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  • One hell of a cleaning job!
    Get those big 5 litre jugs of industrial degreaser (water degradable stuff), wear a paper suit with genuine marigolds taped over the top, full goggles, mask with proper filters on it, then get to work. Or just insure the place and let it burn. As even with duck taped on marigolds, the fowl brown stank juice will run into your arm pits.
    Fag tar or 3rd hand smoke is impossible to remove from many surfaces, but you can try and get most of it out and then seal it in with something like zinsser. Smaller radiators I would just replace as you'll have to remove it and disturb the joints anyway.
    Got a piano off a family member who smoked a lot even for that time period 35 years ago, despite various attempts to clean it, and 35 years, still reeks. Anyone without lungs of steel will not be able to lift the lid on it and inhale in any way. Should take it to schools and chemically shock kids with it into staying away from cigs. Anyone who ever makes the statement 'don't worry about the smoke, it'll air out', needs to take a look at themselves.

  • The hours of sponging, painting and then sanding (the floor) did the job. We stopped getting whiffs of stale cigarette about a year ago. I think the smell sustains in some places as they don't get forensic on the cleaning. We were lucky that this was a room with tongue and groove floor boards. The other rooms have so much dust and shite under the floor boards what could have absorbed the smell that it would have been impossible. The living room (the next worst room) had laminate flooring. That and the underlay below it took the hit. Once we removed that it was 95% gone from that room.

    For the rad, being thorough about getting all the dust from the fins on the back and being liberal with the cleaning fluid really worked. No damage to the joints, no leaks a year or so on. Used Dulux Quick Dry Eggshell (Timeless, an off white colour we use for any woodwork that would normally be painted brilliant white) and the stains have not come through. Even where there was surface rust.

    But, I agree on the comment about replacing. We have replaced quite a few in this house, the only ones we repainted were this one and the one next door in ms_com's office. They may well be replaced in future but they are in small, well insulated rooms so there has been no real rush. An hour and a couple of coats of that eggshell (mostly brushed on then a roller over the main flat surfaces, need to make sure the brush strokes in the "valleys" are long and straight or else it looks like a dog's dinner) and they are grand from 5 ft away.

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