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What to do when you find yourself in an air quality emergency

We’ve all been on the other side of the highway when an accident snarls traffic for miles behind it, and our lanes of traffic slow down but continue to move.  Whew, glad I wasn’t on that side, we think…but sadly sometimes we may find ourselves stuck in an air quality emergency that requires calm, decisive action to quickly get to safe air.  

On Wednesday, November 8, 2023, a fire at a small chemical plant north of Houston sent plumes of black smoke into the air.   According to the Reuters report on November 9, Sound Resource Solutions blends, packages and distributes oilfield and other industrial chemicals including sulfuric acid, acetone and petrochemicals like xylene and toluene, according to the company's website.  These are chemicals that are acutely toxic with the potential to cause serious eye, skin and organ damage, as well as carcinogenic. 

A news article from a Houston news station released the list of chemicals that had been stored on the site during the last 2 years, which confirmed they are quite toxic.  

However, despite the smoke and shelter-in-place orders (which have been lifted), it seems that officials are downplaying the possible effects.

• According to a Houston news channel video the day after the fire was extinguished (Nov. 9), the Texas Commision on Environmental Quality was monitoring the air and “did not detect any levels of concern from the samples”.  

• In the same video, an official from the University of Houston said that rain would wash any chemicals out of the air, dilute them out and they eventually go into the ocean.  

Here are the problems we see with these assessments: black smoke was seen moving north toward Livingston, Texas.  Such smoke carries a lot of particulates, which will deposit on businesses and residents’ homes, vehicles and farms (food sources), as well as drinking water facilities.  Also, by our estimates, Shepherd, Texas is 50-60 miles from Trinity Bay, which is open to the Gulf of Mexico.  In order to get to the ocean (Gulf of Mexico), the particulates and chemicals will pass through many drinking water sources!  Once again, it’s probable that authorities are not releasing timely information about hazardous levels of chemicals in the air (and no water reports were discussed).

If you find yourself in an emergency area like Shepherd, Texas, it’s best to do one of two things: stay inside and implement air quality containment measures, or drive out of the area as soon as possible.  Here are our recommendations:

If you choose to stay inside:

• Close all windows and turn off air conditioning and heating systems if possible.

• Although most HVAC systems don’t have fresh air intakes, you should close these intakes if they do.  

• Don’t use exhaust fans like the kitchen or bathroom exhaust fans.  Don’t use clothes dryers, either!  Each of these pull air out of the house, which consequently draws air into the home through cracks in windows and other penetrations.

• If you have air purifiers, run them continuously.  If you have only one purifier, run it in one small room where you can shelter for most of your time.  If you don’t have an air purifier, here's how to make one using a box fan and a MERV-rated filter.

• Don’t cook if possible; try eating canned food or food that doesn’t require cooking or heating.  The reason is that cooking and heating food releases even more VOCs into the air, and you shouldn’t vent these with the exhaust fan.

• Monitor AirNow.gov for local air quality updates, because the air quality outside your home will eventually be the air quality in your home.  If air quality outside deteriorates, you may want to gather supplies and necessities and evacuate via car.

• Use bottled (preferable) or home-filtered water until you are sure that tap water has not been contaminated (which may be weeks or months).

If you evacuate:

• Make sure that the HVAC in your home is turned off and all windows/doors are closed before you leave.  You can leave air purifiers running in your home, however.

• Make sure you use the best masks you have until you get out of the area.  Exchange your mask for a new one if you start to have trouble breathing. 

• Spend as little time outside as possible. 

• When driving, keep your air conditioner set to “recirculation” mode until you get out of the danger area.

• Bring/buy bottled water. 

• Monitor AirNow.gov for local air quality updates and check updates by local news authorities. 

• Upon returning home, clean carefully and thoroughly!  We have recommendations in our article here.

Note that smoke particles, which can contain toxic chemicals, will deposit on the ground, making it easy for people and pets to bring them into the house, so you may want to be vigilant about removing shoes and cleaning pets’ paws when you can.

