A local store was having its fur vault fumigated, as it did every year after all the furs had been moved into storage for the summer. Something went wrong during the process, and the vault was overloaded with fumes. No one knew what to do to clear out the room. There were no windows, and the vault’s only opening was the door. If the employees set a fan in the doorway, it would blow the fumes out into the rest of the store.

The store called the contractor I was working for at the time to see what we could do. We had a couple of army surplus oil-fired heaters that had originally been used to warm airplane motors in cold weather. These were complete with cloth ducts 1′ in diameter - once used to distribute the heat anywhere it was needed on the airplane. We set one of the heaters in the vault, connected enough cloth duct to reach up the stairs and outdoors, and ran just the fan on the heater to expel the polluted air from the room. As the fumes were sucked out, they were automatically replaced with fresh air.

Never underestimate the power of fresh air to eliminate even the strongest odors. You just have to figure out a way to get the air to the odor.

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