Commercial Cleaning Archives

Why Should You Call a Water Damage Restoration Professional?

When your Chicagoland property experiences water damage, you’re frequently urged to contact a water damage restoration specialist to handle cleaning and repairs. But why? Aren’t you able to take care of it yourself? What’s so great about what restoration professionals accomplish that’s better than what you could do?

The science and resources behind water damage restoration and remediation have advanced considerably since its inception. For example, when the contents of your home or business were damaged, they were usually thrown out, along with water-damaged structural materials. Now, much of it can be saved. Technology is a big reason why. Let’s look at a few examples:

Powerful Truck Mounted Vacuums:

These are useful for removing large amounts of water quickly. A typical truck mount vacuum sucks up about 25 gallons of water per minute. And since they’re so powerful, they can rapidly eliminate most every bit of water from a soaking carpet.

Desiccant Dehumidifiers:

These are used in specific conditions. Desiccants release dry, warm air (110°F and 5% relative humidity) in high humidity conditions to remove moisture from the atmosphere. This is accomplished by using silica gel to absorb airborne water particles. (A tiny example of that is found in the packages of some products.) Desiccant dehumidifiers are very effective and even operate in below-freezing temperatures.

LGR Dehumidifiers:

These can lower relative humidity to as low as 10% and remove up to 25 gallons of water from the air each day. This is a huge increase from a few years ago when simple dehumidifiers could only reduce relative humidity to 40% and remove only 5 gallons of water a day from the air.

Intra-Wall Drying:

This technology dries the insides of walls without removing and replacing wet drywall. How it works is the baseboards are first removed and small holes are drilled through the drywall in that area. Air is then forced into the cavity behind the wall while powerful fans (air movers) blow air on the outside of the wall, causing wet walls to dry much faster.

Air Movers:

These are very powerful, high CFM fans. These work much more efficiently and faster than a typical box fan. The high movement of air they produce greatly speeds up the evaporation process. This not only dries your property quickly but also helps to ensure no further water damage can occur.

Floor Mat Systems:

These enable professional water restoration contractors to dry hardwood floors fast. Applying the power of a high-pressure blower, these mats vacuum water vapor right through the surface of the floor. At one time, wood floors that had been warped by water were immediately torn up and replaced. These floor mat systems can save hardwood floors in many instances.

The Benefits of Advanced Drying Techniques

Besides the benefits of professional drying equipment that were already mentioned, there are also these:

Mold prevention –

Faster drying times decrease the danger of mold growth, thus helping to prevent health issues, including respiratory infections and allergic reactions. Lower humidity levels don’t allow mold to grow.

Lower expenses –

Many building materials once automatically disposed of now can be restored and not replaced. Reduced drying times also mean lower restoration costs and allow lives and businesses to return to normal more quickly.

As water restoration equipment has advanced, so have the procedures and training undertaken by water damage restoration professionals. Chicago’s own ServiceMaster Disaster Restoration By Simons uses the latest equipment and we put our staff through IICRC continuing education (CE) classes. Our certified and experienced team uses the most advanced scientific methods along with sophisticated equipment to get your Chicagoland home or business back to pre-loss condition quickly, professionally, and with personal attention to every detail.

About Us: Co-Authors RESTORE your complete guide to protecting your home as your most valuable asset from water and fire disasters https://www.amazon.com/dp/1952779529. Recipient of 2022 award for Daily Herald Entrepreneurial Excellence. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons, is a SB100 Best of Small Business Award Winner 2021, Bronze Stevie® Award in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, recipient of the 2020 Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, and recipient of the 2020 Skokie Business of the Year Award, Honorable Mention Category. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons (MBE/WBE) is a family operated, IICRC & OSHA Certified company serving Chicago, Oak Park, River Forest, and the North Shore. We provide commercial disaster restoration services including Water & Flood Damage Restoration, Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration, Mold Remediation and a wide range of interior specialty cleaning including COVID-19 Cleaning Services, Hoarder & Clutter Cleaning, Post-Construction Cleaning, Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning to residential and commercial customers.

