This page will share a number of different experiences wherein someone has used ozone to solve an odor issue.
Cigarette Smoke Odor in Macomb Township
March, 2016 — It took me 45 minutes to get there but I made it out to a customer’s home in Macomb Township to deal with yet another “hard to sell” Southeast Michigan property. It was a very similar situation to the property below that I treated in early 2015. They were a nearly retired couple looking to sell a very nice home in a decent real estate market. Agents going through the property all had the same comment – “nice home but clients hated the smoke odor.” Real estate agents hear this all the time AND because I can’t stand deceit here is the rest of my article.
- If you smoke in your home or office it will devalue the property.
- If it takes you more than a couple months to sell your property it will impact you financially, mentally and physically.
- If you think there is a better solution to removing smoke odor than ozone OR tearing out your furnace, duct work, carpet, cupboards and walls – please call me to let me know what it is – Dan 248-648-1669.
- Ozone is NOT a silver bullet, one size fits all answer. It is however the BEST bullet anyone has found anywhere ever in the history of the human race.
- If you think spending $600-$2500 (smaller to bigger homes and 1-3 treatment general range) is a lot of money try losing 6 months of time, 20% of your home’s value and months of rest to a property that just isn’t selling.
- Smoker’s are really lousy at judging the strength of their home’s odor. My experience is that I may only think a home is a 3 or 4 on the stink scale until I leave and the next day I can still smell the smoke odor on my service coat/clothes. It always amazes me that a day later I can still tell I was in a smoker’s home.
- Even industrial grade levels of ozone may require several treatments to knock down and/or eliminate cigarette smoke odors from your home.
If you are wondering how I come up with my estimates on cigarette smoke odor remediation it’s based on severity of odor, size of home (impacts number of ozone units needed for treatment), treatments/visits required.
SO back to this Macomb property — it was similar to the story below except this time I knew something I didn’t know earlier in my Ozone career. Cigarette smoke odor is usually worse than the NOSE knows and because of that, treatment time needs to be longer. Now, if I were to treat the home below I wouldn’t do a 4 hour treatment – I’d double it and go 6-8 (depends on my observations onsite). I’d also share more than once that they might expect up to 3 treatments to solve their odor problem. Again, ozone is NOT a silver bullet but it still is the best bullet short of tearing out nicotine contaminated ductwork, carpet, woodwork, cupboards, closets and walls. AND if you don’t think it’s really that bad… call me after the 3rd “NO” buyer prospect so it doesn’t turn into 3,4,5 months or longer. Once a property fails to sell it becomes “stale” to the public as they see it’s been listed for many months. Stale or Smokey – either way it’s no good for your bottom line.
I see Ozone Treatment as an investment not an expense to people looking to sell their homes in a competitive real estate market. AND in my opinion after my visit today it was better but another couple treatments will likely be in their future. AND I made her aware of this from the first conversation.
PS – just because you try to convince me or get me to tell you one treatment will do it I can promise you it likely won’t. Because until I am there onsite and until we do an aggressive treatment I really won’t know.
PSS — I’m so confident OZONE will work for you I am happy to “make it 5” if 3 fail to do the trick. In other words if after you verbally agree to 1-3 treatments (smoke odor remediation) AND if it fails to solve it at 3 treatments… I will give you 2 more treatments identical to the previous 3 treatments (long 6-8 hour runs) at no extra cost. I’ll bring the Ozone Cannons and we’ll get that home smelling clean and fresh.
