The smell is not on the surface of the furniture — it is in the padding and the fabric. That is why wiping and cleaning products change nothing.
There are three typical situations:
In all three the mechanism is the same. Soft furniture is a porous material with an enormous internal surface: foam, polyester wadding, cotton batting, spring unit padding, fibreboard. Air passes through it freely, and with the air, moisture, dust and volatile compounds go into the material. And there they stay.
The smell itself comes from two processes. The first is microbial activity in a damp environment: bacteria and mould in the padding release volatile compounds, and it is those that give the characteristic musty, “basement” smell. The second is the breakdown of old materials themselves: foam crumbles over the years, adhesives in chipboard off-gas, leather and timber oils oxidise.
If you wipe a sofa with a damp cloth or treat it with cleaning foam, you are working on the first couple of millimetres — the source of the smell is ten centimetres deeper.
That is why after a thorough clean the smell often disappears for a day or two and then comes back — because it never went anywhere. The same logic applies to rugs with a thick backing, heavy carpets, curtains, pillows, blankets and clothes kept for a long time in a closed wardrobe.
Another common situation is an inherited or purchased flat where one person lived for many years with their own habits. There the smell is usually not in one object but distributed across everything: the sofa, the curtains, the inside of the wardrobe, the skirting boards, sometimes the wallpaper too.
The person who lived there does not notice it at all, because the nose adapts to a constant smell within a few days. The new owner notices it immediately and often overestimates the problem — in reality cases like this respond quite well to treatment, provided the materials are dry.
Second-hand furniture brought from a summer house, a garage or a basement deserves a separate mention. There a damp component is nearly always added to the ordinary smell of age, because in an unheated space the material absorbs and gives up moisture several times over a season. This is the category where treatment most often fails to give a lasting result.
Ozone is a gas, and that is the one essential difference from any kind of surface cleaning. A gas spreads everywhere air can get: into padding, into a spring unit, under upholstery fabric, inside a wardrobe, into the gap behind a back panel. There it oxidises odour molecules rather than covering them with another scent.
In practice that means furniture does not have to be moved out during treatment. Quite the opposite — it should be left in the room and preferably opened up: the sofa bed pulled out, wardrobe doors open, drawers slid out, the mattress lifted off the bed frame. The more freely air can get in, the more even the result.
| Item | What ozone treatment achieves | When it will not help |
|---|---|---|
| Sofa, armchair | Treats the fabric and padding right through | If the foam has crumbled or is soaked |
| Mattress | One treatment is often enough | If the padding is damp and mouldy |
| Rug, carpet | Removes the accumulated smell | If the backing has gone mouldy |
| Curtains, textiles | Removes smell without washing | Practically always helps |
| Wooden wardrobe, chest of drawers | Treats the inside and the gaps at the back | If the timber has rotted |
| Books, papers | Good result if they are open and spread out | Not advisable for very fragile paper |
The result also varies by material. Synthetic fabrics and foam clear of smell quickly. Natural wool, thick cotton padding and leather furniture need longer treatment, because the material is denser and holds the smell more tightly. Old sprung beds with a layer of cotton batting are among the hardest cases — the padding there is thick, dense and has absorbed everything that was ever in the room over decades.
Another practical question is how long the treatment takes. A single treatment is enough in most household cases. If a piece is very old and the smell very strong, one longer treatment is sometimes more useful than two short ones — but that can only be said on site, looking at the actual item.
In cases like that we say it directly: replacing will be cheaper than repeat treatment. A new mattress costs less than three ozone treatments, and afterwards you do not have to come back to the same question. The same applies to sofas with crumbling foam and rugs with a mouldy backing. If the material is lost, it is more honest to say so than to sell a treatment that will not work.
There is a simple way to work out what you are dealing with. Take the suspect item — a mattress, a chair, a drawer — out onto the balcony or into another room for two or three days, then come back into the flat from outside. If the smell in the room has noticeably decreased, that item is the source. If it is unchanged, the source is somewhere else and treating the furniture will not solve the problem.
If the smell is caused by damp in the room itself, not just in the furniture, the problem is broader — more on the Musty mould smell page. It is also worth reading Ventilation in a flat, because in a poorly ventilated room the same situation will repeat itself with the new furniture.
We assess which pieces smell and whether their padding is dry.
We tell you what can be treated and what will be cheaper to replace than to treat.
We open wardrobes, pull out the sofa, spread out textiles and take out books.
We treat the room together with the furniture — the gas gets into the padding.
We air the premises and check whether any smell is left in an individual item.
The smell of old books comes from the slow breakdown of paper fibres and adhesives, and in a damp room mould on the covers and page edges is added to it. Ozone treatment handles that well, because the gas gets in between the pages — but only if the books are taken out of a tightly packed row during treatment and at least partly opened. A tightly packed shelf will only be treated from the outside.
Two things to bear in mind. Ozone is a strong oxidiser, so very old, fragile paper and delicate photographs can become more fragile still under prolonged treatment. If a valuable edition or an archive is involved, say so beforehand — we then treat more gently or advise against it altogether.
In old wardrobes the smell often comes from the back panel and the undersides of the shelves, where there has been no air movement for years. If there are visible dark patches inside the wardrobe, it is no longer only a smell problem. What to prepare before treatment:
Ozone treatment €1.20/m², minimum €60. If surface treatment is needed — after an inspection.
No, the other way round — furniture and textiles are exactly what absorb the smell, so they should stay in the room. It is best to open wardrobe doors, pull out the sofa bed and lift the mattress so the gas can reach from all sides.
If it has only taken up a damp smell but the padding is dry — usually yes. If the padding is soaked and there is mould in it, treatment gives a short-lived result, and we recommend replacement, because that costs less than repeat treatments.
Not in the normal treatment regime. Care is needed with very old, fragile papers, photographs and natural rubber — if there is anything like that in the room, say so beforehand and we will take it into account.
Describe the situation — we will tell you whether treatment is needed at all, and which one.
Fill in the form — we will call you on the number you provide, ask a few clarifying questions and propose a solution.
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