a change in technique. A natural sea sponge or soot sponge can pick up residues in recesses without shredding. If you see smearing, dial back and return to dry removal first.
Expect a second pass. Wet smoke rarely cleans in one round. Your first pass removes the bulk, your second evens out the surface and targets lingering sheen differences. Only then should you reach for an odor-sealing primer on stained areas.
Dry smoke: quick to travel, quick to remove
Dry soot behaves like talc. The priority is to capture it, not smear it.
HEPA vacuum everything overhead first: ceiling planes, light fixtures, fan housings, tops of door casings, even the upper corners where cobwebbing traps soot. A cellulose-based chem sponge used lightly can lift remaining soot from flat paint without adding moisture. Replace the sponge as it loads; a loaded sponge becomes a smearing tool.
On many jobs with clean-burning dry smoke, the walls require only a light detergent wash after vacuuming, followed by touch-up paint rather than a full repaint. The time you save here you’ll spend tracing how far the soot traveled. Look in closets, behind wall hangings, inside electrical boxes once the power is off, and in attic hatches. Fine soot finds low-pressure zones, so under doors and behind drapes commonly hold more than you expect.
Protein smoke: invisible but unforgiving
The first time you tackle a protein fire, you doubt your nose. The walls look clean. The smell says otherwise. The fix is not to deodorize your way out, it’s to remove the film.
Use a product formulated for protein residues, typically an alkaline cleaner with solvents that cut animal fats. Work in small sections and rinse until a white cloth shows no amber staining. Cabinet interiors, undersides of shelves, the tops of door hinges, and the insides of light fixtures hide film that later becomes the “mystery odor.” Replace range hood filters, clean ductwork to the exterior termination, and inspect the attic above the kitchen. Protein smoke often finds its way into soffits and dead spaces around vent chases.
HVAC cleaning is nonnegotiable after a kitchen protein fire if the system was running. That rancid film on a coil will haunt you every time the air kicks on.
Contents: what to clean on site and what to send out
Contents eat bandwidth. Handling them well makes or breaks the overall schedule. The rule is remove, clean, and return in a way that prevents recontamination.
Hard goods such as dishes, glass decor, and metal items can be washed with a detergent solution or processed in an ultrasonic tank if you have access to one. Hand-wash anything delicate with detailed crevices, then dry thoroughly to avoid spotting.
Textiles can go two ways. Lightly affected clothing launders well with an oxidizing additive and extended rinse. Heavy or valuable textiles, drapes, and rugs benefit from a professional plant where they can be ozone-treated post-wash or processed with specialized detergents. Leather absorbs odors stubbornly; an experienced cleaner can save leather, but home attempts often push oils out unevenly and leave blotches.
Electronics are deceptive. Soot is conductive and corrosive. Do not power on sooted electronics. If replacement cost is modest, replacement beats cleaning. For high-value items, a qualified electronics restorer will disassemble, ultrasonic-clean boards, and dry under controlled conditions, then test. Expect a 60 to 90 percent success rate depending on contamination.
Books and paper absorb odor, but if there’s no water damage, they can be aired with active carbon adsorption or treated in a deodorization chamber. If water joined the party, freeze-drying preserves pages before mold grows.
The science and limits of deodorization technologies
Once source removal and cleaning are complete, you can turn to chemistry and physics to knock out what’s left in the air and in the pores you couldn’t reach.
Thermal fogging recreates the fire’s particle size with a heated solvent mist that carries deodorants into the same micro-spaces the smoke reached. Used after cleaning, it works well on structural cavities and behind trim. You need a trained operator. The fog lingers, sets off smoke alarms, and requires occupant absence until it clears.
Ozone generators create ozone that oxidizes odor molecules. It works, but it is not benign. Ozone degrades natural rubber, some plastics, and elastic in textiles. Never use it while people, pets, or plants are present. Ventilate thoroughly after treatment. I reserve ozone for unoccupied structures or for contents in a controlled chamber, not as a blanket fix for an occupied home.
Hydroxyl generators produce radicals that react with odors more gently than ozone and can run in occupied spaces if used correctly. They work slower and excel when combined with air movement and HEPA filtration. For families living in place during restoration, hydroxyl is often the reasonable choice.
Activated carbon is simple and underrated. Running air scrubbers with carbon after cleaning pulls down the residual VOCs. Replacing the carbon promptly matters; once saturated, it does quick smoke damage restoration in St Louis Park nothing.
Enzymatic and encapsulating deodorizers have their place. Enzymes break down organic odor sources, useful after protein fires. Encapsulants lock residual odors into treated surfaces; used as a primer, they create a bond coat that also improves paint adhesion. Don’t try to fix everything with a spray bottle. Deodorizers are a finish, not a substitute for soil removal.