Dan the Ozone Man – Serving Metro Detroit 248-648-1669
Cigarette Smoke Odor in Auburn Hills
January 2015 – I was called at the urging of their realtor on a Thursday afternoon by a couple that had lived in their home for 20 years. Both the husband and the wife were moving but after 3 showings by their real estate agent they kept hearing the complaint that the house smelled like it was owned by smokers — because it was. As a former and occasional real estate investor I recognize that right behind location but equally as important in consumer buying behavior, is how a home smells. They had showings that could get scheduled anytime at a moments notice. I drove out that night and dropped 3 of my ozone machines, one on each level. The basement itself though not smelling of cigarette smoke did have a musty odor. The home was 3000 square feet and the smoke smell on a 1-10 scale was easily a 4. I could have gotten away with the furnace blower motor running to distribute the ozone house wide and 2 machines but I really wanted to knock it once and be done. Plus the clients didn’t want to stay several nights in a hotel waiting for a low dose or multiple treatments. So, after 4 hours of run time on my ozone cannons the smoke smell was gone (not masked). The only complaint I got was from the husband who said the house smelled too clean. It is true, sometimes depending on the home and the time of year as to whether or not the windows can be left open or not getting the ozone odor out can take a little longer. However it would have gotten out quicker if he’d have left the furnace fan “on” to circulate the home’s air as I recommended. In fact everyone should leave their furnace fan (blower motor) on year round. It allows a home to breathe. Thankfully we got an indian summer for a couple days and the only odor left was a slight hint of fresh air odor with the doors/windows being able to be left open. Now, let’s see how the showings go. I will update asap. My only concern is they continue to smoke in the garage. Updated – a few days after the treatment. Smoke odors coming from the garage where the client refuses to stop smoking continue to be a problem for the sale of the home. I heard this from the realtor, not the client. Smoke odor in home is still present and frankly I think another treatment would be wise but that will be the clients decision of course. Smoke odors are insidious. Often one treatment just isn’t enough and it may require 2 or even 3. I see it this way. If I’m trying to sell a home and it’s costing me money in holding costs, stress, time out of the home and other things — maybe it makes sense to allot enough for 2 or 3 ozone treatments to solve for an odor problem you (as a smoker) created over a multi-year period of time. I know as a guy that used to buy and sell homes — stinky was my favorite smell. It meant retail buyers weren’t competing with me. Stinky houses sell for less – period — if they sell at all. Often they end up in foreclosure.
Smell of Burnt Plastic and how ozone saved his clothes, furniture and condo from months of noxious odor.
Recently I got a call from a guy in Birmingham, MI who had a unique odor situation. He left a plastic tub on the stove top burner filled with whey protein. He used the protein in his health drink to help stack on muscle.
The odor 48 hours after the accident was strong enough to make me think he was a cigarette smoker when we first met outside his condominium. When I entered his condo I could smell the odor right away but the worst was when I left and smelled it on my jacket and in my hair. It was a pretty caustic smell. Chemical pollution – ish. It really stuck to my clothing and my hair. Anyway, he treated with my industrial ozonator machines for 4 hours, then opened the windows as I instructed for an hour or so to replenish the air with oxygen and make it easier to deal with the ozone. It worked like a champ!
The real benefit was that I had him run it right into the furnace (we had a mild winter day we were lucky) with the heat off and fan only on. This pulled the ozone into the duct work which had also trapped the odor and into every room in the house. It also helped him destroy the odors in his furniture, clothing, cupboards, closets and carpet.
As I told him upfront – it may not 100% solve the problem but it will be enough to make you glad you used ozone to treat your home. Even as a scrutinizing quasi skeptical engineer he quickly became a fan of ozone for odor removal. Lastly, he improved the indoor air quality of his home by sanitizing the duct work with Ozone and destroying the pollutants (dioxins from burning plastic) in his home. Smoke damage is bad but when it includes a burning synthetic like plastic it’s even worse. I am glad I could help solve his odor problem.
Michigan Ozonator Rental – Destroy the Odor
Senior Odors – Get the Funk Out Please !!
It’s no secret to real estate agents everywhere that odor is a HUGE factor in the decision making process of home buyers everywhere. You’ve heard me or read it here before that Ozone may not be the silver bullet for every solution but it does seem to do a nice job on residential properties wherein the previous residents had bequeathed more than just their property to an heir. Odors from the aged can linger long after the furniture and the carpet have been removed. Even long after paint has been freshened up.
Not long ago I was called out by a real estate agent to treat for exactly that – an empty house that they just couldn’t get the smell out of. I ran my ozone machine for 4 hours and it did the trick. It seems to defy logic but odors get airborne too, not just from gas cans but from humans and their oils. Also from past episodes of incontinence as well and food spills and blood and so it goes. The heating and cooling system suck these odors in and Ozone can help clear them out. It’s a cumulative effect that creates this odor most people call “old people smell”. It’s not politically correct, I didn’t invent it but I do understand it having helped nurse 3 seniors in the last few years personally. 3 seniors that had all sorts of odors including hair oils, foot, general body odor and more. I won’t go on – you get the picture.
