How Does Professional Fire Damage Restoration in Teaneck Differ From DIY Methods?

9/29/2020 (Permalink)

Smoke damage and soot can get everywhere and infiltrate your home. Contact our certified technicians for services.

SERVPRO techs know that damage from a fire in your Teaneck home is never something homeowners should handle on their own; the best outcome comes from using a professional mitigation company

After a fire in a Teaneck property, whether large or small, it is always best to bring in a professional company for the cleanup. One reason among the many is there are different types of smoke damage, and self-cleaning methods can wind up doing more harm than good to the structure. Additionally, the following problem can occur:  

• Cross-contamination of soot throughout the home
• Potential health issues from skin contact or breathing in airborne particulate  
• Knowledge of controlled demolition tactics for working safely around charred building materials  

Should Homeowners Remain in the Home During Fire Damage Restoration Services?  

Whether or not you stay in your Teaneck home during fire damage restoration depends on a few things such as:   

• If the fire department stated it was safe to do so  
• The area can be contained from the rest of the home  
• You are comfortable without running your HVAC 
• You can reliably keep other family members and pets out of the worksite  

Soot particles can be airborne and exist smaller than the human eye can see, yet they can be highly irritating to both the respiratory system and skin if you come into contact with them. While setting up containment or negative air chambers helps limit the spread of soot and chances of cross-contamination, the threat is still there if you remain on the property.

How Does SERVPRO Keep Homes Safe During the Fire Damage Cleanup?  

There are several tactics that the SERVPRO team uses to ensure that the property and contents remain safe and secure during the mitigation process. If there are valuable items in your home that you cannot get to, the crew chief will be happy to obtain any articles or heirlooms you want to remove off-site. It is unfortunate, but sometimes people who are curious or have ill-intentions attempt to enter properties after the fire damage in Teaneck has happened. The techs have many methods they use to keep your home safe during the cleanup and restoration, including:  

• Securely boarding up windows and doors when the techs are not working on-site
• Tarping damaged roofing until repairs can occur to stop rain or snow from entering
• Placement of security tape around the perimeter to keep unauthorized persons out
• Organized pack-out of undamaged furnishings and other contents to a secure location

The cleaning of fire damage in a home usually involves the removal of charred items first. These articles have zero restoration potential. One by one, as they are carefully taken out of the worksite, they get photographed and documented to get placed in a report given to the homeowner to use to expedite any insurance claims for the loss of property due to the fire.

Smoke damage on walls, ceilings, and floors gets handled in two distinct ways. When the soot covering the sheetrock or flooring is too embedded, or there is evidence of charring, it requires removal and disposal. There is no way to return these materials to a sanitary standard for reuse. The second way involves testing the residues to determine if they are dry or wet smoke and choosing the appropriate cleaning method. Dry smoke is most frequently found on walls and ceilings as it comes from high heat fires and settles as a light, powdery residue. Using any liquid cleaner on this kind of smoke damage is a recipe for disaster and is a mistake made by individuals attempting DIY cleanup after a fire. When this type of residue gets wet, it has the potential to drive more deeply into the surface, subsequently ruining it. 

Instead, this type of smoke damage gets gently lifted away through the patient and light-handed use of brushes and dry cleaning sponges. Then the techs follow up with more robust cleaning methods. When the smoke residues prove to be of the "wet smoke" variety, cleaning solutions that include solvents get used for releasing the grip the residue has on the surface it is on. SERVPRO techs always test the surface they are cleaning to ensure that the method they use brings no harm, only restoration.

SERVPRO of Teaneck / Englewood at (201) 266-0482 when you need fast fire damage restoration for your property and contents. The trained, certified technicians have the latest equipment and advanced methods for making the fire damage to the home, "Like it never even happened."