Keep Air Quality in Mind When Exercising Outdoors

When the weather is nice, many people want to shift their exercise from indoors to outdoors.  There are a lot of benefits to it, such as varied surroundings and surfaces, mood-elevating sunshine, and even a greater incentive to stick with it and go farther, whether you’re walking, running or doing more stationary exercises.  However, should a bad air quality report keep you inside?  The answer is: it depends!  The ability to exercise outside depends on a number of factors such as location, timing, and equipment.  A free and easy way to check air quality and receive updates is from airnow.gov. Using an Air Quality Index (AQI) as a measuring tool ranging from 0-500, your local forecast and larger maps can be color coded to show whether an area is good (green), moderate (yellow), unhealthy for sensitive groups (orange), unhealthy (red), very unhealthy (purple), and hazardous (maroon).  You’ll definitely want to keep AQI between 0-50 if you are more sensitive, but healthy and active athletes can keep going in conditions up to 100 with the right equipment (masks–see below).

First of all, here’s what science says.  Sixteen studies completed between 2000 and 2020 on the short-term health effects from exposure to air pollution during outdoor exercise were chosen for review.  Nine of the 16 papers reviewed demonstrated that exercising outdoors in air pollution results in short-term (temporary) health effects, with lung function impairments being the most observed. The seven other papers, which looked at different health effects, such as inflammation and blood pressure, found no effects.   Besides being nearly evenly split, there was another unexpected result: healthy people who did moderate to high intensity exercise outdoors in low or high levels of air pollution experienced less health effects than when doing low-intensity exercise.  Experts had expected to find the opposite: that low-level exercise afforded less adverse health effects.  This seems to show that deep breathing of semi-polluted air does not seem to negate the good effects of exercise.

While exercising is a good thing, those who are older or are unusually sensitive to air pollution should avoid prolonged and intensive exercise or physical activity when the air quality is moderate or higher.   (Should You Exercise Outside in Air Pollution?)  For everyone else, here are some tips to getting your workouts outdoors with the least air pollution.

Location, location, location

When setting goals to exercise outside, it’s important to have location options and check the air quality in each of them.  If you can find a green area like a large park, chances are that it’s going to have better air quality than a track next to the highway.  Coastal routes near water and marshes also are good filters for air pollution.  This is where an AQI map of your area comes in handy, because you can head to the green areas right away!

Timing, timing, timing

Like the weather, air quality changes constantly in many locations.  That run route you wanted to do during rush hour in the morning might be clearer at noon or 2pm, so don’t lose hope!  When you can be flexible, there’s a greater chance of making your favorite routine work.

Duration

If you decide to exercise outside but the air quality is closer to 100 than to 0, consider exercising at a lower intensity or shorter duration.  

Equipment

City- and valley-dwellers admittedly have a harder time finding clean air for exercising outside.  However, masks have evolved and certain kinds are much more comfortable and adaptable for exercise use.  They must fit properly, however, and make a tight seal in order to do their job.  Here are some masks that have good reviews for exercising:

• Cambridge Mask Company, $33, make masks that are very well-suited for more polluted areas because they have a 3-layer microfilter for particulates, plus a layer of activated carbon, which not only removes smells but also some VOCs and NOx that are troublesome in high-traffic or smoky areas.  The valved mask styles are recommended for high-intensity exercise.  They are washable and reusable for up to 340 hours, which is around 3-6 months’ average wear.

• Airweave masks by AUSAIR, $30, are very light and have a copper filter that protects from bacteria, viruses, air pollution down to PM0.1, smog, cigarette smoke, bushfire smoke, and pollen.  The copper filters last 20 days each and come in a 3-pack for $18.

• FuturePPE Mesh Sports Mask with 5-Layer Carbon Activated Filter, $19, blocks airborne particles, dust, and pollution.  It fits snugly and a 12-pack of replacement filters are on sale at $15. 

• N95 and P100 masks are also sufficient to filter the particles of air pollution, but they don’t actively remove gasses like VOCs and NOx as a mask with activated carbon in it.

• Particles can also stick to your clothing, so it’s best to launder them every time you come inside after exercising.

When one or more of these conditions don’t align to let you go outside, remember that without active filtering, air pollution eventually also makes its way inside.  Therefore, use that mask indoors or try to find a gym or studio that uses air purifiers.  You may be in the minority wearing a mask indoors, but your lungs, heart and stamina will shine when you can power through a workout without “choking”.  