Michigan Ozonator Rental – Destroy the Odor
Bleach Can Cause Asthma
Consider that long term exposure or repeated exposure to bleach now labeled an “asthmagen”. This is personally troubling to me because my daughter spent 2 days a week as an infant in daycare. We discovered after several months in the preschool that while the kids napped – the staff bleached the floor. Stupid indeed. It doesn’t add up at any level I know but they did and my wife raised some cane over it. Guess what – my daughter has exercise induced asthma. So – consider when treating areas with bleach that Ozone is a faster, stronger, safer alternative than bleach. Don’t believe me – read what these lab geeks are yapping about – HERE.
Bank Stinks Of Latex Paint Odor
I got a call this past weekend from a painting contractor who had just done the interior of a fairly good size national bank. The bank called him up on Friday morning and said – hey – we have to shut down because the employees are complaining about the paint fumes. Needless to say this was a big account for this contractor and he needed to make them happy quickly. So, he rented a couple large commercial air scrubbers from a local rental shop and had no success after running them both overnight. I met him at 12pm on Friday, set up 3 machines in the 4000 square foot building. We ran them for 6 hours honestly not really knowing if the ozone would solve the problem. I told him upfront – I had no idea if ozone would work or not. He told me, “look I have to do something, it’s worth a try”. He shut them down at 6pm but I told him to leave my fans running. (I always include fans with my ozone machine rentals). Saturday morning he had a big smile on his face and said the girls are back at the bank and working today so it worked.
I was personally relieved as I had no real idea if they’d solve the water based latex paint odor problem but it did. He told me also that he’d never had this problem before wherein the paint smell lingered for so long after a job was done. Anyway, I am just sharing another experience with my specialized ozone rental cannons solving problems.
UPDATE — I’ve since worked with 2 additional banks as they heard from the first that the Ozone did the trick. Because closing the banks is costly they now require the ozone treatment after every paint job.
Lentil Soup Burned – The Cook is Fired
OK – the cook wasn’t fired for making a stinky mess of an evening meal but the family couldn’t believe just how much work, burning a batch of soup could cause. The home is 2400 square feet plus a basement so there was no way whatsoever an ozone unit from a local rental store was going to do the trick. He needed me to bring in the ozone cannons.
His ductwork / hvac system indeed had the odor stuck in it. So did the clothing in the home, the furniture, carpet, everything. He had already wiped down walls, washed stuff, aired it out as we thankfully had a Michigan Indian Summer and it still wasn’t enough. All that elbow grease and he still had the odor from that burnt food.
So… he rented both a larger residential ozone cannon outputting an honest 28,000 mg O3 and a regular size ozone cannon outputting 14,000mg. He ran one into his ductwork / cold air return for a few hours and then moved the machines around throughout the rental period over a roughly 8 hour period. The reason why you move them around is because walls easily block the free flow of the ozone. The fans I include with the ozone machine rentals help but walls still impede the air flow. So with a charcoal filter you can enter the property and manually move them. Another solution is renting more machines. I’ve just come to realize that if you really want to make a difference using ozonation in relatively stinky situations – you gotta go heavy. Heavy volume ozone machines reach and maintain critical mass, and therefore “high working” ozone concentrations, quickly. Only high volume ozone cannons can truly neutralize and sanitize odors and surfaces.
Michigan Ozonator Rental – Destroy the Odor
Stinky Cat Urine Odor and a Builder’s Headache
A Michigan builder recently rented my Ozone cannons because after a rehab / fix and flip on a $400,000 house. He was told by his realtor that a couple clients had commented on a cat urine odor. The complaint seemed to be tied to an odor in the basement. Like many jobs I was really clear that it may or may not work. I explain it like this. If you have an odor and it’s say a 2 on a scale of 10 and though the ozone treatment may not totally solve the problem it may make it a 1. Is that a win? Often it can be good enough. Upon further discussing the problem with him he said that though he replaced all the carpeting and even tore the paneling from the walls he DID NOT remove the studs underneath. I know from personal experience that cat urine can soak clear through the drywall into the studs themselves. SO… though he said it seems to have worked he wasn’t 100% sure it won’t come back. I agreed. Cat urine is a super tough one to eliminate. You either have to encapsulate or remove and replace the source material. If you run into this issue consider going to Amazon and buying one of these lights for $10=$20. They get amazing reviews and will help you see exactly where the cat or cats or even dogs are/were peeing.
