How can I make my home have that ozone-clean smell of a large commercial space?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It always amazes me how great many commercial spaces smell - not retail stores, but convention centers, hotels, universities with modern buildings, airports - it’s this sort of uber-clean, slightly ozone’y freshness that doesn’t smell perfumed or heady in any way. I really want my home to have that smell! How can I do it?

I guess the first question is “what IS that smell?” I noticed it most recently at a massive, old hotel while walking the hallway late at night - just this perfectly clean scent. This was a five-star place, so I imagine they’re probably shampooing the carpets every day and I was just getting a whiff of legitimate cleanness.

Anyone have any ideas? Even malls can sometimes achieve this scent if you’re not near the food court.

2

I don’t know about you, but ozone is poisonous so I consider “ozone fresh” to be a very bad smell. Definitely don’t want to recreate that at home.

Perhaps there is something else you are smelling and you can’t think of the right word?

3

I don’t think this is anything too mysterious.

To make your home smell like this, try the following:

  1. NEVER fry anything. In fact, don’t cook at all.
  2. Pay professional cleaners to come through every single night.
    2a. Don’t ask too closely what chemicals those cleaners are using.
  3. Install huge, industrial air conditioning.
  4. Replace your shag carpet with whatever the “short hair” commercial stuff is, or with vinyl flooring.
  5. Never have any dirty laundry in your house. Ever. Not so much as a single sock.
  6. Install double doors separating the bathroom/toilet from the rest of the house (and a powerful air extraction system in there).
  7. Totally rebuild your house so that each room is the size of an airport terminal.

Easy as.

5

I realise there was a fair bit of snark in this reply, but it’s not far off the truth.

Fact is, our houses have much smaller rooms than commercial premises do, and we fill them with our stinky selves - body odour, dirty washing, pets, cooking, bedding we only change once a week at most. We then add in heavy drapes or thick carpets which cling onto those smells as if their lives depended on it.

However, some places, such a very nice hotels, do pump nice smells through the air conditioning system. You could always try that.

6

Also, don’t have any type of pet - or kids for that matter!

7

If you really want an ozone smell, you can buy ozone generators. Or you can run a Tesla coil for a long time, or a short-wave ultraviolet lamp (we run one every day in our facility, and you can definitely smell the ozone).

Ozone IS poisonous, but it’s also a powerful disinfectant.

8

I stayed in a hotel once where I requested a non-smoking room. I was asked to wait an hour or two before going to the room because they were using an ozone generator to rid the room of the cigarette odor from the previous guest.

9

There are large-scale aromatherapy systems that integrate into a building’s HVAC. I had a doctor in the Carolinas whose offices always had a calming subtle scent. Never really thought to ask them what they were using.

For home, you can do one of those little desktop diffusers, or you can find larger units.

10

I bought an ozone generator to deodorize my in-law’s house as I was prepping it for resale after they passed away. It helped quite a bit, but it still took a lot of elbow grease to get the smoke stains and odors out of that house.

You definitely want to let the ozone dissipate before going back into an area you’ve treated. Make sure to move all plants and pets out of there before you use it, too, otherwise it will kill them.

Also, I’ve used it to deodorize our cars when they gt a bit musty over winter or during humid weather. Works great!

11

I’m surprised they divulged that to you. (Some people would raise a stink about not getting a truly non-smoking room.)

You left out an important bit … did it work? Could you smell anything when you walked into the room?

12

Ozone generators are not a deep dark secret of the hospitality industry, and the devices aren’t even expensive.