Taking precautions: What to do if your home is spared from a fire, but still smells like smoke

We at HypoAir sincerely hope that you and your family have not been forced out of your home by any of the recent wildfires.  Even if your home is spared from fire, if it is in close proximity, danger from lingering smoke particles is a real concern that you should know about and take precautions against.  You may know that smoke is a combination of ultra-fine particles and gasses, both of which can be toxic.  The gasses may be swept away by “airing out” your home or using activated carbon filters, but the particles settle into dust that can be disturbed anytime you clean or even when the HVAC comes on.  

A study was born in the weeks after the Marshall Fire, which occurred in the Boulder area in December 2021.  It spread very quickly and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and buildings.  Those that were near the flames but not burned, like the home of air quality scientist Christine Wiedinmyer, smelled like “the day after a campfire” and had ash on the door and window sills.  (Study finds potentially harmful chemicals lingered in homes affected by Marshall Fire)  Without testing, she did not know whether it was safe for her (or the neighbors who asked) to return to their homes.  So, she became part of a team of expert scientists who tested four homes in the area (including hers) in order to determine what toxins may have been left behind.  

The scientists collected samples of particles of dust in the air and on surfaces in January and February 2022. Elevated concentrations of potentially harmful materials like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were detected in the dust samples.  PAHs are considered carcinogens by the Environmental Protection Agency, and it’s chemicals like these that deserve extra precautions in the way residents return to and clean their homes.  

When the scientists set up their equipment in the homes, they took dust samples from windowsills and used monitors to track particulate matter in the air, minute-by-minute.  The floating particles of ash produced by the fire seemed to settle out of the air in these houses within a day or two, but the dust that Wiedinmyer had seen on her windowsills lingered. In February, the researchers took measurements as a six-person cleaning crew entered one of the homes to vacuum and mop.  The concentrations of particles in the air nearly doubled during that time. Overnight in the same house, the team saw airborne particles spike about once every 20 minutes—likely due to the home's HVAC system switching on and off.  (Study finds potentially harmful chemicals lingered in homes affected by Marshall Fire) 

For this reason, the scientists recommend wearing a mask when you’re cleaning up fire damage, because human activity like cleaning resuspends the dust in the air, making it easy to breathe in.  Also, be sure to change your HVAC filter more frequently during the first few months after cleanup, and only use true HEPA vacuum cleaners, so exhaust from the vacuum cleaner will not blow dust back into the air.  Wiedinmyer herself “aired out” the home for a week before re-entering to clean.  During this time and going forward, a standalone HEPA filter would be very useful to filter particles that are missed by the HVAC system (if you have one!).  Our Germ Defenders, Mobile Air Angels and Whole Home Ionizers help to ionize and agglomerate dust, making it easier for the filters to trap it.

Another part of the aftermath of wildfires is dealing with contamination to drinking water systems. According to NPR for northern Colorado, The fire damaged six public drinking water systems, and toxic chemicals leaked into pipes from damaged homes and into hydrants where low water pressure created vacuums that pulled the compounds into the distribution system.  Although the personnel in these districts were not all clear on how and where to test, they were eager to do so when experts who had managed similar disaster response teams educated them.  Andrew Whelton, a professor of civil, environmental and ecological engineering at Purdue University, has taken part in several water disaster recoveries, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire and the 2018 Camp Fire in California, the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam contamination, and a chemical spill in West Virginia.  In a study he co-authored, he said that although the Marshall Fire response was not perfect, major crisis was averted because authorities did not refuse to test.  (Sadly I think many of us can recall other disasters that did not go so well).

There were a couple reasons that contaminants were introduced into these drinking water systems.  First, when a system loses pressure, toxins like wildfire smoke can get sucked into the distribution system.  Second, overheated plastic pipe can leach benzene and other chemicals for months or even years.  According to Whelton’s research, plastic pipes were primed to leach chemicals by temperatures as low as 392 degrees Fahrenheit; wildfires can exceed 1,400 degrees.  Thirdly, flushing out the system quickly with clean water is important to prevent smoke and chemicals from reaching damaged pipe, which can act as a reservoir for such toxins.

