Fire, Smoke and Soot Restoration is Critical After a Home Fire

11/2/2020 (Permalink)

Experiencing a fire in your home can be a devastating experience. The anguish of property lost to the flames is only compounded by the property left behind that survived the fire but still looks damaged beyond repair. SERVPRO of South Albany County understands how important it is to help homeowners get back to a place where it feels like the fire never happened at all, but time and experience are key to making that happen. Our fire damage repair and restoration services focus on the fact that fire, smoke and soot restoration is critical to recovery.

Fire Damage Process Overview

When a home fire occurs, reaction time and the steps to assess the damage are significant factors in restoring a home back to its preloss condition. That’s why it’s important to follow an emergency fire damage process; a routine that every highly trained SERVPRO technician follows when coming out to a home that has suffered fire.  SERVPRO’s quick response can reduce continued damage and save money by quickly responding to the incident. It starts with a quick response time to let a homeowner know someone is on the way to assess the damage. Within four hours of loss notification, a SERVPRO professional will be onsite to start mitigation services. A technician will walk the homeowner through the step-by-step process to explain what services are needed and what the expected outcome will be. For restoration of property, they’ll start pretesting for restorability. Once they understand the possible outcome, they’ll communicate findings to the homeowner to get the process started, cleaning, restoring and deodorizing the property. It ends with a final walkthrough so that the homeowner can see what work was completed.

Fire, Smoke, and Soot Restoration Services

There are essentially two types of cleaning that happen during restoration:  structure cleaning and contents cleaning. Structural cleaning relates to ceiling, walls, windows, floors, carpeting and woodwork. All need a thorough cleaning after a fire. In some cases, a simple cleaning may suffice while in other cases, the cleaning may serve as a preface to additional services such as painting.

Contents cleaning can save significant money over replacing items damaged by the fire. Area rugs, furniture, drapes and upholstery can be cleaned and deodorized, saving the homeowner significant expenses of having to replace these items. This cleaning can also be done for electronics, art, kitchen items, clothing, bedding and more. Many homeowners assume that once contents have fire, smoke or soot damage they need to be replaced but that isn’t always the case! Oftentimes cleaning and deodorizing will take contents back to their preloss condition at a fraction of the cost to replace it. SERVPRO’s highly trained fire damage restoration technicians will provide the homeowner with a list of items that can be restored.

Expertise dictates what kind of restoration is done

Different types of smoke cause different types of damage and need to be treated differently. Wet smoke, such as occurs with plastics, can leave items sticky, while dry smoke, such as wood or paper, can leave ash and powdery residue. Unfortunately, there is also damage done from trying to extinguish flames, such as fire extinguisher residue that requires a different type of cleaning. Working with fire damage experts make all the difference in how well the home is restored after fire damage.

Fire, smoke and soot restoration is critical after a home fire and must be handled by a professional that knows how to get the job done. SERVPRO of South Albany County wants to ensure that our customers can return to happily living in their homes after a fire disaster. We have extensive experience and training, including IIRC training and certification, needed to provide you with the level of service you deserve. Call us at (518) 456-1111 so we can help restore your residence after it suffers smoke or fire damage.