Still kicking myself for listening to that old timer about using kerosene to clean soot

Old Ed told me last fall that a little kerosene on the brush makes the soot slide right off, but I tried it on a job over on Maple Street and the whole house smelled like a gas station for 3 days, has anyone else gotten burned by bad advice like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean_johnson162mo ago

Whole house smelled like a gas station for 3 days" - man that's rough. Did you have to strip the paint and reseal to get rid of the smell or did it eventually just fade on its own? I've heard kerosene lingers in porous surfaces like drywall and wood.

julia_carter702mo ago

3 bottles of febreeze and a week of open windows, @sean_johnson16, still couldn't kill it.

parker_park825d ago

@julia_carter70 honestly that sounds like a biohazard at that point... febreeze just masks stuff, it doesn't actually break down whatever chemical nightmare you're dealing with. I had a similar thing happen with a spill of some old paint thinner and it took like three months to fully air out, no joke. Stripping and resealing is probably the only way if it soaked into the drywall, otherwise you're just living with a permanent gas station vibe. At least you didn't burn the place down trying to air it out with a space heater, I guess there's that small win...