When Fighting Odors, a Complex Deodorizer May be Needed

When we’re able to spend time out in the country, whether we’re hiking, camping, or just riding around with the windows down, the fresh air invigorates us. Unfortunately, most of us spend the majority of our time indoors, whether we’re home or at work. In fact, the EPA reports that “Americans, on average, spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors, where the concentrations of some pollutants are often 2 to 5 times higher than typical outdoor concentrations.” Because of that, sometimes inside air is not nearly as fresh smelling due to unpleasant odors. So what’s the best way to handle them?

Air Fresheners Don’t Always Do The Trick

While air fresheners and deodorizers will cover odors adequately in your Chicagoland home, they do little to remove them altogether. That’s when you’ve got to pull out the big guns. It’s a good idea to always have an odor-neutralizer on hand. They’re made with neutralizing components that form a bond with diverse molecules, including the ones that carry potent odors linked with sulfur (skunk) and nitrogen (nicotine and rotten seafood).

But before you attempt to clean any area, always remember the first rule of deodorization: remove the source of the odor first! Afterward, thoroughly scrub the area of all contamination before applying any deodorizer. Otherwise, those odors may come back to haunt you.

Try This Experiment

Pour a cup of household ammonia (nitrogen) or purchase “liquid skunk” (sulfur) at a hardware or hunting supply store. In another cup, mix the odor neutralizer as directed. Dip a cotton swab in the ammonia, take it out and smell it. Once you’ve picked yourself off of the floor, immerse the swab into the odor neutralizer and you’ll find that the ammonia smell has disappeared. This is because the neutralizer forms a complex with the nitrogen that is part of the ammonia molecule. Once this complex is formed, the new molecule is no longer perceived by the brain as it moves through your nose, thus no bad odor. This demonstration shows what a big difference there is between masking (covering up) odors and neutralizing (destroying) them.

The majority of odor neutralizers can be used by themselves or added to a water-based deodorizer to enhance odor removal. If you use a concentrated odor neutralizer, don’t add much to a deodorizer, otherwise, you might get a heavy residue that will have to be cleaned up afterward.

Serious Odor Problems May Require Professional Help

If you have a widespread odor issue, call Chicago’s ServiceMaster By Simons. When removing odors from large areas, we apply neutralizers by using a ULV (Ultra Low Volume) fogger. As it’s being dispersed, we mist the product through air ducts as well. We also cover any water-sensitive furniture or remove it from the area being treated. Additionally, we always wear a respirator when using a ULV fogger as the micron-sized particles emitted from it could cause coughing and choking. Because of this, once we’re finished, we block off and leave the area for about two hours to allow the mist to settle.

When possible, we may use ozone generators to take care of the odor issue. These machines change the chemical makeup of odor molecules so they no longer smell and are gone forever. No matter the source of your odor problem, whether from fire, skunk, or anything else, when it’s extreme, it’s likely to evade every nook and cranny of your home. ServiceMaster By Simons has the technology to remove it all.

About Us: Co-Authors RESTORE your complete guide to protecting your home as your most valuable asset from water and fire disasters https://www.amazon.com/dp/1952779529. Recipient of 2022 award for Daily Herald Entrepreneurial Excellence. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons, is a SB100 Best of Small Business Award Winner 2021, Bronze Stevie® Award in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, recipient of the 2020 Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, and recipient of the 2020 Skokie Business of the Year Award, Honorable Mention Category. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons (MBE/WBE) is a family operated, IICRC & OSHA Certified company serving Chicago, Oak Park, River Forest, and the North Shore. We provide commercial disaster restoration services including Water & Flood Damage Restoration, Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration, Mold Remediation and a wide range of interior specialty cleaning including COVID-19 Cleaning Services, Hoarder & Clutter Cleaning, Post-Construction Cleaning, Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning to residential and commercial customers.

How Your Possessions are Saved After a Disaster

After the last flames of a fire have been snuffed out or water damage from flooding or a burst pipe has been repaired in your Chicagoland home or business and you’ve called ServiceMaster By Simons, what happens to your damaged treasured possessions, irreplaceable family keepsakes, or retail inventory? Are they forever ruined and unsalvageable?

In the past, that may have been the case. But we employ an extensive contents restoration system that’s devised to return your possessions and property to their pre-damaged condition, whether they were damaged by fire, smoke, water, or mold – even objects that were once thought to be unrecoverable!

