The Insiders Guide to Fire Damage Cleaning
50.7% of fires are caused by cooking
A fire is never something you plan on having. A fire is more than just heat and flames. A fire can cause a ripple effect of things even after the fire is put out. What wasn’t burned completely by the fire was definitely affected by smoke and soot. Smoke is a complex mixture of different gases and particles, which results from the various materials that burn during a fire and the particle size of smoke residue on a surface can present a respiratory hazard for everyone in your household (Cultural Heritage). It is important that if there was large amounts of smoke filling the home that you find somewhere else to stay until you can have it cleaned and/or repaired. Most insurance companies will pay for you to relocate during this period.
What wasn’t burned may only have a few stains or at best just smell like smoke. This is not a total loss and many of these items can be cleaned either by yourself or a professional cleaning company.
Let’s start with the floors and furniture. Your carpets and upholstered furniture may have stains and soot on and perhaps in them. Sprinkling baking soda on the carpets can help with stains and smells. Just sprinkle and let sit for a few hours to a day and then vacuum. Keep repeating this process until it’s clean and no longer smells. For items deeply affected it maybe a total loss or perhaps you can get them reupholstered.
When it comes to your clothes and bedding the smoke has gone through all of your closets and dressers. It is important to remember that if your closet doors and drawers were shut it will help with the cleaning process and a simple wash will usually be adequate. For heavier soot smells use a cap of listerine along with your detergent in each load, this will help remove those heavier smells. For stains on clothing and soft goods you can try the baking soda trick of letting it soak and scrubbing it out by hand. Just make sure you remember not to dry anything that still has a stain. When it comes to a complete house we understand that even just washing all of your clothes and bedding can take a long time with multiple loads and scrubbing of those hard to clean items. Bedding, such as comforters, can take up a whole load all on their own and slow the process down even more.
For heavier soot smells use a cap of listerine along with your detergent in each load
By using a professional cleaning service you don’t have to worry about the cleaning, but you also don’t have to worry about the folding and organizing. Northwest Contents is a full service restoration company that cleans with all your clothes with the Esporta Wash System. It’s a state of the art cleaning system that is designed to handle large amounts of soot and sewage. It can also handle up to 100 pounds of laundry per load. Plenty of room for those large comforters and jackets.
Moving on to the physical items such as wood furniture, toys, dishes, and picture frames. These items may have hard to reach surfaces that soot can get to. Soaking these items in a large basin like a bathtub with dish soap is a great way to start. You will also want to remove any dry soot first with a dry sponge before you soak and scrub.
These are the items that are the hardest to clean. Pulling out drawers, taking apart picture frames, and getting into each area is important though. Soot can get into even the smallest of areas and can take time and energy to clean completely.. When it's the stuff you and your family use everyday you want to be assured that it is safe and that over time the smell doesn't return.
We solve this problem by using ultrasonic technology that when soaked in the tank the cavitation bubbles reach all of those hard to reach areas and remove the soot particles from the item. This allows us to process and clean large amounts of hard contents like dishes, toys, and glass items quickly.
It is important to clean everything and that can take time. By using a dedicated team you can continue to live your life and handle the things that you need to do without worrying about how to clean certain items. We pack and inventory everything so you know what we have and clean everything to be free of smoke and soot. If you need anything right away we can handle too and get it to you within a few business days.