If your home survives a fire in the future, remember that unseen dangers like carcinogens may still linger and you need to take caution with your air and your drinking water.  Although it seems that authorities in the Boulder area were for the most part very proactive for public health during the Marshall Fire response, it’s usually up to individual residents in wildfire-prone areas to have stores of masks, filters and clean drinking water.  We hope you don’t have to go through such a catastrophe, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

UPDATE:  Another professor, Delphine Farmer from Colorado State University, wrote a followup article explaining smoke and VOC behavior in a test house during the Chemical Assessment of Surfaces and Air, or CASA, study in 2022.   She found that VOCs that entered a home are adsorbed into surfaces and while they may temporarily clear by opening doors and windows (“airing out”), they quickly built up again after ventilation stops, and the house would slowly release those VOCs back out over the next hours, days or even months, depending on the type of VOC.  They found that air purifiers can remove only some of the VOCs that are in the air – they can’t clean the VOCs on your floors or in your walls. They also work only when they’re running, and even then, air purifiers don’t work particularly well to reduce VOCs.

The good news is that basic household cleaning–vacuuming, dusting and mopping with a commercial, nonbleach solution–removed most of the VOCs.  This means that while you’re cleaning for particles, VOCs are also removed.  Check out our article on Tackling Dust in Your Home for our recommendations on appliances and cleaning products to get ‘er done, but don’t forget to add the personal protective gear mentioned above, as well!

Tight homes need ventilation, but what do I do when it’s smokey outside?

If you’re blessed to be living in a “tight” home (one that doesn’t allow much unintentional air leakage), you should know that mechanical ventilation is really helpful, if not necessary, to achieve healthy indoor air.  Humidity, CO2, particulates and VOCs can build up inside your tight home and without intentional ventilation, can lead to major mold and health problems quickly.  In this case, many people opt for an ERV or HRV so that the energy savings on their tight home don’t go “out the window” (literally!) by exhausting indoor air and pulling in outdoor air without some kind of energy exchange.   For more basic information on building tightness, ERVs and HRVs, check out our article here.

If you have an HRV or ERV and live in an area prone to wildfires, you should prepare for them by having the proper filters in place and knowing what to do with your system.  We’ve helped several clients prepare for this scenario recently, and the “smoke” was not all from wildfires!  Sometimes neighbors with bad or even innocent habits like smoking, barbequing, or sittin’-round-the-campfire can all wreak havoc on your air quality.

First of all, be familiar with your HRV/ERV unit!  This means knowing where it is, how to change its filters, and how to operate the different modes.  Hopefully the installer did a good job of allowing room for maintenance, because just like a furnace/air handler, the filters must be changed or cleaned regularly in order for the unit to work well for many years.  

Many units only come with standard MERV 8 filters, but these are not adequate to handle smoke.  Smoke presents 2 problems: particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).  According to the US EPA, a HRV or ERV unit filter must have a Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) of 13 to provide effective protection against particulate matter in the air we're going to breathe inside a home or office building if it's smokey outside. (How to keep wildfire smoke out of homes with mechanical ventilation systems?)  Therefore, you’ll need to know what grade filters are in your unit now, and if they are below MERV 13, inquire with the manufacturer on which filters to upgrade to. 

Before you buy new filters, however, you should consider the other part of smoke: VOCs.  You can have a MERV 16 in your unit, but it will not capture VOCs and your home will be filled with the smell of smoke if there is smoke outside!  These insidious gasses are most easily removed with activated carbon.  Therefore, a layered filter (with MERV13 or more plus activated carbon) is really the best defense against smoke.  Since not all units/manufacturers offer carbon in their filters, here are some other options to get rid of the particulates AND VOCs: 

• Check our offerings to see if we have your filter size in a MERV 13 filter plus carbon.
• If not, you can cut and layer activated carbon media behind/under your manufacturer’s MERV 13 filter.
• ((Some units use “panel” filters which are basically squares of bulk filter cut to fit the unit.  In this case you can cut your own using laminated MERV 13 and carbon media. ))