First, our specially skilled staff will cautiously pack up your damaged property, handling them with care, before moving them to our protected warehouse for cleaning, deodorizing, and storage. Privacy and discretion are always preserved as the content restoration work proceeds.

After an expert examination of each of your damaged items, we’ll determine which type of cleaning is most appropriate for each piece. It’ll be contingent on the item’s composition, framework, sturdiness, and the type of damage it suffered. Once that’s determined, we’ll employ one or more of the following procedures and/or equipment:

Drying chambers
Ultrasonic cleaning
Laundering/dry cleaning
Spray and wipe
Heat agitated immersion cleaning
Odor Removal (Using Ozone and Hydroxyl Methods)
Deodorization

These methods efficiently clean, dry and deodorize even problematic items like china, silver, brass, delicate figurines, ceramics, electronics, mini-blinds, chandeliers, plastics, and stuffed toys. Ultrasonic machines effortlessly eliminate smoke residues, mold, water damage, and rust.

ServiceMaster By Simons utilizes assembly-line contents cleaning procedures for any disaster restoration job. Once your items are cleaned, we carefully wrap them up in bubble wrap and paper then cautiously pack them in boxes and warehouse them until your home or business has been restored when they can then be returned.

How Do Ultrasonic Machines Work?

Ultrasonic machines carefully and successfully remove contaminants from your belongings. This is done by immersing objects in a tank of liquid while high-frequency sound waves create imploding bubbles that generate a scrubbing brush-like action that acts on impurities adhering to surfaces such as metals, glass, plastics, ceramics, rubber, and even electronics. This action infiltrates holes, cracks, nooks, and crannies so that it systematically removes all traces of contamination and malodors. This technology allows us to clean your possessions faster, more carefully, and less expensively.

How Does Ozone Treatment Work?

Contents that need deodorization are put into an ozone chamber. Ozone, occasionally called “activated oxygen”, contains three oxygen atoms rather than the two atoms we usually breathe. It’s the second most effective disinfectant in the world and may be used to obliterate bacteria, viruses, and smells. When they collide with ozone, they’re totally destroyed by oxidation. In the process, that extra atom of oxygen is annihilated and there’s nothing left – no odors, no bacteria, no extra atom, only oxygen.

Ozone arises quite frequently in nature, most often as a consequence of lightning strikes that occur during thunderstorms. That “fresh, clean, spring rain” smell you may detect after a Chicago area storm most frequently results from nature’s creation of ozone.

If you have questions about how our other cleaning procedures work or would like to schedule a free consultation and estimate, call ServiceMaster By Simons at 773-376-1110.

How to Prevent Puff Backs From Your Fireplace

A frosty Chicago winter evening spent next to a roaring fireplace can be very enjoyable. But that occasion can become a disaster if your fireplace begins spewing smoke into your home’s interior. When that occurs, it may be the result of a puff back. This could occur only once per season or it may happen every time you start a fire.

The results of puff backs are terrible. The smoke can damage all surfaces it touches. A foul odor permeates the environment while the air becomes dangerously contaminated with carcinogens and carbon monoxide. Additionally, smoke particles lodge in curtains, clothing and carpeting.

The good news is that fireplace back puffs are preventable. But what causes them?

Back Puff Causes and Cures

Cause: Creosote buildup

Creosote is a byproduct of fireplace smoke. It builds up inside a fireplace flue every time the fireplace is lit, growing thicker and thicker. The creosote causes your chimney to generate more smoke then can be exhausted, allowing the smoke to travel the path of least resistance – back into your home.

Cure: Hire a chimney sweep

A CSIA-certified chimney sweep can inspect and identify creosote accumulation. If it’s a problem, you’ll need to have your chimney swept, which will remove creosote buildup and restore your chimney to its peak working condition.

Cause: Lack of air supply

While a well-insulated home is more energy efficient, a tightly-sealed home could actually “suffocate” your stove or fireplace, resulting in negative air pressure inside. This could cause the fireplace to release smoke into your home. Fire needs oxygen to burn and a tightly sealed home will limit the flow of air into the fireplace.

Cure: Introduce air flow

Before lighting your next fire, simply open a window. Back puffing should discontinue if the issue was caused by an inadequate air supply.

