What steps does smoke and soot restoration include?
There aren’t many devastating experiences that can affect your home that are as terrifying and destructive like fire damage. Flames have the power not to only destroy your possessions and memories, but they can also severely damage your home and its structural integrity. Once the fire is put out and you’re over the shock of what happened, it’s time to start the recovery process include smoke and soot restoration.
It’s best that you don’t attempt this on your own, using DIY methods you can find online. Instead, you should contact a professional smoke and sooth restoration company, that uses professional tools, equipment, knowledge and chemicals to get the job done.
After a fire is put out, there will be an intense smell or smoke in your home and soot will find its way in every corner of the house.
Without smoke and soot restoration, you’re looking at continuous ongoing issues no matter if the fire affected your home or commercial building. The speed at which smoke and soot can cause damage is extreme. For example, smoke can turn your walls yellow within days and soot can corrode and damage your electrical equipment even if they haven’t been damaged or affected by the recent fire.
What should you do before smoke and soot restoration process?
After the fire department has extinguished the flames and your house/commercial building is safe to enter, you should first declutter the areas that were affected by the flames.
We highly recommend that you go through all your belongings, see what you can salvage and discard what you cannot. Once the fire damage restoration company arrives, you can ask them to evaluate what items/belongings you can salvage and how cost-effective it is. Remember, sometimes replacing something is much cheaper than trying to fix/repair it.
Once you’re done with the decluttering, our team experienced in smoke and soot restoration will go through each room to determine the extent of the smoke damage on the walls and ceilings and to devise a “game plan” how to repair it.
Smoke and soot damage are quite easy to see, but the untrained eye won’t be able to see everything. People can be quite surprised how far and deep can smoke and soot damage go.
The important thing about smoke and soot restoration is to understand the facts that are involved with fire and smoke damage. Professional restoration services are experts in this and they have extensive experience in this area. Naturally, not everything affected by fire, smoke and soot can be recovered or restored. Or they can, but the costs are just too high. This will be made clear to both you and the insurance adjuster when they conduct their own investigation.
Soot damage
The first step in smoke and soot restoration is the removal of soot from the affected areas. This includes all floors and other affected areas. Team of experts at ASAP Restoration will use special protective gear and vacuums that will clean up all the loose soot.
Protective gear is necessary because sooth can be quite dangerous for your lungs. This is why soot removal should be done by a professional team, because you need to remove all of it. It’s a process that takes time, it cannot be rushed and it’s important that soot isn’t spread further while it’s being vacuumed.
Our team of experts will also inspect all the walls in your home/commercial building for soot particles and if necessary, they will be vacuumed as well. Soot that remains after the vacuuming can cause real problems during the next phase (cleaning) so it’s important that you get rid of it completely.
Smoke damage
The second stage in the smoke and soot restoration process is to remove the smoke damage from the windows, walls, ceiling. This is done through dry cleaning or with the help of a chemical sponge. This is gentle and detailed work that can only be done on dry surfaces.
When the restoration team is done with the dry phase, the wet cleaning will commence. This involves using special cleaning solutions.
The next step is to perform a degreasing and scrubbing of the affected surface. Some and soot restoration crew will use special solutions and chemicals to remove oil-soluble smoke and soot particles. Once that is done and dry, the areas will finally be rinsed using hot water which should remove any remaining smoke and soot particles, as well as the chemicals that were used in the cleaning process
Why should you use professional smoke and soot restoration services?
When your home or commercial building gets affected by fire damage, following by smoke and soot damage, it’s important that you trust the cleaning process to an experienced and reputable restoration company. Fire and smoke can still cause damage to your belongings, even if the fire is put out. So for successful smoke and soot restoration, a professional approach, that will remove all the smoke and soot damage is required. This way, you can rest assure that everything is thoroughly cleaned, restored and you can know that your home/commercial building is safe for use once again.