We Burned a Roast (not a goose as pictured)
The client called me saying “Dan, it’s been a couple weeks and in spite of washing the walls in vinegar, using baking soda to treat the carpets, airing it out for days… in spite of all that we can still smell the burnt meat odor in our home”. So, had Joe rented a wimpy ozone machine at a local rental shop a couple things would have happened.
- He would have been disappointed if he rented it from a local rental shop. The output of rental ozone machines at a local rent it shop and the mostly cheaply built ozone machines sold on the web are just not enough to ever reach “critical mass” with the ozone gas. This is the part people don’t get. It is exactly why many ozone treatments are ineffective. You have got to build up a sufficient quantity of ozone gas to get work output from the gas. Sure… if you leave a punky little rental or store bought unit on for a few weeks in a small bedroom you can do the trick BUT… who has a few weeks to leave a room unoccupied AND it’s just not good to treat in a prolonged fashion with OZONE at any level. So – he got a machine, one of my ozone cannons, to get the job done quickly and right and effectively.
- He wouldn’t have got expert advice had he rented it at a local rental shop. Joe also got my expert advice on how to use the odor killing machine within his Michigan home. Where to place it etc. AND he got a couple box fans to use as well with his rental. Moving air as much as possible is critical to killing these odors – burned meat included.
Friends — Joe took that odor out. So – Joe and his wife are happy they quickly solved the problem and had they called me before they went to all that physical labor of scrubbing and deodorizing they’d have saved money and time and energy too. HE also told me they Febreezed the heck out of the house but honestly after a day or two with that odor – YUCK. Febreeze is indeed a chemical that one can get sick of smelling and sick from as I see it. Ozone gas – dissipates rapidly and leaves no harmful residue.. I did make the recommendation that because of his timing he may just want to crash at moms house for the night and he did. Ozone, even after treatment ends can be tough to live in (with windows sealed up for winter) for a half a day or so. Sometimes just leaving a room sealed off from it is good enough to secure a place to sleep for the night. If of course that room doesn’t need the ozone. Again, it’s all about the consultation as a value add. In fact if you’ve called me before and picked my brain over an odor issue or plan to — this link is a great place to donate to the cause. PayPal.Me/nicholsDJO3 – My cause that is… and it keeps my wife from being mad I spend too much time yapping odor issues with people and not getting paid.
Michigan Ozonator Rental – Don’t mask the odor — DESTROY it.
Depression Leads to an Unhealthy House
I was recently contacted by a contractor working to turn a large condominium around for sale after a year of neglect. “Dan, we’ve done jobs in need of decontamination and odor control before but this is a literal shit storm”. Apparently the owner after receiving a terminal diagnosis got very depressed and stopped taking care of his home and his dog. He and his animal actually urinated, and defecated wherever they saw fit at the moment. If I’ve any one thing I’d have changed it would be that the contractor should have called me both before and after their initial cleaning. If it were me I’d have gone in first and ozonated to limit further the exposure to the cleaning crew to both airborne and surface contaminated areas. Then after that cycle of ozone gas send in the crew. Then once again when they were done an additional ozone retreat.
BUT — all in all I went in with 100,000 mg worth of ozone after they did a major cleaning, blasted it to a blue haze and turned that place around in 8 ozone blasting, germ and mold, bacteria killing hours. The guy handling the estate who toyed originally with the idea of renting an inferior machine from the local rental shop had just one word to say… “WOW !” He said after taking his first wiff… “I never thought this place could smell clean. Amazing – thanks for your help.”
You’ll note I said 100,000+ mg of hourly output and friends that’s the missing link in whether or not ozone actually works for odor destruction. I not only used 5 machines but I strategically placed them in several different rooms of the house. When machines are rated for output they are rated in open rooms without walls blocking their flow. So multiple machines can make a big difference in effectiveness.
Need Help Quickly Solving a Commercial or Residential Odor or Germ Issue? I’m the only guy in Metro Detroit & Southeast Michigan that owns true ozone cannons. With a recent addition of a 64,000 mg machine capable of getting a 200 square foot room to 200ppm of ozone in under 10 minutes.
Michigan Ozone Machine Rental – Don’t mask the odor — DESTROY it.