Problem: Obstructions

If your chimney is blocked, it’ll restrict airflow and smoke will build up in the flue until it’s exhausted through your fireplace or stove. Bird and wasp nests built inside a chimney can restrict its airflow, along with balls and tree branches.

Cure: Clean the chimney

The National Fire Protection Association recommends that you have your chimney, fireplace, and vents inspected and cleaned annually, regardless of whether back puffs occur or not.

Problem: Unsuitable firewood

You may be trying to burn wet wood which can produce more smoke than usual. To burn efficiently, the fire needs to first burn off any excess moisture within the wood. The higher the moisture content of the wood, the harder it’ll be to burn.

Cure: Use seasoned wood

Wood needs to be dry to burn efficiently. Wood that’s freshly cut is high in moisture content, which is why wood needs to be dried out (known as seasoning) for 12 to 18 months before it’s ready to be used on a fire without causing smoke issues.

Sometimes, a badly built fireplace can cause smoke problems. All aspects of a fireplace, such as its opening size, smoke chamber, smoke shelf, damper size and chimney height, must be built without design and construction flaws in order to prevent smoke buildup.

When your fireplace pours smoke into your home, the resulting damage can be significant. Rather than replace fouled up belongings that have been contaminated with smoke particles, consult your Chicagoland smoke damage cleanup company, ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons. Our fire and smoke damage restoration technicians will remove all traces of smoke from your property.

About Us: ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons, is a Bronze Stevie® Award in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, recipient of the 2020 Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, and recipient of the 2020 Skokie Business of the Year Award, Honorable Mention Category. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons (MBE/WBE) is a family operated, IICRC & OSHA Certified company serving Chicago, Oak Park, River Forest, and the North Shore. We provide commercial disaster restoration services including Water & Flood Damage Restoration, Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration, Mold Remediation and a wide range of interior specialty cleaning including COVID-19 Cleaning Services, Hoarder & Clutter Cleaning, Post-Construction Cleaning, Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning to residential and commercial customers. For more information, call 773-839-5542 or visit www.servicemasterbysimons.com or info@servicemaster-rbs.com

Concentrating on Cleaning Products Can Save You Money

Riddle: When is a gallon of all-purpose cleaner not a gallon of all-purpose cleaner?

Answer: When it’s really 20 gallons.

Puzzled? Consider this: usually when you purchase a gallon of a product, that’s all you get. If you buy a gallon of gas, you get a gallon of gas; buy a gallon of milk and you’ll only get a gallon of milk. But many cleaners, disinfectants and deodorizers you use to clean your Chicago area home or office are sold as concentrates. If you buy those and mix them correctly, you’ll greatly increase the usable amount of product, making them very inexpensive. Depending on the product, sometimes one gallon of concentrate can produce up to a hundred gallons of a RTU (ready to use) cleaner. So that 99¢ jug of RTU glass cleaner at your local Chicagoland box store might not really be such a terrific deal after all.

It might be enticing to try to make the concentrated cleaning products you buy go even further by diluting them more than recommended. But the suggested concentration dilution rate is much more cost efficient than watering them down because weakened chemicals take longer to do the job and you would probably have to repeat the cleaning process to accomplish the desired results. Your time is valuable; add that to the additional aggravation and you wouldn’t be saving a dime.

Precise Mixing Makes a Difference

Clearly, concentrates necessitate adding water to dilute them according to the precise directions on the product labels. Most comprehend that, but the means of communicating the amount of water to mix with the concentrate can be a little more complicated and leaves room for error.

For instance, the common method for stating dilution rates is by using ratios, but occasionally you need more info. For example, which does a ratio of 1:8 mean? Is it:

one part concentrate mixed with seven parts water to produce eight parts of solution?
one part concentrate mixed with eight parts water to produce make nine parts solution?

You need to get it right because, in this particular example, an error adds up to a 12.5% variance! That means either your cleaning effectiveness will decrease 12.5% or your costs will increase 12.5%, neither of which is a desired result.

What’s confusing is that each way of describing the ratios shown above is defensible. So always examine product labels for a thorough explanation of its mixing ratio. If details aren’t included, then go to the source and contact the manufacturer. It’s worth a little extra effort.

