Once The Fire Truck Leaves

12/15/2020 (Permalink)

Once the fire trucks leave, the first step to clean up and restoration is the board-up. This is part of the emergency services provided by SERVPRO. Firefighters will often break windows and cut holes in the roof to help air out the property from all the smoke and heat. The board-up is essential to secure your property from theft and liability.

How The Smoke Travels

Even small-scale fires in a home can result in large amounts of fire and smoke damage. If your HVAC (your heater or A/C) system is on, then the smoke will most likely enter through the return vents and be spread throughout the duct system. This will not only carry the smoke and the smoke damage throughout the house but also cause smoke damage to your ducts.

Your ducts might have dust throughout the system, which can absorb the smoke, meaning every time your air conditioner or heater turns on, you'll smell the residual smoke for weeks and months after the fire.

Get The Water Out As Soon As Possible

SERVPRO responded to a fire damage call that received water damage that nearly equaled the amount of damage from the fire. Sometimes fires are put out by extinguishers, and water is not a factor in the cleanup process. When there is water damage in tandem with fire loss, the water's extraction must happen as quickly as possible.

The water removal process begins almost immediately. It is essential to remove the majority of the water as soon as possible to avoid mold growth. Our technicians use state of the art moisture detection equipment and years of experience to find the water trapped behind the walls and under floors. We then use dehumidifiers and air movers to remove the remaining water and complete the drying process.

Saving Your Belongings

Once our SERVPRO professionals arrive at your home or business, always in properly marked SERVPRO vehicles and uniforms, we can get to work on mitigation techniques designed to preserve your property and its contents. Processes like pack-outs remove the at-risk furniture and contents from your property to our secured warehouse.

Pack-outs provide a safe place for their storage and specialized attention until it is time to return them to your fully restored home. Separating the two gives us a better opportunity to clean and restore the structure. During their time with our Contents Department, individual items get cleaned, disinfected, and deodorized to be ready for their return to the property.

Our crews hand wrap and protect every large item, such as furniture, tables, chairs, and artwork. Smaller items are sorted and put into boxes. For inventory purposes, we photograph and label each item packed out and removed, and organize these pictures and labels in our proprietary software to keep track of your items during the entire process accurately.