The following options are adapted from HRV with Smoke Filtration:

• Ensure there is positive pressure inside the house during wildfire events (some ERVs like Panasonic ERV can be balanced to deliver more air than is exhausted from home) so that smoke never wants to come in “illegally”.  
• Add an inline fan/filter to the intake of the ERV.  This would generate additional positive pressure without overloading the ERV fan and also filter the air before it hits the ERV.  This one has a MERV 13.
• Get a local HVAC shop to fabricate a filter box that uses a regular furnace filter with MERV 13 (or higher) and carbon, sized sufficiently to overcome any static pressure concerns, and install it in the fresh air intake before the HRV, OR you can add a media filter cabinet to the fresh air intake of your HRV/ERV and leave out the HRV/ERV filter on that side.  We can help with calculations on sizing the cabinet if you have the model of HRV/ERV available (basically it comes down to airflow/CFM). 
• Lastly, you could add one or more air purifiers or Corsi-Rosenthal cubes (CR cubes) with HEPA/carbon) to your home.  However, this is not ideal because the pollutants have already entered your home and you’re relying on these purifiers to clean your air, instead of having a “guard” filter at the entrance.

Now, here’s the part which requires discernment: in which mode to use the HRV/ERV.  

According to this article on how to keep wildfire smoke out of your home, the intake dampers of HVAC systems should be closed during wildfire incidents, and the equipment should be configured to only recirculate indoor air.  Before any smoke event occurs, you should check that the intake dampers have seals on them and they actually close tightly.  In case you think that you would run out of oxygen in a very short time in this scenario, that just isn’t the case.  Consider this calculation for 1 person staying in a completely sealed space of approximately 600 ft2; they would possibly die of carbon dioxide poisoning (at 12 days!) before low oxygen would be an issue.  Here’s where having carbon in your filters is also good, because it can also filter out some CO2 from inside your home while you close the outside vent and recirculate.  We think that a CO2 meter is a great thing to keep on hand whether or not your home is tightly sealed, and especially if you have any combustion appliances (like gas stoves, water heaters, furnaces, dryers, etc.)  

(I wouldn’t even worry about this “12 days” deadline, either, because very-tightly sealed homes are very rare!  A home in Alaska currently holds the record for being the world’s tightest home, and the owner/builder took the ingenious route of building a “box within a box” in order to air-seal and insulate it well enough for the climate.  At 600 ft2, it has a rating of 0.05 air changes per hour at 50 pascals of pressure (ACH50).  This is less than 10% of the very rigorous Passivhaus standard, which is 0.60 ACH50.)  

So, recirculating air instead of bringing in outside smokey air has a few benefits:

• It saves your filters and uses them only to filter the small amount of smoke that leaks in through unauthorized leaks (or briefly opening a door). 
• It maintains the air quality of the room above that which you would have if you were bringing in outside smokey air.
• Depending on where the intake filter is located, it could save you cleaning your HRV by not passing unfiltered smokey air through it.

This last point may not be obvious, but not all HRV/ERV manufacturers consider that wildfire smoke is a real threat to the operation of their units, because some have intake filters on the exhaust side of the heat exchanger:

Source: “How ERVs Work”

Do you see the “Fresh air from outside” on the lower left?  Imagine that this is “smoky air from outside”, passing through the fan and then through the heat exchanger, before passing through the filter on the upper right.  All those particulates just passed through a heat exchanger, and it’s likely that some of them get stuck there until they are manually cleaned out. Particles sticking to a heat exchanger reduce its efficiency and depending on their chemical makeup, may damage the surface of the heat exchanger.  Now, placing the filter on the lower left poses a maintenance issue, but it shouldn’t negatively affect the operation of the fan or heat exchanger.  This is why having a separate filter on the fresh air intake before the HRV/ERV and leaving off that top right filter inside the unit, may be the best option in wildfire areas. 

One last point: although we’re not huge fans of completely “smart” homes due to the EMF they emit, if you travel a lot or have an HRV/ERV system installed in a vacation home, it is worth practicing operating it remotely (via an app).  In real emergencies, roads can be closed quickly and if you are not able to get home right away, it becomes the difference between being able to come “home” to a clean house and one that smell like smoke (because even carbon filters will not be able to adsorb VOCs for an extended or intense event).  