Help for Deep Cleaning

When it comes to deep cleaning, sometimes you need a little help. And with Covid-19, using the required disinfectants is vital. Without question, virus cleaning, removal, and disinfection services are foremost in the thoughts of many homeowners and business owners throughout the Chicagoland area today. ServiceMaster By Simons uses an EPA hospital-grade disinfectant that fights 99.99% of bacteria so that you as a business or homeowner can have peace of mind whether you work inside or outside your home.

How Environmental Hygienists Find Mold You Can’t See

Once upon a time if you couldn’t see something you generally weren’t worried about it. Today, with the advances in science and technology, we now understand that gases and micro-pollutants in the air – even those that can’t be seen or smelled – can affect our health and well-being. So, air quality can no longer be judged by our senses alone, especially indoors. And one of those invisible micro-pollutants that can affect the quality of inside air is mold.

How Mold Enters the Airstream

Molds are fungi often hidden away in warm, humid corners of your Chicagoland home. Although they look stationary, molds have ways of getting into the air and thus into your lungs. To reproduce, they release spores into the air. And if the mold dries out, fragments will break off and attach to existing dust in your air where they can harm both the air quality and your health. Molds can stimulate allergic reactions, and some toxic molds might even weaken your immune system.

How Technology Helps Find Mold

During mold remediation, environmental hygienists test the air during and after mold cleanup to determine how effectively the contaminants are being removed or contained. This is done by using a laser particle counter to determine the number of airborne particles. This device draws in a sample of air, shines a laser light across the air stream inside of it and electronically counts the particles that cross the path of the beam. In contaminated environments, the amount of particles will be very high, but after a thorough cleaning, they’ll be significantly lower.

Laser particle counter measurements show over 99% of the particles floating in indoor air that are one micron (1/1,000,000 of a meter) or smaller. The EPA calls these lung-damaging particles because they can lodge deep in the lungs when inhaled. Although a particle counter can’t differentiate between spores, skin fragments or cotton fibers, using one can help determine if the property is experiencing a mold problem and can be used for additional quality-control and post-remediation checking.

Certain websites allow mold testing companies to enter data from a particle counter and get prompt online results so that you’ll have an answer quickly, instead of having to wait days or weeks for results.

ServiceMaster By Simons Works With Environmental Hygienists

Many of our customers who research mold cleanup, mold removal, or mold remediation services may be surprised to discover ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons provides professional mold remediation, cleanup and removal in Chicago and its suburbs. After an independent environmental hygienist has tested and observed the air in your home or business and a positive report is received, our licensed technicians identify the problem and possible causes, such as water leaks or moisture issues.

Our IICRC Certified technicians follow a systematic and well-planned mold abatement and remediation process to clean up mold and repair your property to your satisfaction. Contact ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons today for free on-site estimates for mold removal and remediation in the Chicagoland area.

About Us: ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons, is a 2020 recipient of the Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, and recipient of the 2020 Skokie Business of the Year Award, Honorable Mention Category. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons (MBE/WBE) is a family operated, IICRC & OSHA Certified company serving Chicago, Oak Park, River Forest, and the North Shore. We provide commercial disaster restoration services including Water & Flood Damage Restoration, Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration, Mold Remediation and a wide range of interior specialty cleaning including COVID-19 Cleaning Services, Hoarder & Clutter Cleaning, Post-Construction Cleaning, Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning to residential and commercial customers. For more information, call 773-839-5542 or visit www.servicemasterbysimons.com or info@servicemaster-rbs.com

Should GREEN Cleaning Products be Used to Disinfect?

Natural and eco-friendly cleaners that don’t harm people, animals or the environment have become important focusses for consumers worldwide. Consequently, many people are now choosing cleaning products that are categorized as green, non-toxic, or natural. While most of these products are acceptable for everyday cleaning, you should be aware that nearly all do not have the required disinfection abilities to kill harmful viruses and diseases like COVID-19.

Cleaners and Disinfectants—What’s the Difference?

When your objective is to disinfect surfaces in your Chicagoland property against infectious diseases, the best way to discern which cleaners are also disinfectants is to verify the product has an EPA registration number on the label. If one does not exist, then it isn’t a tested and registered disinfectant. It’ll be safe to use the product to clean up dirt and grime, but it won’t disinfect against viruses and disease.

