Friday, January 4, 2013

Auto Upholstery San Francisco Bay Area - Get Rid of a Cigarette Smell - Cooks Upholstery & Classic Restoration Redwood City



Get Rid of a Cigarette Smell




Start with getting some Simple Green. Available at all of your finer Wal-Marts, and at Lowe's in gallon jugs. Get the big jug - you'll find a million other uses for the stuff once you start using it. It's biodegradable, and easy on the hands, so you won't have to worry about gloves. You'll also want a nice sized bucket, and a big 'ol pile of clean, white cotton rags. 100% cotton underwear works great - or cotton dishtowels, or old cotton baby diapers. Finally, you need some HOT water. As hot as you can stand to put your hands in.
 
Fill your bucket with the HOT water, and add just enough Simple Green to make a lovely clear, pale green. Probably somewhere around 15 parts water to 1 part Simple Green. Don't get the solution too strong, or you'll spend time cleaning up the cleaning agent... Wring out your rag in the solution, and pick a spot. Rinse out the rag frequently in the solution, and be prepared to be grossed out by what shows up in the bucket. I personally prefer to start at the top and work down - do the headliner first, and go from there. If you have the rag wrung out sufficiently, the fabric should not get wet as you clean it, but just barely damp. Don't scrub too hard - as you wipe you are just trying to clean the residue from the individual synthetic fibers in the fabric, and pick up what you can everywhere else on the leather and vinyl surfaces. Wipe at least two directions. Keep the cloth clean, or you are just moving the mess around, ala "Cat in The Hat"... Don't forget to wipe down everything - all the vinyl trim, dashboard, EVERYTHING. Go back and condition leather after you are completely done. Pop off a/c vents in the dash, and clean as far back in as you can reach. Don't forget to change the interior cabin air filter, or all your hard work is for nothing... If you use a fairly dilute solution, you won't need to go back and "rinse", as the Simple Green doesn't leave anything sticky behind if you have it really clean.
 
As far as the smoke getting into the actual padding of the seats, that will depend on if they smoked with the windows up or down. If it is bad enough, pick a nice warm day, and set a small bucket of 50/50 water and Simple Green solution inside the car with the windows up for at least 6 hours. You don't need much, just enough to cover the bottom of the bucket.
 
 
 

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