When to open walls, and how far to go
If smoke pushed into cavities, you face a judgment call. Opening walls is invasive and expensive, but sealing odor inside cavities can mean months of callbacks.
Use your nose and simple tools. Remove baseboards and sniff stud bays through small inspection holes. If the odor spikes, especially with wet or protein smoke, open the bay. Insulation is a sponge; fiberglass might clean with extensive ventilation, but batt replacement is often faster and more certain. Blown-in cellulose that got smoke-laden almost always needs removal. In two-story homes, check the chase behind the kitchen stack and around plumbing penetrations; smoke finds these like highways.
When you open, go cleanly. Score along studs, remove drywall to mid-stud or full stud bay height rather than random patches, and bag debris to keep the site neat. HEPA vacuum the cavity and framing, wipe with appropriate cleaner, allow to dry, and then apply an odor-sealing coating to the studs before re-insulating and closing. This sequence prevents latent odor from re-emerging when the house warms.
Painting after smoke: primers that earn their keep
Not all primers are created equal here. Stain-blocking properties matter more than raw adhesion once surfaces are clean.
Shellac-based primers block severe smoke staining and odor better than most waterborne products. They dry fast and sand well, but they smell strong during application and require proper ventilation and a compatible topcoat. Use shellac on spot stains and problem areas.
Solvent-borne alkyd primers offer good odor blocking with less odor than shellac and are easier to roll on large areas. They cure slower, so watch your recoat windows.
High-quality waterborne acrylic primers labeled for smoke and fire damage have improved, and on well-cleaned, lightly affected walls they perform fine. They’re especially useful in occupied homes where solvent odors are a concern.
Whichever you use, respect coverage rates. Too thin, and odor slips through. Too thick, and you risk adhesion issues. Two moderate coats typically outperform one heavy one.
The HVAC loop: finishing what you started
No matter how well you cleaned the rooms, a dirty HVAC system will repopulate the air with fine particles and odor. Schedule duct cleaning after structural cleaning but before final deodorization, so any disturbed particles get captured by your scrubbers. Replace filters with MERV 11 to 13 for the first two months after restoration, inspecting weekly at first. If the coil has contamination, a certified technician needs to clean it; DIY sprays don’t reach the fins evenly and can cause corrosion.
Consider a temporary increase in ventilation rate if your climate and system allow it. Running the fan in circulation mode with a portable carbon unit near the return helps strip residual odors without overcooling or overheating the house.
Speed versus thoroughness: choosing where to spend effort
Homeowners want normal life back yesterday. Adjust expectations by being candid about what saves time and what saves money.
Speed comes from deciding early what not to save. Spending hours trying to clean carpet cushion rarely beats replacing it. Conversely, hand-rinsing plaster crown in a historic home makes sense because replacement isn’t truly possible.
In occupied homes, working in zones lets families function. Seal, clean, and finish the bedrooms and one bath first, then move to common areas. Your deodorization plan must respect that phasing; hydroxyl fits better here than whole-house ozone.
For small events, over-cleaning can be as costly as under-cleaning. A quick-response job where a towel caught fire on a stove and smoke touched two rooms usually resolves with dry removal, targeted detergent cleaning, and localized sealing, not a whole-house repaint.
Pitfalls I see most often
A few mistakes repeat across projects. Avoiding them preserves sanity and budget.
- Wetting soot before vacuuming. This turns easy cleanup into hours of smearing. Ignoring the HVAC. If it ran during the event, it’s contaminated. Skipping cabinet interiors and door tops. Protein film hides where no one thinks to look. Painting without sealing. Even premium paint won’t hold back odors that proper primers lock down. Overreliance on deodorizing gadgets. Ozone and fogging help only after source removal.
What success looks like and how to hold it
A fully restored home is quiet in the senses. Open a cabinet and smell nothing. Turn on the air and get no hint of a fire. Touch a wall and feel a uniform surface, no tackiness or oily residue. That outcome comes from respecting the sequence, choosing products for the specific smoke type, and knowing when to open cavities rather than wish them away.
Once you’re there, keep it there. Replace HVAC filters a few times more than you think you need to. Run normal ventilation for a week and keep humidity in the comfortable range, because high humidity can coax odors out of marginally treated materials. If you did the contents elsewhere, stage them back in a clean room and give them a sniff test before distributing them through the house. One smoky couch cushion can undo a week of careful work.
I’ve stood with families on that first evening back, when the house smells like paint and clean wood again, and watched the relief. The techniques that get you there aren’t glamorous, but they’re dependable. Work clean to dirty, dry to wet, top to bottom. Let chemistry do the work where it can, and open up what you must. If you respect the physics of how smoke moved in, you can guide it back out and give the house its air back.