Fire damage cleanup

2/9/2021 (Permalink)

Soot, smoke, and water damage caused by fire can be pervasive, even if the fire was contained and quickly extinguished. It’s likely that every item in the affected rooms will need to be cleaned at a minimum. That includes walls, ceilings, flooring, furniture, and personal items.

• Soot removal. Soot is an oily substance and can easily stain items it lands on. Don’t touch any items covered with soot, such as upholstered furniture, curtains, or carpeting, because you could rub stains in. A restoration service will use a heavy-duty vacuum to remove soot. If you try to do it yourself, hold the vacuum nozzle above the surface of the items to suck up soot, but don’t use the brush attachment because you might rub the soot in.
• Ozone treatment for odors.The odor of smoke will permeate all textile items in the room, and they must be deodorized. The restoration service will use an ozone generator to produce an oxidizing agent to remove the odor. Often, the service will place the items under a tent while the ozone generator is operating. Don’t clean clothing and other fabric items before they’ve been deodorized because you might set the odor into the fabric.
• Thermal fogging for odors. The structural elements in your home can also soak up the odor of smoke during a fire. That’s because the heat of the fire causes pores in wallboard to open and fill with smoke. As the house cools, the smoke gets trapped in the wallboard. Restoration companies use a process called thermal fogging to reopen the pores and neutralize odors. However, smoke odor can also get into the insulation in your attic, and there is no way to neutralize that odor. The insulation will have to be replaced if it smells smoky.

After the soot has been removed and odors have been neutralized, items need to be cleaned. Draperies and upholstered furniture should be dry-cleaned, and some restoration companies can do that in your house. The carpets also need to be cleaned professionally.

https://housemethod.com/maintenance/fire-damage-restoration/

SERVPRO of North Arlington is here for all of your restoration needs.