imported_Grouse
New member
Some of you may have read that i am dealing with a 01 s8 that was heavily smoked in. Out the many homes, rv's and few cars i have done this is easily the single most condensed smoke smell i have run across.
Here is the process thus far.
I recieved the car, I did a ful wipe down with a detergent capable of removing nicotine from plastics rubber and vinyl. The fabric was left for later. After those surfaces dried i set up the Ozone.
test ozoned it at 100% for 20 min. (ozone machine recomendation<personal previous exp says this is allways wrong. but we allways follow the directions>) Nothing changed odor wise
I ran the machine at two hours at 100%. still 100% smoke smell.
I vented the car thoroughly and fell back on my normal procedure for motor homes.
16 hours at 25 or 50%. In this case i chose 25%
vented car. At this point i noticed a change about 80% of the original smell remained.
16 hours at 50% ozone.
Vented the car. This is where i noticed that i had about 40% of the original odor still there.
16 hours at 100%.
vented the car. Here i have reached the point of diminishing returns. I would say i had aobut 20% of the odor left. It is now time for main cleaning step one.
Since nicotine is very sticky, extremely small (size of house hold dust) it floats in the air. It can stay air borne for quite a while. usually it gets stuck in something that acts like a filter. In this cars case it was anywhere near a vent. to give you an idea of what nicotine looks like here are some shots. look for the yellowing on the pile of the front floor matts.
You don't see it? well here is what happens. nicotine is so small it will makes its way through any crack or crevice. into any meduim that will act as a filter. The foam on the back of the floor matts of the s8 became such a filter. This is an excelent example of how nasty nicotine can be. In this case when you touched the back foam you could feel the greasy nature of nicotine. It litterally felt like butter. It also stunk to high heaven. remember we are well over 40 hours of Ozone right now.
at this point it was time for extraction Using my hwe i extracted the matts front and back, headliner, carpets, fabric, alaclantara and trunk. I used as dedicated a smoke damage removal product i could. (most have now moved into encapsulation instead of detergents) I sprayed the effected areas with a light mist of delimonine (very very carefully with a resporator) then worked that in with a brush. Then sprayed my main preconditioner on and worked it in with a brush. I let this sit for the better part of 30-40 min. I extracted everything.
I then emptied a bit of waste water into a bucket and put it up on the counter to sit over nite.
Here is a pick of the bucket of water i took this morning with out moving it.
Nicotine will not fall to the bottom of a bucket. it will stay suspended for the most part in the water. I dipped a stick in the bucket and the nicotine coated it like i was making a candle. This car was not dirty from soil. It had been recently purchased from a dealer in the mid west. This dealer had hwe'd the carpet infront of the buyer and used ozium. in utah the buyer stopped at another dealer because the smell was so bad. This dealer also hwe'd the carpet and used Ozium. I recieved the car 3 days later. This is what i was able to extract.
Nasty nasty nasty
The car is now dry. and again i think only 10% of the odor remains. I am ozoning it for a further 16 hours at 100%. From their i will reclean a second time and finish out the job. I have many more pictures to share.
Here is the process thus far.
I recieved the car, I did a ful wipe down with a detergent capable of removing nicotine from plastics rubber and vinyl. The fabric was left for later. After those surfaces dried i set up the Ozone.
test ozoned it at 100% for 20 min. (ozone machine recomendation<personal previous exp says this is allways wrong. but we allways follow the directions>) Nothing changed odor wise
I ran the machine at two hours at 100%. still 100% smoke smell.
I vented the car thoroughly and fell back on my normal procedure for motor homes.
16 hours at 25 or 50%. In this case i chose 25%
vented car. At this point i noticed a change about 80% of the original smell remained.
16 hours at 50% ozone.
Vented the car. This is where i noticed that i had about 40% of the original odor still there.
16 hours at 100%.
vented the car. Here i have reached the point of diminishing returns. I would say i had aobut 20% of the odor left. It is now time for main cleaning step one.
Since nicotine is very sticky, extremely small (size of house hold dust) it floats in the air. It can stay air borne for quite a while. usually it gets stuck in something that acts like a filter. In this cars case it was anywhere near a vent. to give you an idea of what nicotine looks like here are some shots. look for the yellowing on the pile of the front floor matts.
You don't see it? well here is what happens. nicotine is so small it will makes its way through any crack or crevice. into any meduim that will act as a filter. The foam on the back of the floor matts of the s8 became such a filter. This is an excelent example of how nasty nicotine can be. In this case when you touched the back foam you could feel the greasy nature of nicotine. It litterally felt like butter. It also stunk to high heaven. remember we are well over 40 hours of Ozone right now.
at this point it was time for extraction Using my hwe i extracted the matts front and back, headliner, carpets, fabric, alaclantara and trunk. I used as dedicated a smoke damage removal product i could. (most have now moved into encapsulation instead of detergents) I sprayed the effected areas with a light mist of delimonine (very very carefully with a resporator) then worked that in with a brush. Then sprayed my main preconditioner on and worked it in with a brush. I let this sit for the better part of 30-40 min. I extracted everything.
I then emptied a bit of waste water into a bucket and put it up on the counter to sit over nite.
Here is a pick of the bucket of water i took this morning with out moving it.
Nicotine will not fall to the bottom of a bucket. it will stay suspended for the most part in the water. I dipped a stick in the bucket and the nicotine coated it like i was making a candle. This car was not dirty from soil. It had been recently purchased from a dealer in the mid west. This dealer had hwe'd the carpet infront of the buyer and used ozium. in utah the buyer stopped at another dealer because the smell was so bad. This dealer also hwe'd the carpet and used Ozium. I recieved the car 3 days later. This is what i was able to extract.
Nasty nasty nasty
The car is now dry. and again i think only 10% of the odor remains. I am ozoning it for a further 16 hours at 100%. From their i will reclean a second time and finish out the job. I have many more pictures to share.
I hope you were wearing gloves
:soscared: I think I'm going to quit smoking now...