Eliminating Car Odors with Ozone

2/17/2018 (Permalink)

Ozone rids offensive odors in the environment rather than merely filtering out some of the visible particles like other “air cleaners”.

If you are having odor issues in your car you can use ozone to efficiently and effectively oxidize (breakdown) any organic matter, killing the odor at its source. This is a great option to rid your vehicle of the stench of tobacco smoke and can even take care of the famous northwest Iowa farm smell – you know the one, it smells like money, but it’s a pain when it lingers in your car!

Here are the steps our staff takes when we ozone a vehicle:

1. First, all rubber components on your console will be rubbed down with an Armor Guard product. If you have leather seats, we will apply a leather conditioner.
2. Then we roll up the windows with the ozone machine placed and sealed through one of the windows. We then turn on the ozone machine and let it run for 15 minutes with your air conditioner running so that it cycles through your entire air system.
3. We then turn off the vehicle and allow the ozone machine to run for an additional 30 minutes.
4. After we run through that complete cycle, we turn off the machine and open all windows to ventilate the car for about 20 minutes.

After we complete the ozone your car is ready for pick-up – or we can detail the vehicle. We can also treat the upholstery and deodorize with lemon fresh mister on the floor of the vehicle.

To Schedule an ozone please contact us at (712) 262-4379 or email office@SERVPROspencer.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Does Ozone Handle Tobacco Smoke?

It eliminates the irritation caused by phenol gasses, by oxidizing them. Phenol gasses are the invisible part of tobacco smoke that cause such offensive odors, and discomfort to one’s eyes and nasal passages.

Ozone rids offensive odors in the environment rather than merely filtering out some of the visible particles like other “air cleaners”.

Is Ozone Safe?

Yes! Ozone is safe when used properly. There is no reason to fear ozone. Yes, breathing in overly high levels of ozone is not good for you. But low levels of ozone are all around us, and are safe to breathe.

What is Ozone?

When the oxygen (O2) that is all around us rises to the upper atmosphere, and is exposed to the sun's ultraviolet rays, that oxygen is naturally turned into ozone (O3). That is the "ozone layer" that protects us from the sun's harmful UV rays. Since ozone is heavier than air, it falls back to earth. This is the ozone that naturally purifies our air and water. Because it is made up entirely of oxygen, ozone is sometimes called "activated oxygen". Ozone occurs commonly in nature as a result of lightning strikes during thunderstorms. Ozone is also created by waterfalls. The “fresh, clean, spring rain” smell you notice after a storm results from natures creation of ozone.

Ozone is O3, three atoms of oxygen linked together, rather than the two atoms of oxygen, O2, we normally breathe. O3 Ozone is not smog

While some people mistakenly refer to ozone as smog, smog is actually a combination of hydrocarbons, the being CO2 CO, and SO2 that react with UV rays from the sun to form nitric oxides (NOX). These hydrocarbons are most commonly created by the exhaust that comes from automobiles.

The three atom form of oxygen is a naturally occurring compound in the earth’s atmosphere. The life cycle of ozone is: generation, oxidation, return to oxygen.

Ozone cannot be stored or transported because of its unstable tendency to break down quickly, so ozone must be generated on site. Because gaseous ozone is highly reactive, it readily oxidizes (breaks down) organic matter. When the ozone encounters another compound, one oxygen atom will break away, attach itself to the compound, and oxidize it. Ozone actually breaks down odor-causing compounds, thereby eliminating the odor and changing the ozone back to oxygen (O2).

One of the best features of ozone is its ability to control odors by attacking the offending organisms.

We have commercial grade ozone machines that we can use to eliminate odors.