Carpet Cleaning Question

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So my son set his breakfast on fire in the microwave this morning, and the house was filled with smoke for about half an hour. We opened all the windows (it's 35 degrees here today) to get the smoke out as fast as possible, but it still smells bad. I think that some of the smoke got in the carpeting in the dining room and bedrooms.

Any helpful DIY tips on what to do to get the smell out? Only thing I can think of is baking soda and a vacuum, but am hoping that there are other products that I can source that wouldn't require the assistance of a professional yet. I will call the professionals if I cannot remedy this on my own. Thanks.
 
Give it time and lots of fresh air. If you are in a bind (i.e. hosting a party tomorrow or something), you'll need to get it professionally steam cleaned.

I would advise against baking soda and a vacuum. I tried something similar once and ended up accomplishing nothing other than spending two hours disassembling and cleaning the vacuum afterward.
 
There are powders you sprinkle onto the carpet and vacuum up after a while.

Fabreze could work too.
 
An ozone generator can help too. Make sure you get all pets and people out of the house for a while if you run one.
 
Ozone is what pro fire damage restorers use, but it is toxic in high concentrations. Use with caution, sometimes available at rental places.
 
+Steve's said.

Ozone is powerful and quick means of removing smoke/smell from house, but with serious side-effects:

human/pet health: high concentrations of O3 inhaled will damage your cells inside your lung, causing serious, if not fatal damage.

Also: because of it's high oxidation properties (oxidise on contact), it will also damage a lot of things in the house: i.e. if you have foam surround speak edge, the foam edge will decompose....certain plastics will become permanently damage as the plasticisers that hold/bond the plastic molecules together becomes oxidised due to O3 presence.

If it's just the carpet smells that you are trying to get rid of, try doing a light wet-carpet cleaning (with carpet cleaning machine of course) using diluted carpet cleaning solutions (1/3 or 1/4 the factory recommended mix) and then go from there.

Q.
 
I use a product called OdoBan.

http://www.odoban.com/

This stuff is amazing. Its probably 2X or 3X times more effective than Febreeze, IMO. Thats saying a lot because Febreeze is a very good product its self.

Get the concentrate, and spray with a 2 gallon pump sprayer.
 
Masking products such as mentioned above are simply a cover up.

Ozone chemically DESTROYS odors by oxidizing them. The by product is oxygen. Don't waste your time trying to deodorize a carpet that is not thoroughly cleaned first...
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
The more important question is ... What did he have and how long did he have it in there to have it catch on fire?


I knew someone would ask. He has the same thing for breakfast everyday - pancake wrapped sausage on a stick. Usually my wife is in the kitchen with him as he goes through the routine, but she was upstairs with the baby.

40 seconds is the normal time, but he hit an additional 0 on the end of that. He called the wife downstairs in time for her to arrive to hear the microwave ding and somehow she got it out of there and into the sink and hit it with the sprayer. She thought that 911 would be called when she first saw it.

I haven't seen the damages yet.
 
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