I made a really stupid mistake yesterday. Put a wok on the stove with grease in it and turned the burner on to heat it up. Then I had to leave the room for a moment… and I forgot about it. Gardening.
DW is the one who noticed the smoke alarm and came in just as it burst into flame. Good thing we had a good fire extinguisher around. Of course now she is very annoyed (understatement). I get to clean up because I screwed up.
Anyway, there were billowing clouds of greasy smoke mostly in the kitchen but definately some in the rest of the main floor and traces other places. Add to that the yellow powder from the extinguisher.
Does anyone have any tips for getting rid of this sort of mess?
If it matters the grease in question was vegetable oil. Also, there are no visible marks. Just a horrible smell.
Replies
Sorry to hear that.
Don't feel to bad about it - We've all made dumb mistakes.
So you're a confirmed H-U-M-A-N...don't beat yerself up to bad...
Smell: ventilate ventilate ventilate
Cleanup of residual oily residue on surfaces....well, it's a common product but one I find works great, my favorite - Dawn dishwashing detergent. Use bucket of water with couple of tbspns of Dawn in it, to wash down the walls, appliances, etc.
You'll probably need to take down, launder or dry clean any draperies in the room. That'll help with odor issue quite a bit too. Ditto for any cushions on chairs in the area.
Good luck and count yourself lucky it didn't turn out worse!
Of all the things that I have lost, I miss my mind the most!
Get the extinguishing agent off the side of the FE, and google that with "clean up" (you may need to add "-suit -lawsuit" to exclude those terms; hope not).
There are some agents that are preferred with certain extingushants. If you used CO2, you may want to watch for temperature-related blistering on clear finishes--Murphy will insist on hiding them until after you have scrubbed all the smoke residue away.
Get one of the solid cake deodorizers, and leave it in a safe spot in the kitchen (top of the fridge is good, as long as that's not a cat perch)--that will help with the smell. Renting a smoke evac blower (or a "floor drying" blower) they day of the cleanup is not a bad idea.
So, how's the wok? Any material caked in? A well-seasoned wok is hard to replace--even if you have only a nagging worry about seven-syllable extinguishants <g>
Have you got insurance? An insurance claim will clean that up.
Have done a first run through the kitchen with a vacuum cleaner and then windex and paper towels. I figure that ammonia is a reasonable degreaser. Then I will be one to the strong stuff in selected areas...The wok is currently getting a treatment with TSP. After I get the grease off it I will do some reading on removing traces of that. Of course, I may find that it is not possible to salvage the wok. Oh well. The house is not burnt up. I have a lot to be thankful for here.Thank-you for the suggestion of the deodorizer. I will get that going immediately.The ventilation has been going from the beginning.If my house wasn't a 100 years old... there would go a really fine hobby.