Hey All – I’m looking at investing in a small (5-unit) apartment building that had a recent fire. I’m not concerned with repairing the structural aspects as that’s fairly straightforward — I’m guessing at replacing 10% of the ceilings and walls, but, what about the residual smoke and water damage, in particular the smell? I know I should use an oil-based sealant before painting, but I’ve been in places where the damp, smoky smell never went away, and I don’t want to end up with that. I want to be able to as-near-as-possible permanently make it go away. Oh yeah, it’s a brick-exterior wood frame structure over concrete slab.
Suggestions? Thx!
Replies
I'm like you in that I have been in a fixed-up-after-a-fire house that always smelled sort of sooty. Personally, that's enough for me to just pass on any investment property that had a fire. My suggestion for you would be to make up a dollar figure for how much trouble and effort you think it's going to be deal with those smell issues and see if it's still going to make you money. Or just plan to rent strictly to heavy smokers and they'll just never notice.
As for how to physically remove the smell, maybe you could do some experiments with air cleaners. I heard a story from a friend whose ex-wife made him get one of those Sharper Image ionic breeze things before she'd let their kids in his apartment. He said turned up to high it really roared, but he'd just switch it on in the morning before work, and when he came home, the apartment just didn't smell like anything. He said it was kind of spooky. Just no smell at all. Maybe it would be worth the high price charged to just put one of those things in every apartment instead of sealing everything. Every single surface will continue to emit that sooty smell, but the air cleaner will just take it out of the air and maybe it won't be too bad. Run it on high before you show the apartments, then just switch it to low and leave it on the whole time they live there. Seems easier than varnishing the studs.
B
Done quite a few "Fire Jobs". The only way I know to completely remove the smell, is to gut the place , from the slab , to the ridge board. Then replace all charred framing , sheathing ,etc. Then paint all surfaces with Kilz paint. We're talking, slab, wall studs and sheathing, ceiling joists , rafters or trusses, and underside of roof. In fact , this is the only way I will do such a job, no matter how much the insurance adjuster complains. Much too easy to have the smell come back otherwise, usually on warm ,humid days. This is a costly method unfortunately. I'm interested to see if anyone else has another method, that is effective, but not so intense. Good luck.
Brudoggie
Brudoggie pretty much nailed it... seal everything with Kilz. You might want to look in previous posts for more info, but the typical response is... remove as much damaged material as feasible... replace any damaged framing, sandblast any charred lumber that is still structurally sound, then seal everything. Even then... no guarantees...
The same as the other 2, but I would use BIN.
gut and remove soft surfaces and damaged hard surfaces.
any hard surface that remains gets washed with Sodium tri-phosphate, sealed with bin or kilz, then painted.
Its been a while since I was involved in insurance work but when we wanted to kill the smoke smell we used aluminum paint and anything with any trace of black got it. Skip