Eliminating Smoke And Odors In Your Home After A Fire

7/14/2022 (Permalink)

We can examine the extent of the destruction and take the right steps to make it “Like it never even happened.”

Fires can happen at any time, and the most common culprits are cooking and heating equipment. Residual damage such as fire odor, smoke, soot, and ash always happens after a fire. Some water damage also commonly occurs while extinguishing fires. All homes contain different materials that burn and create unique cleaning and restoration challenges.

To restore your Cleveland home after fire damage, you need to take care of smoke, fire, and water damage. Our SERVPRO Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration Technicians (FSRTs) have experience in addressing these issues. Smoke and odors can emanate from burned wood or paper and melted plastics. Smoke damage typically falls into 4 categories:

    •    Dry smoke – Usually results from fast-burning and high-temperature fires.
    •    Wet smoke – Results from smoldering or low heat fires. The smoke from a wet fire has a smeary, sticky texture, and a pungent odor.
    •    Fuel oil soot smoke – It results from furnace smoke returns, which cause oily soot.
    •    Protein smoke – Fires that burn plants, food, or other organic matter emit this smoke. It discolors varnishes and paints and has a pungent scent.

Smoke can penetrate walls and other surfaces quickly and drift through air ducts. Smoke odor can remain in furniture and clothing if it not deodorized properly. Smoke also penetrates cabinets and drawers, meaning that if you do not clean up your house properly, the odor can continue to re-occur for long periods.

Smoke can also ruin delicate works of art such as sculptures and paintings. The same acid that damages wood and metals can discolor the paint on canvas and the stone that makes up sculptures. When this occurs, the beauty of an art piece diminishes, and its monetary value reduces. We can work with a curator to restore ruined artwork.

Our fire damage restoration process is proven and thorough. It includes finding the source of the fire to determine the type of smoke and odors present in a home. Our technicians also determine if any areas of a house are wet because of firefighting efforts. We extract the water using shop vacs and dry the affected areas using air moving and dehumidifying equipment. We also remove any charred contents that could seal in smoke and smells like burned wood and insulation.

We can clean affected surfaces to eradicate the soils or soot particles. We perform several cleaning actions based on the affected surface and type of smoke particles present. Our technicians often perform mechanical action before other cleaning actions. Mechanical action is useful for pre-cleaning excess, non-greasy residues from surfaces before applying solvent-based or water-based cleaning products. Our SERVPRO technicians also treat affected surfaces for smoke scents using dry solvent deodorizers and thermal fogging equipment.

To deal with the aftermath of a fire in your home, call SERVPRO of The North Coast at (216) 221-3333 to assist you. We can examine the extent of the destruction and take the right steps to make it “Like it never even happened.”