Time is of the Essence: Fire Restoration

It begins with a faint smell of smoke in the air. You're hearing strange crackling sounds in the dead of night. Unpleasantly alarmed by the signal of your smoke detector as its siren fills your home. All of a sudden, heat clouds the air. Smoke becomes the unwanted visitor in your home. In minutes, fire ravages the home and threatens your family. Underwriters Laboratories (UL) is a lab that conducts fire testing. It was discovered that with the significant amount of synthetic materials found today, a home could be immersed in flames in less than 4 minutes. Fire spreads fast, leaving a very destructive trail. Fire has tons of unique properties. For example, outside of the initial flame, the traces it leaves are what many homeowners struggle to battle against. However, there is no time to waste. There are ways to minimize the effects a fire has left in its wake when acted upon quickly.

Cross Contamination

The contents of a home don't have to be directly engulfed in flames. The heat produced by the event causes items that are in an entirely different room to swell, crack, or shatter. Porous materials that have expanded due to the heat are very welcoming to smoke particles. These particles are very fine and have a way of settling in those pores deeply to leave a lingering smell of smoke. Cross contamination happens so easily in a fire loss, the damage can spread quickly just as a result of the secondary effects. Knowing all of this, one can reasonably conclude that the best way to prevent further loss is to act quickly.

Calling the Professionals

So, it’s best to act as soon as possible, why shouldn’t a homeowner attempt to mitigate the damage themselves? Although your intention is to help, you may actually have the opposite effect. Smoke particles and soot will be pushed deeper into the material as a result of methods not performed by a professional. Using the wrong cleaning agent could strip stain or varnish from wood, as well as cause rust or corrosion on metal surfaces. Unfortunately, typical cleaning methods will not remove the odor left behind from a fire. This is the reason special machinery and restoration methods exist for professionals to use and perform. Our best advice: contact the experts as soon as possible.

Preventing Further Damage

The ultimate goal of a fire restoration specialist is to restore the home to pre-loss condition. The longer the contents of the home are sitting in an area covered in soot and smoke damage, the more difficult to restore they become. Painted walls and flooring will be permanently stained or damaged. This will only get worse the longer they sit in an environment with harmful effects. Act quickly, and these kinds of damages will be avoided or remediated. Experiencing fire loss? Call the experts at Thompson Building Associates. Our emergency mitigation crews are available 24/7 and make time our priority. Mitigating the damage and restoring it to ensure you’re back in your home as soon as possible. For more information, find us on Facebook or Instagram.