How Do I Clean?

From the Community: Smoke can damage both LPs and CDs. I looked things up when I found old records in my parents’ house that were very dirty. The particulate matter can scratch them and the smoke can cause corrosion depending on what is in it (relevant to us because it seems to be a developing question as to the toxicity of the smoke). Anyway, vacuuming and cleaning with a specialized solution are recommended. If they were in sleeves/cases, I imagine they would be protected at least somewhat.

https://www.prismspecialties.com/blog/2019/12/16/https-www-ers-us-com-blog-how-to-clean-records-turntables/

From the Community: After cleaning the vinyl and covers as it describes [above] ….and remembering to wear protection, its recommended to put the records (inside the jackets) into a large plastic bag and fill a few socks with activated charcoal and put that in there with them ( not touching the records) the charcoal will help absorb toxins from the album covers. The covers are the most likely to have damage and absorb toxins and not the vinyl.

https://www.gruvglide.com

City of Pasadena: https://pasadenanow.com/main/smoke-and-ash-force-new-pool-safety-protocols-after-eaton-fire

LA County Public Health: Swimming Pools After a Fire

From the Community: Do not drain it. I spoke with an expert this morning that said if you drain it completely, you run the risk of structural damage and the insurance won’t cover that b/c you drained it. Get someone to clean it. If you have to drain, fill with sand so the pool doesn’t expand,contract & crack or collapse in.

From the Community: A friend talked to Waterfall pools who would drain, clean, Replaster and tile as needed, and I believe insurance covers that.

From the Community: LDR Pool Care, Danny Rodriguez 626-321-0698

From the Community: Armond at Royal Chimney Sweeps is great at what he does, and also very kind. We used him before the fire but I’m sure he’d be able to help. When we hired him, we had just moved into our rental and had never lived somewhere with a fireplace before. He installed a flue, added a cap to the chimney, cleaned the inside, and even showed us the best way to light a fire. https://yelp.to/K18Fgh-1ZJ

From the Community: Mary Poppins Chimney Service

From the Community: “Royal chimney in pasadena. Is also good.”/”Arman at Royal Chimney is the man.”

From the Community: “Hi everyone- professional pianist here- I have two beautiful instruments at home in the same conundrum. I was just talking to my colleague, a lifelong piano tuner and technician, who has worked at CalArts tuning and working on pianos for 30 years. He said that there is NOT currently a protocol out there for cleaning smoke damaged pianos safely, and if someone says they have the solution, it is not long term tested or necessarily safe for you or the piano. He says they (meaning piano tuners/techs) will have to see about this and it may take months or years to truly know what to do.

Pianos are delicate instruments- they are mainly made with wood and need maintenance and the right kind of specialist working on them.

Again, my warning is mainly about the safety of your piano. It takes a specialist to tune one, a piano specific moving company to move one safely, and a highly trained tech to maintain one. Just be careful out there!”

From the Community: Shanti R. shares the following information.

Hi everyone — I’ve talked with a couple piano technicians. There is a process, and there is an element of “it depends”.  Options:

A) Hollywood Piano in Pasadena does it as a standard service 

B) a technician can do it in-place if you have a high-end piano

• There is a corrosion effect, so it does make sense to clean everything, at least. Note that the oil on your fingers is acidic and will also corrode the steel strings.
• Obviously vacuuming helps. And if the lid was closed, that’s better, too.
• The first step is to clean the inside of the house, so that when you sniff the piano, you know it’s the piano, not the house.
• If the remediator can use a soft brush to HEPA-vac the piano without scratching it all up, then that’s a good start. It’s probably better to gently wipe the ash off the top with a soft sponge, and then wipe with chemicals appropriate for the surface (see https://www.pianobuyer.com/…/cleaning-and-polishing-a…)
• The inside of the harp and soundboard can be vacuumed and wiped.
• The action can be removed and vacuumed with a pointy nozzle.
• What’s next will come down to how much residual smoke odor you can tolerate. A piano contains a number of felt and cloth surfaces, within the action, and between the strings and the harp. These will catch smoke particles and may continue to smell that way for a long time.
• They can try vacuuming inside the action. If it still smells like smoke, one might have to replace the hammers or the action (keys + levers + hammers)
• If the felt under the strings still smells really smoky, it would have to be re-strung to replace that felt. This is probably not cost-effective for an older piano or an upright piano.
• The other cloth pads (pedals, lid, fallboard) can be replaced (they’re hard to vacuum otherwise).