Any smoke (cigarette, wildfire, campfire, barbeque, industrial or traffic accidents, etc.) is very unhealthy, so we need to do our best to keep it out of our homes, even at the cost of not ventilating for the duration of the smoke event.  The particulate matter in smoke is especially dangerous for children and people with respiratory or cardiac conditions, because fine particulates can pass from the lungs to the bloodstream. The best line of defense against particulate matter is an airtight building envelope, which by extension means closing the intake dampers of ventilation systems.  Filters with a MERV 13 rating or higher, and activated carbon if possible, should be used in HRV or ERV systems and central air conditioning units so that these units can remove any smoke that gets in.  One or more portable air cleaners with a HEPA filter and carbon are also a very good addition for use in common rooms or bedrooms at night.  It all comes down to preparation…having the filters on hand (or better yet, already installed) and knowing how your unit works is worth a lot of clean air when the smoke suddenly appears around your home! 

Fire and Smoke Recovery

Wildfires have been very destructive in the western half of the US in the late 2010's and early 2020’s.  As for the future, a 2022 report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and GRID-Arendal projects an increase in extreme fires by 14% by 2030, 30% by the end of 2050, and 50% by 2100, due to climate change and land-use change. (breezometer.com)  

Fire disasters, like natural disasters, do not just destroy what the fire touches.  They can disrupt major infrastructures like highways and railways, power and water, and most important, air quality.  Because fires may smolder for some time, try to prepare to deal with the effects for weeks. 

If you live in an area prone to wildfires or prevailing winds that may carry smoke, here are some ways to prepare:

• Seal doors and windows with weatherstripping, caulk and door sweeps.  
• Find out how to adjust your HVAC system accordingly: you’ll want to close the fresh air intake and change over to recirculation, no matter whether you have central AC, a window air conditioner or portable air conditioner.
• Purchase extra MERV 13 or higher filters for your HVAC system, to be used on poor air quality days.
• If you live in an apartment building or condo with little control over the HVAC, consider purchasing vent filter material so you can place them in the vents into your space. Carbon vent filter material will neutralize many VOCs as well.
• Purchase a HEPA air cleaner (non-ozone producing type) and be sure to have an extra filter or two on hand.    
• Keep a number of N95 respirator masks on hand.    
• Keep canned food and bottled water on hand.
• Stock up on essentials for cleaning smoke odor: baking soda, white vinegar, rags, TotalClean

During:

• Try not to cook during a wildfire emergency, because cooking indoors increases small particulates and vapors in the air, and you won’t want to turn on your stove exhaust, as that will draw polluted outdoor air into the house.  Try to use just the canned food you have on hand.
• Monitor the filters in your HVAC system and air purifiers and change them when you start to notice a color change on the front of the filter, or when the output air starts to smell like smoke. 
• Check your local air quality and receive updates from airnow.gov . Fire and smoke maps are available under the heading fire.airnow.gov.  You can also register for a free 14-day trial of Breezometer’s Air Quality app.  Below is a diagram to understand air quality index values (airnow.gov).
• Use N95 respirators to evacuate to a safer place if necessary.  

Source: airnow.gov

After:  

• Don’t open windows and doors until the air quality index is less than 100.  When that happens, you can open windows fully to get more fresh air ventilation. 
• Set up fans near doors and windows to “push” smoke odor and soot outside.

To remove smoke odor that infiltrated from outside, or if you had a fire in your home:

• Run air purifier(s) continuously with charcoal filters. 
• Sprinkle baking soda over carpets and rugs and leave it overnight.  Then using a vacuum with HEPA filter, vacuum out the carpets.  
• Remove drapes, towels, and any hanging fabric exposed to smoke, and either launder it in your washing machine or send it for professional cleaning.  When washing it yourself, you can add a cup of distilled white vinegar to your regular laundry detergent to remove smoke.  Don’t machine dry the item until the odor has been removed; it may need an additional washing cycle.
• Wipe down all hard surfaces, including walls, ceilings, floors and windows with TotalClean or a 1:1 mixture of warm water and white vinegar (TotalClean is more gentle than vinegar and can be used on stone, wood, etc.)  Dispose of rags or wash them out with mild detergent and water as you go.  

