A Primer for Cleaning Fire Damage in Your Plantation Home

8/6/2019 (Permalink)

Fires cause charring, smoke, and soot damage. You can trust SERVPRO to restore your home to its preloss state.

Tips for Cleaning Up Your Plantation Home After Fire Damage  

Dealing with a house fire is heartbreaking. You have to cope with the loss of valuable possessions and the challenge of getting your home back to normal. Some common problems to handle include soot, smoke, and cleaning up the chemicals or water that firefighters used to extinguish the fire. The water and chemicals can ruin the walls, carpeting, and furniture, among other things.  

To deal with fire damage in your Plantation home, you should first assess the extent of the destruction. It is essential to open up all doors and windows to let in fresh air or use a fan to increase ventilation. Increased airflow helps remove residual smoke and minimize the odors that burnt materials and soot cause.  

A fire can destroy many items in your house, and it may be necessary to replace them. You may only be able to figure out which things to replace after cleaning everything up. Cleaning up items in your house might seem like a tiresome task, but you need to complete it as soon as possible since procrastinating it can make matters worse. To clean up your property, some of the things you need include:  

• Trisodium phosphate (TSP) cleaner 
• Rubber gloves 
• A large sponge and rags 
• Buckets 
• A mask to protect your face 
• Goggles to protect your eyes  

After wearing the safety gear, soak the sponge into the TSP solution, containing a tablespoon of TSP and a gallon of water. Soot may be on all the surfaces exposed to the fire. Secure the carpets and upholstered furniture since the residue is oily and can stain them easily. Start cleaning the surfaces that have soot and smoke damage such as ceilings and walls. Begin from the top to the bottom because some residue can fall off from the surfaces you are cleaning. After that, dip the rags in warm water and rinse the affected surfaces.  

Once you remove the soot, the next task is to deal with the smoke damage. Smoke creates odors that can linger in walls, ceilings, draperies, and fabrics even after you have tried to remove them using baking soda, white vinegar, and activated charcoal. Eliminating odors is difficult because the damage is at the molecular level. It is advisable to hire SERVPRO franchise professionals to remove the smoke odor. Our Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration Technicians (FSRTs) can use high-level skills and deodorizing agents or equipment to remove the smells effectively. 

We can use dry ice blasting to eliminate or minimize the musty burnt scent resulting from smoke, fire, and water damage. Our SERVPRO technicians can also apply sealants on walls to block smells from escaping. Another strategy is using hydroxyl generators to remove unpleasant odors.  

If you need fire damage restoration services in Ft. Lauderdale, Davie Fort or Lauderdale Beach, contact SERVPRO of Ft. Lauderdale South at (954) 776-2000 for help. We’re Faster To Any Size Disaster.

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