Incontinence Job
Recently I got a call from a guy desperately seeking an answer to removing the smell of human waste. He bought a home, rehabbed it, removing carpets throughout and repainting. Apparently the person selling it failed to mention his mother had been incontinent the last few years of her life and the odor still lingered. He figured that by replacing all the carpets and repainting he’d get rid of the odor. Well, it did help but he said there was still a funk in the air. My guess was the ventilation system needed help as well.
It turns out after ozonating the property for my recommended 6 hours in this instance and 3 machines + leaving the furnace fan running (not heat but ac or fan) and 3 box fans the problem is solved. Remember, ozone is 1500-3100 (depends where you read it) times faster than bleach and 50 times more powerful. Plus Ozone gets into nooks and crannies because it’s a gas that mechanical duct cleaning brushes and chemicals can’t get to. In all candor, Ozone doesn’t always work but more so because it’s the conditions in which it’s applied. The tighter the home is sealed up, the more open the inside doors, closets, drawers and ducts the better it will work. I talked with a molecular chemist and he said and I quote, “Ozone will always work. You just need enough time and volume of gas for it to succeed.” Folks, this is why the ozone units 99% of the rental stores have don’t work and certainly not the ones sold inexpensively over the web. You have to blast the problem with industrial levels of ozone – you can’t baby a smell that took decades to create and think you’ll destroy the odor. You need big guns, ozone cannons, to destroy those organic odors.
Michigan Ozone Machine Rental – Don’t mask the odor — DESTROY it.
SMOKE ODOR TREATMENT FAILED — A FREE RETREAT FOR REAL ESTATE AGENT – Choose Video or Text OR Both
I was called by a real estate agent upon a referral from his broker to go treat a listing he had in Dearborn Heights, MI. The house was in a beautiful mature neighborhood and upon entering I could smell smoke odor. In fact, I could smell the cigarette odor before I even entered the home. Apparently the man smoked on his porch as well. As it was the agent requested that I only needed to ozonate the upstairs to destroy the cigarette odors from his client. I walked the inside of the home completely and agreed it would be best to focus on the upstairs. I decided I would cheat a bit and leave the door heading upstairs open to get some of that ozone to trickle downstairs hopefully solving the front door issue.
I came back the next day 24 hours after I started the treatment and determined one of my machines must have tripped off. The timers I have now are hand wound spring timers. Even the so called “heavy duty” timers seem to trip when running. Not all the time but enough where I know it’s needlessly creating more work for me.
I retreated the upstairs once again and added a third machine. Second times a charm as that did the trick. Once again I relearned the critical need of extremely high amounts of ozone to solve for smoke odors. You can’t sorta ozonate. You’ve got to go with all guns blazing and punish the nicotine and other organic compounds caused by those cigarettes and cigars.
Don’t mask the odors — DESTROY them.
Dog Got Skunked
I received a call from a guy in Troy, MI who shared with me that the family dog got skunked and in no time at all stunk up his entire house – especcially the garage where they sent him. He followed a protocol popular for domestic pets in particular dogs that have been sprayed by skunks. The rcipe is as follows and courtesy of the human society.Mix together:
- 1 quart of 3-percent hydrogen peroxide (available at any pharmacy)
- 1/4 cup baking soda.
- 1 teaspoon liquid dishwashing soap.
Anyway, that might work on the dog but the entire house was stinking pretty bad. So I rented him my new units and told him to stay out of the house for 3 hours. 2 hours to let it run and another hour to let the ozone breakdown. He told me it seemed to do the trick but called back a day later and said he thinks it needed one more shot. BECAUSE it was my first job with my new machines I dropped them back off to him (courtesy of my fine customer service) and we ran them again for 90 minutes. That did the trick. I continually learn new things from the jobs I work on. It is true these machines generate an enormous amount of ozone but ozone can’t get through walls. So, one advantage to renting multiple ozone cannons is you can place them in multiple places. I kind of knew that going in but really wanted to see what these machines would do. One solution to this is to run more fans pointing into more rooms.
Moral of this story is — we are all always learning. Second lesson is rental stores DO NOT have the experience I have renting and setting up these ozone machines. If they had gone to a rental store here in Metro Detroit they’d have gotten a small machine that prduced 1/100th of what mine do. It would have taken 2 weeks with you moving the machine all around the home to maybe just maybe do what I did in a few hours. Can you afford to vacate your home for 2 weeks?
Michigan Ozone Machine Rental – Don’t mask the odor — DESTROY it. We are now the skunkinators…
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