To clean fabric-upholstered items:

• Try to remove any cushion covers that are washable.  
• Clean bare foam cushions by using “air replacement”:  Place the cushion into a large vacuum-seal bag and sprinkle baking soda over it.  Seal the bag and use your HEPA vacuum to remove the air from inside the cushion.  Let the air back into the bag to re-inflate the cushion.   Repeat several times if necessary. 
• Sprinkle baking soda over the piece and let it set overnight before vacuuming it off.
• You can also move the piece outside to air it out in the sun.  
• It’s difficult to remove smoke that’s settled into furniture, however, if it does not dissipate following using an ozone generator, you can contact a restoration company for their services if it’s a valuable piece to you.

Try an Ozone Generator to remove smoke odors:

• Ozone generators should only be used once all surfaces that can be cleaned are thoroughly cleaned (walls, floors and ceilings too!).  
• Ozone is not as effective in areas of high humidity, so running the air conditioner or a dehumidifier in the space to get the humidity down (60% or less) is advisable.  Central air conditioning and any exhaust fans must be shut down when using the ozone generator, though, because you’ll want the ozone to stay in the space. 
• Use fan(s) within the space to circulate the ozone.
• Ozone generators cannot be used in the presence of people, pets or plants, but once these are removed, they can be quite effective in removing smoke.  Follow all instructions to seal up the space and allow it to work for the full time advised before ventilating.  Contact HypoAir regarding rental of our ozone generators, or local restoration companies may rent ozone generators.    

For large areas with open walls and ceilings such as basements, garages or gutted homes, consider having them soda blasted by professionals to remove soot and smoke odor from the structure in hard-to-reach places.  Baking soda’s legendary cleaning and odor-absorption qualities can produce amazing results when combined with commercial equipment and a skilled contractor.

Don’t: 

• Spray deodorizers or fresheners to “cover up” the smell of smoke, because they do nothing to remove the contaminants, and many have toxic ingredients in them.
• Attempt to live in spaces with heavy smoke damage until they are cleaned.  “Third-hand smoke” is the term used for the way carbon and chemicals in the smoke react to the materials in your home, and it can make you very ill.
• Neglect flood remediation if the smoke damage was part of a fire in your home and fire response crews extinguished it using water.  Building materials must be removed or dried thoroughly within 48 hours in order to prevent mold growth. 

Spread the warmth from your fireplace…not the air pollution!

With temps turning colder and guests coming over for the holidays, I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be nice to start a fire in the fireplace soon?  With Thanksgiving a week away, I decided to make sure that it would be a joyful experience and not a regret!  Here’s some tips for getting your fireplace and wood ready.

The fireplace:

• If you haven’t had the chimney cleaned in several years after using it, call a professional for this job and make sure they use HEPA filters in the vacuum.  
• If you are not having your chimney cleaned (if so the cleaner can do this check), check that the damper is working properly:  Get some safety glasses on and a flashlight for this one.  Moving your head underneath the fireplace opening, use the lever handle to open the damper and make sure it stays open when you release it.  Hopefully you do not have the surprise of wildlife or a lot of debris being released when you open it!  Close it again until you get ready to start the fire, making sure that it closes fully and seals (see next point).
• Sealing the fireplace damper when the fireplace is not in use is really important.  Inadequately sealed fireplaces are noted as being one of the worst air leakage sources in the home. According to the D.O.E.3, by weatherstripping the fireplace, the typical U.S. home can reduce air leaks by 14% or more. (hearth.com)  Here some ways of sealing your chimney, some of which would be better avoided:
  • Top mounted chimney dampers don’t seal the chimney space off from your home, meaning that the combustion products and cold (or warm) brick is still exposed to your air.  These aren’t highly recommended.
  • Plugs are inflatable devices that seal off the chimney when it’s not in use.  The problem is that they can deflate with colder temps, allowing air to leak through, causing it to need to be reinflated sometimes.  Sometimes the product itself leaks. 
  • Glass doors don’t adequately seal off the chimney, even though they look nice.  The solution: a magnetic, insulated cover will stop the drafts if your fireplace doors are sealed to the masonry.
• A grate is really helpful to help your fire burn cleanly and not smoke too much.  Why?  A grate gets the wood up off the floor and allows air to circulate under and through the logs.  (This is the key to those new smokeless fire pits–air holes along the bottom of the fire pit get adequate combustion air to the wood!)  Check that your grate is sturdy.  If it is corroded or broken, take it to a welding shop for repairs.  You don’t want a pile of logs shifting and rolling or throwing a cascade of sparks when you’ve already started your fire!