Let’s start this off by inventorying the pianos. I’ll share this list with the technicians, and perhaps we can learn from the process. Being a dork, I will attempt to correlate what state the piano was in to start with with what steps we eventually take to restore it. https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSevdFFiq9H…/viewform…

From the Community: “Steinway pianos {in} Pasadena gave me a contact, but he wanted to $250 for an estimate.”

From the Community: “Garin at Hollywood Pianos can assist with suggestions that regarding restoration and the like.”

From the Community: “I would trust Todd and Sharon Lyall in So Pas. T&S Piano, (626) 799-3490”

From the Community: “We are going with piano masters”

From the Community: “We were told our piano would be a loss … several pianists I spoke to said that the smoke causes long term damage/corrosion even if there is no actual soot/ash inside”

From the Community: “My piano was restored by Dale Erwin, and I’m hoping if my insurance declares it a total loss, that I can send it back to him.”

From the Community: “a) Terry Meredith 310-702-2389 b) Hollywood Piano (818-954-8500 in Pasadena) vacuums the insides and then puts it in a bag with an absorptive material (probably zeolite + activated carbon) for a few weeks, that absorbs the odors. They do that at their place and it’s $400-500 to move both ways, and $800-1000 for the treatment, plus $85/mo to store the piano until you can move in. That probably makes sense for older or smaller pianos, and you’d have the smoke remediators give it a good vacuuming first.”

From the Community: “There is a group of art conservators/preservation specialists that are working to provide free advice and instruction for soot/smoked damaged materials.

This would be a question for an objects or furniture conservator in consultation with a piano tuner. Using a HEPA filter vacuum and dry wiping with microfiber and other absorbent materials would remove the bulk of the ash/soot. I would not allow use of water or solvent based cleaners without careful testing as these can affect the wood and coatings. Other elements of the piano, metal, felt, ivory etc would need different care than the wood.

We are planning free workshops/consultations please answer survey to help with planning and be on e-mail list.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/artsrecoveryla“

Smoke Damaged Book Cleaning Here we show an efficient way of removing soot damage from books using our hepa filter bench. This bench has an air scrubber installed underneath which will suck the soot from the book. There is also a Hepa vacuum installed under the bench which is used to suck the soot from the books.

Fire Damage Restoration: How To Clean Books and Pictures To clean family pictures and books after a fire you need a dry cleaning sponge and some patience.

From the Community: Everything I’ve read is that books should be tossed 🙁 paper is considered a soft surface and porous
ServPro told me that they can try treating our books for VOCs by putting them in their “deodorizing chamber” (which I think uses ozone) and/or we can toss and replace. Same for our extensive collection of board games.

From the Community: I was told Belfor helped remediate a school library after a fire by wiping every page of every book. No idea if that was mainly ash/soot vs lead/asbestos.

It is our personal opinion that clothing should not be washed, worn, or removed from the home if there is the possibility of contamination or if you see visible ash. We suggest testing for at minimum lead and asbestos before attempting remediation of clothing. If selecting a vendor, it may be worth discussing what testing and methodology is used to set a baseline for contamination and show that remediation has occured.

“Clothing, textiles, and other types of soft goods often act like VOC and particulate sponges and are highly susceptible to smoke saturation, retention, and contamination during and after a fire, which prompts the question; can clothing and other types of soft goods damaged by smoke really be completely decontaminated and restored? Can ozone, laundry detergents, and dry-cleaning chemicals remove and/or neutralize every one of the thousands of chemicals and heavy metals that may be released in a fire? If so, how can the consumer be assured that the restoration techniques are effective and the cleaning chemicals themselves are safe?

In the restoration industry today, soft goods, clothing, and textiles that are exposed to asbestos, lead dust, sewage, blood-borne pathogens, or mold, are typically considered a total loss. Items damaged with contaminants such as these are typically inventoried, and then discarded. However, in many cases when clothing or soft goods are exposed to highly toxic chemicals, gases, PCB’s, and particulates generated by a fire, many of which are far more toxic than asbestos, lead, mold, or other contaminants, a different approach is often taken.