What Does the EPA Recommend?

The EPA’s task is to safeguard human and environmental health. Based in Washington, D.C., the EPA is responsible for establishing standards and laws that promote exactly that.

The EPA is focused on the elimination of contagious viruses and diseases and has developed a searchable database of disinfection products available to the public. These have been laboratory tested and are confirmed effective against the coronavirus and other infectious diseases. These disinfectants typically use harsh synthetic chemicals like quaternary ammonium to kill germs. Therefore, this list contains few green cleaners, with the exception of citric acid.

Some research has revealed that citric acid, an organic compound that occurs naturally in citrus fruits, has antibacterial and antimicrobial properties–enough to eliminate some types of bacteria, mold, and mildew. Nonetheless, it’s primarily considered a cleaning agent or microbial at best. When it comes to disinfecting (killing) harmful viruses, most natural or “green” ingredients, such as citric acid, are not as effective as their EPA-registered counterparts. All except one.

Benefect is a “green” plant-based botanical disinfectant product, is EPA tested and proven 99.9% effective in killing the coronavirus without any risk to animal and human health or the environment. It’s now an EPA List N registered disinfectant. The downsides are that it is very expensive and can be hard to get during the pandemic.

If Benefect is not available and you want to use a natural cleaner that has been tested by the EPA that may have a lower risk of causing asthma, irritation, hormonal disruption, or carcinogenic effects and pose the least threat among chemicals in their class, you can pick a product from the EPA’s Safer Choice List. This list should not be confused with the EPA’s List N of coronavirus-killing disinfectants. The Safer Choice is a list of products that are fine for routine cleaning but aren’t disinfectants for coronaviruses.

Use Professionals to Clean COVID-19

If you’re a home or business owner in the Chicagoland area and are interested in having your property cleaned and disinfected against COVID-19 or other contagious diseases, contact ServiceMaster By Simons Disinfection Services. We use only EPA List N registered NISUS DSV™ Disinfectant, Sanitizer, Virucide (10324-80-64405), an EPA hospital-grade disinfectant that fights 99.99% of bacteria, while also using cleanup protocols approved by the CDC. We’ll clean your home or business to minimize the threat and boost your peace of mind.

Lingering Tobacco Odors are Still a Health Hazard

Have you ever rented or bought a Chicagoland home that had been totally renovated yet you could still occasionally smell cigarette smoke? That’s because after years of being subjected to smoking, even the structural elements of a building can be saturated with tobacco odor leaving nasty smells in all rooms, not just the one where someone smoked the most.

What tobacco smoke leaves behind

Cigarette smoke deposits are yellowish-brown, gluey substances that stick to all surfaces in a home, making it hard and time-consuming to remove. If you’ve ever cleaned windows or walls that have sustained large amounts of cigarette smoke, you’ve easily seen this residue.

As stated by the American Lung Association, cigarettes contain over 7,000 chemicals (40 of which are linked with cancer) that not even the stoutest air purifiers can eliminate from your home. But it’s not just an odor dilemma.

How does tobacco smoke affect your home?

Studies conducted by the San Diego State University show that third-hand smoke that emits from walls, carpets and curtains can have a substantial impact on our health. Deadly and volatile composites from tobacco smoke build up in drywall and in soft furnishings. Children are particularly at risk of diseases triggered by exposure to the toxins from third-hand smoke.

“There’s a big illusion that when tobacco smoke disappears, we’re safe,” said SDSU psychology professor Georg Matt, director of the resource center. “Unfortunately, some of the most toxic compounds clinch to surfaces. They get embedded in carpets, they coat walls, they penetrate into walls. They become part of the indoor environment.”

Smoking not only adversely affects those exposed to smoke, but it also produces malodourous elements that stick to all surfaces of the area where smoking has occurred. The yellowish-brown gunk produced by smoking bonds to walls, furniture, and plastics, and may forever change their appearance. Cigarette smoke also infiltrates odor-absorbing objects, such as insulation, carpets, upholstery, bedding, clothes, and more.

Additionally, a buildings HVAC system transports smoke odor and chemicals all over the structure. That means that over time, the buildup of dust and debris inside HVAC ducting absorbed those odors and so will need to be cleaned out. Additionally, the entire ducting system will need to be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized.

