Cleaning Soot-Damaged Walls

• Smoke damage from fires must be cleaned differently than smoke damage from tobacco. Special dry chemical sponges are used to clean the majority of the soot off walls and ceilings before they are washed. Soot is an oily substance that will do nothing but smear around, creating a bigger mess when you attempt to wash it with water. To solve this problem, a chemical sponge is used that absorbs the soot into the pores, and when the sponge is full, you shave off the surface with a razor blade. When you have cleaned all of the loose soot off the walls and ceilings, you can wash them with a cleaner that also cuts through grease.
  
  

Cleaning Tobacco-Stained Walls

• Damage caused to walls and ceilings from tobacco occurs over a period of time. Years of smoking stains the walls and ceilings a yellow color that cannot just be painted over. Before painting, wash the walls with a solution of TSP and water to remove as much of the nicotine as possible. Ceilings can also be washed if they are not covered with acoustic tiles or covered with popcorn texture. The solution for these ceiling types is to replace the tiles or texture, or use a paint sprayer to apply a coat of oil-base primer.
  
  

Cleaning Technique

• The most effective cleaning is accomplished working from the top down. Begin with the ceilings and work your way down the walls. Cleaning from the floor up will create extra work because as you work higher, the soot or nicotine will run down the wall onto the area that was just cleaned.
  
  

Priming and Painting

• It is not always possible to perfectly clean smoke-damaged walls and ceilings. To prevent stains from bleeding through the topcoat of paint, an oil- or shellac-based primer must be used. These two types of primers will seal the walls and ceilings, which will prevent bleed-through from occurring. When the primer has completely dried, the walls and ceilings can be successfully painted with no fear of the previous damage showing or bleeding through the paint.
  
  

Paint

• No special paint type is needed when you have thoroughly cleaned and then primed the walls. A good quality latex paint in the sheen of your choice can be used to repaint the previously damaged walls.