We know that washing generally appears to remove soils and that clothing can look closer to its original appearance after being cleaned. In some cases, the clothing smells “clean,” leading us to believe that washing the clothing really works.
Appearance and odor are not enough to assess whether the clothing has been adequately cleaned and, more importantly, decontaminated. While some cleaning processes impart fragrance to the laundered item, these odorants may only mask any scent from a continuing contaminant. The reality is that the smell of “clean” is no odor at all. The problem with determining whether soft goods are clean is being able to evaluate the clothing scientifically.” – Restoring Smoke Damaged Textiles–What Does Clean Mean?

From the Community: If you are able to determine if your ashes have toxic stuff in them per the video seems best to toss out and replace soft stuff like clothes. In the video he shows a baby onesie that was theoretically cleaned by a remediation company, he sent it out after remediation to be tested and it was full of toxins. [Marshall Toxic Webinar]

If determined that there is no lead or asbestos:

From the Community: We had two different remediation companies assess our house and we asked about our clothes… they said to wash them normally in warm water with soap and oxyclean only with other smoke exposed clothes and do an extra rinse and they would be good and safe to use.

From the Community: Use “laundry sanitizer” on a sanitize cycle if your machine has or hottest if not and then wash everything 2 more times. The stuff that is the real problem is stuff you can’t see or smell. Lysol and Clorox both make them and Target and Home Depot carry them

From the Community:I soaked them in Oxiclean for an hour, washed them twice with an extra rinse with my regular laundry soap in cold water (the gas was turned off), line dried them inside, and they were fine.

From the Community: My husband was able to get in to gather some basics and last night I put on a pair of sweat pants. Not even an hour later, I was having trouble breathing. Those were inside the house, inside a room then inside a closet that was closed. I assumed only once was enough.

From the Community: The trick I was told to see if you got the smoke out was after laundering place in a clean plastic/garbage bag (unscented) seal it up and leave in your car for 24 hours. When you reopen the bag if smoke is still present you will smell it.

From the Community: I’ve had success getting smoke smell out of clothes that I grabbed from our house on Wed the 8th as houses were burning close to ours. I first soaked clothes in cold water with one cup vinegar. Rinsed, then added 1/2 cup (or 3/4?) baking soda and did a rinse cycle. I then did a regular wash cycle with my regular detergent plus a fair amount of Oxiclean. I dried most things in the dryer, with 2 dryer sheets. It was a big undertaking and I had the use of multiple, older washers (lots of water for a good soak – I’m not sure high efficiency would work as well, to be honest) and I have no idea or expertise on toxins, but everything smells great.

From the Community: Soft goods removal happened for me this week. It’s like moving day, a team shows up and puts everything that can’t be wiped in boxes, labels them, and takes them away in a truck. Couches, rugs, mattresses, bedding, drapes, towels, shower curtains, rattan chairs, etc. Supposed to take clothes too but I kept mine to wash myself. They’re supposed to evaluate each item offsite to either clean or put on a TLI list (total loss inventory). TLI items would cost more to clean than replace.

There are a wide range of electronics with different types of sealing and permeability. It is best to connect with a remediation specialist to discuss options. If you have insurance that covers personal property, many residents have been advised to replace electronics whether they currently show damage or not, because if they fail in the future as a result of the fire it may be harder or impossible to have a replacement covered.

From the Marshall Community: “tvs and computers, garage door openers that failed shortly after the fire […] my understanding is that the metal particulates in the smoke settled on the circuit board and short it out. We personally had two tvs and one garage door opener fail and know several others who had the same thing occur in the Marshall fire. Took a bit to put the pieces together. One tv was very new… so not age related.”

From the Community: “I have been told by a few different people (remediation, hygienic testing) that anything with a fan or internal computer system like components needs to be replaced.”

From the Community: “I’ve read that anything with a plug should get trashed. The ash and soot can land on circuit boards and corrode it. Cause another fire hazard etc etc. it also corrodes metals”

From the Community: “I have heard some remediation companies use Prism“

From the Community: “My adjuster mentioned this company I think https://strikecheck.com/” [StrikeCheck evaluates the condition of residential appliances]

From the Community: “FRSTeam works on more than electronics, but Servpro is using them for electronics.”