How professionals remove tobacco smoke odor

There’s no magic formula that will eradicate these residues and smells.

Covering up odors with air fresheners only works briefly and might pose health risks. Furthermore, trying to conceal tobacco smells with a fresh coat of paint without first eliminating the source won’t successfully eliminate the odor. Within a short time, smoke residue will begin seeping through the paint and will once again spread offensive odors throughout the room.

The only successful way to eliminate tobacco residue and odor is by the very thorough cleaning and then sealing of all structural surfaces. ServiceMaster Disaster Restoration By Simons, your Chicagoland restoration specialists, start tobacco smoke removal by cleaning all surfaces, using deodorizing agents to eliminate the very minute particles of tobacco smoke. Once we’ve finished cleaning all visible surfaces, we use specialized equipment, such as hydroxyl generators and/or ozone generators, that destroy the odor molecules that are unreachable (such as inside walls or joints).

The next step consists of using a sealant to lock in the very last stains and odors. After that, surfaces will be prepared to paint, refinish or apply new coverings. Lastly, our team works to confirm that all surfaces are sanitized and treated to make sure odors stay away from you and your possessions.

ServiceMaster Disaster Restoration By Simons in Chicago are professionals at removing all smoke residue and odors, no matter their source. So don’t continue to suffer from unwanted smells and stains. Let us give your home a breath of fresh air!

Why Only Professionals Should Tackle Raw Sewage Cleanup

Whether you’ve smelled it as you’ve drove by a spill or you’ve had it backed up in your Chicagoland home or business, the nauseating odor of raw sewage is difficult to forget. Sadly, the terrible odor isn’t the worst of it.

What is raw sewage?

Raw sewage is waste that has not been cleaned and treated and originates from residential, institutional, or business buildings. It isn’t simply liquid; it may also contain toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, and additional human wastes. It’s also called black water, which is swarming with deadly bacteria and viruses that can turn previously clean and safe indoor living areas into contaminated danger zones.

What are the health risks?

Raw sewage is a mixture of foul material. It’s the perfect breeding ground for nearly all kinds of bacteria, viruses and microorganisms. Raw sewage consists of an almost endless list of toxic pathogens and contact with them can cause you to be violently ill or perhaps kill you.

How do professionals protect themselves?

It’s vital that raw sewage is kept from touching your skin, especially where there are cuts, sores and any mucus membrane related to the eyes, ears and nose. That’s why disaster restoration professionals like ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons cover up entirely in PPE (personal protective equipment) which comprises of full body suits, full face respirators, gloves, rubber boots, etc. They additionally keep a complete stock of respirator and sanitizer wipes, as well as access to an eye wash station and a change of clothes.

What can I do to protect my family?

Keep animals, kids, and the elderly away from the area that’s been contaminated as they’re typically more vulnerable to germs and bacteria. Carefully wash all items touched by sewage immediately. Though it’s not always possible to avoid raw sewage backups, you can decrease the odds of one happening by having your drain lines examined at least twice annually. Also, make sure you repair slow drains immediately, don’t pour grease down drains and have your pipes flushed frequently.

Can sewage damaged contents be saved?

If some contents of your Chicagoland home or business were soiled by sewage, your first thought might be to quickly dispose of them. But though they may have been saturated in the worst sludge imaginable, many can be meticulously cleaned and sanitized so that you can securely use them again. But there are exceptions:

Absorbent materials or items that soaked up any sewage water are non-salvageable and must be discarded. These include carpeting and padding, mattresses, upholstered furniture, curtains, books, etc. Clothes, towels, and linens can generally be safely laundered and disinfected.
Porous structural objects such as saturated drywall, baseboard trim, paneling, insulation, and comparable materials that have absorbed wastewater cannot be disinfected and also have to be removed. If black water has seeped below the flooring, the flooring material might also need removal.

If you have questions about whether some of the contents in your home or business are salvageable or not, contact ServiceMaster By Simons immediately for your health and peace of mind.

As dangerous as they are, it’s important that you not attempt to clean up sewage spills yourself. ServiceMaster Restoration By Simons has the experience, equipment and disinfectants needed to safely clean them up, protecting you, your family or your employees from becoming deathly ill.