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I cannot get an irritant out of the air in a bedroom after a space heater caught fire 5 months ago. It is NOT an odor, it is an irritant. Being in the room immediately results in throat irritation which induces a cough reflex. Staying in the room results in a headache. Long term effects of staying in the room are presumably sickness, cancer, and death.
When this happened in the middle of December, for a week I left the window open with the ceiling fan on, and left a floor mounted fan on pointed at the open window, in an attempt to get the irritant out.
I also did the following over the months:
I put baking soda in the carpet. Let it sit for a week, then vacuumed.
Put a large bowl of vinegar in the room until it evaporated.
Bought and have sitting in the room a Moso Natural Air Purifying bamboo charcoal bag.
Cleaned all sheets and curtains in washing machine.
Bought an Ozone Generator Air Purifier, Ionizer & Deodorizer with carbon filter. Let that run for two weeks, turning it off only at night.
Rented a steam carpet cleaner. Took all furniture out of the room and did the carpet five times over 48 hours.
Rented a Dri-Eaz DefendAir HEPA 500 Air Scrubber for 48 hours. Put it on max for basically the 48 hour period.
None of this has worked.
My only hope is, besides any suggestions you all may have, waiting until summer, and hoping that keeping the window open for months will solve it.
The irritant is most likely “hydrogen chloride”- a common by-product of electrical fires.
It will and does cling to walls, ceilings, furniture just about any surface.
Trisodiumphosphate is the most common cleaner for “eradicating” HCL. Then there’s the other possibility- it’s all in your head. Trauma like a house fire can trigger our senses into a “hyperdrive” mode. We think we smell it- but it’s all in our head!
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rabrrita
Professional Remediation may be in order. It's possible the fire damaged something else (like flooring) that is the cause of the continued irritation.
I agree. There are toxic gases created when certain substances catch fire, PVC being one of the worst as referred to by K'ledgeBldr. When those toxic gases stick to the walls, ceiling and floor it's hard to get rid of them yourself. It's best left to a professional.
Hello everyone. Thanks for the info and suggestions. I didn't clean the walls and ceiling. Don't really know how I would do that, but I'll YouTube it.
I don't know what Remediation they would do besides the air scrubber I tried. There is no visible damage. It was a small fire that I was able to catch before the thing melted or spread.
The idea that all of my furniture, electronics, books are destroyed because of smoke is insane.
Hello everyone. Thanks for the info and suggestions. I didn't clean the walls and ceiling. Don't really know how I would do that, but I'll YouTube it.
I don't know what Remediation they would do besides the air scrubber I tried. There is no visible damage. It was a small fire that I was able to catch before the thing melted or spread.
The idea that all of my furniture, electronics, books are destroyed because of smoke is insane.
If you read some of the replies again, you will see that smoke isn't mentioned, toxic gases are the likely problem. Call a remediation company and find out what they would do. They are the experts and are likely to know a lot more about it than you.
I think first thing you should do after cleaning the walls is re-paint them.
Anything that was damaged in the fire should be thrown out if replaceable.
All bedding, carpeting, draperies, throw out, buy new ones.
That's what I would do.
I think washing any linen things would have to be washed about 10 times, Id rather throw out and buy new.
The mattress, that's a hard one since they are so expensive, but maybe it can be cleaned with a certain chemical and because it is covered with sheets may not be that bad????, maybe????
There must be a certain type of company that does a clean up of these types of situations.
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