The wood:

• Only burn wood that is completely dry, which usually means it was cut and stored over 6 months ago.  Only burn hardwood,
• Don’t buy firewood a long distance from your home.  Although it may look clean and dry, wood that is harvested over 50 miles from your home may have species of pests (eggs and insects) that are new to your area and by transporting them, you could unleash an invasive pest to the trees in your county. (Forestry Commission) 
• Be selective about what kind of wood you burn indoors.  Stay away from wood with a lot of resin, such as pine and spruce, because burning it forms creosote that can cause a chimney fire.  Never burn treated wood or particleboard, as these release toxic fumes. (Family Handyman)
• It's important to store all firewood outdoors until you're ready to use it, because firewood will naturally have some mold on it.  Storing it outdoors not only keeps the mold spores from entering your home but it also reduces the risk of spiders, ants and other unwanted insects from coming inside as well.  (firewood-for-life.com)
• If you encounter wood with a lot of visible mold, it’s best not to bring it inside at all!  If the mold is on the bark, you can try to knock the bark off with a hatchet or hammer.  Remember, mold spores spread easily through the air and disturbing a mold colony just by moving the firewood (and stacking and then tossing it into a hot fireplace) will release millions of spores into your home!

What about firestarters?

• Firestarters are easy to buy at the hardware or grocery store, but it may be harder to determine if their ingredients are safe and non-toxic.   In a 2014 study, burning synthetic firewood logs increased breast cancer risk in women by 42%.  Wood and synthetic logs are sources of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which cause mammary cancer in animal experiments. Both contribute to residential air pollution, but researchers found that only the synthetic logs were found to be associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.
• If you have any concern, take the safe route and make these firestarters easily from cardboard egg cartons, wax and sawdust (great project with your kids!)  The only caveat I would add is not to use just any candles for wax; paraffin candles are made from petroleum products, and soy candles are from hydrogenated oils that usually contain some paraffins.  If you can find it, unscented beeswax is the best!

Test it out! 

• Keep a fire extinguisher nearby.
• First and foremost, make sure the damper is open and any plugs or stops are removed before starting a fire.  Use your safety glasses when looking up into the chimney!
• Always clean out cold ashes from a previous fire before starting a new one.  If you use your fireplace frequently, an ash vacuum is really helpful and speeds up the job.  Don’t use just any vacuum to suck up ashes, as vacuums without a HEPA filter will blow them all over the room!
• Prime the flue: this means getting a flow of air going up the chimney.  The cleanest, simplest way is use a hair dryer on the hot setting, or a blow torch: just hold and point it up the flue for a few minutes. 
• Place a few firestarters or balled up newspaper under the grate and some kindling (small pieces of wood) on the grate.  Start the fire with a long-handled igniter. 
• When the kindling is burning well, place a few logs on the grate.
• Does your fireplace smoke? (does smoke roll out of the top of the opening into the room?)  If so, the opening may be too large in relation to the flue, causing air to stall at the top of the firebox and allow smoke to come out into the room.  Here is a great video explaining the concept and how to fix it (or buy the right smoke guard and screen if you’re not a welder).  A smoke guard is a strip of metal that extends from the top of the opening down into the fireplace 4-8” to make the opening smaller and improe draft.  This article tells about an aluminum foil trick on how to size the smoke guard before you buy one, plus other reasons the fireplace may be smoking.
• If there’s no smoke coming into the room, add more logs slowly, making sure to place them with good air flow from below.