Can the Interior of My Granby Home Ever Look the Same After Severe Fire Damage?

12/30/2021 (Permalink)

SERVPRO will get your house back to feeling like home again. Call on our professionals for help after a fire in your home.

SERVPRO Offers Full-Spectrum Fire Damage Restoration Services to Granby Residents, Including Repair, Resurfacing, and Rebuilding Options

Fire damage recovery in Granby can be a complicated matter, involving the employment of many disaster restoration strategies. A typical household fire, even if quickly knocked down, can include the following phases and remedies:

• Safety assessment
• Contaminated water containment and removal
• Debris cleanup
• Residue and surface evaluations and matching with effective cleaning products and methods to eliminate 
• Deodorization
• Repair and rebuilding of significantly burned structures and fixtures

Why Are Fire Damage Residues So Hard to Remove?

Everyday dirt and grime can pose a bit of a problem, but the conditions during which they settle on floors and surfaces are relatively consistent. Sweeping, a pass of the vacuum, dusting or a bucket and mop chases them away in short order. Fire damage in your Granby house can be a different matter. The soiling presented is not just tramped in leaves and garden dirt, food prep leftovers, the odd spill, or dust motes finally clinging to the woodwork. During the fire, the heat and the continuous combustion of a wide range of building materials, fixtures, and contents change everyday items into chemically altered substances. Benign materials transform into toxic, hazardous residues that are both airborne and attached to every surface in your home.

How Did the Fire Damage Inside my House Spread So Widely?

When materials catch fire, the burning heat causes the vapors and incompletely combusted bits of fuel, also known as soot particles, to spread on air currents. Hot air rises, so the pattern often is seen more substantial soot deposits near and on ceilings. The heat and response of the lighter-than-air particles of soot also explain why the soiling occurs one or more levels above the ignition site. If the vents in your HVAC system were open during the fire, soot could travel through the ductwork, emerging far from where the fire burned and thought confined.

My Attempts Only Made the Situation Worse! How Do I Clean Up?

Leave fire damage cleanup to our SERVPRO team of the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC)-trained technicians. Rigorous coursework plus on the job experience under the tutelage of seasoned fire restorers helps our employees recognize the different types of soot commonly seen in household fires and then match the residues with effective propriety cleaners and appropriate techniques. Failure to follow these steps frequently results in smearing and setting in stains and incomplete removal of corrosive residues.

Is It Dangerous to Clean Up Soot?

The air quality inside your home after a fire in Granby can give cause for concern. When we assess the scene, we likely recommend at least partial containment of the hardest-hit spaces to improve the conditions our workers and occupants endure during cleanup. Wrapping the area with 1.6 mil polyethylene and employing a negative pressure air scrubber forces airborne residues through HEPA filters. Our crews also wear personal protective equipment (PPE) to avoid inhaling the residues or allowing skin contact during the project. We suggest you and your family avoid the work areas as much as possible.

How Can You Handle Severe Charring of Building Materials?

We always trend toward the restoration of damaged materials rather than demolition and replacement. This approach is less disruptive and costly in both time and money, but it is not always appropriate for every scenario. As we work on returning soot-encrusted surfaces to preloss conditions, we also encounter circumstances where the underlying material sustained significant damage from the heat and burning of the fire. There are options short of rebuilding, even in severe cases. We also consider a hybrid response when some areas of fire damaged materials can emerge from aggressive cleaning intact and can return to function while another section cannot. Here are some strategies we use:

Blistered and Peeling Finishes

• If brushing the loose finish reveals relatively undamaged material beneath, refinishing or painting can proceed after thorough cleaning and drying.
• Additional layers of charring might respond to controlled removal. We might choose to use an appropriate abrasive technique like fine-grit sandpaper or steel wool until we find undamaged, stable material to refinish.

Charred Structural Components Unable to Provide Support

When the integrity of a structural component or fixture becomes irreparably damaged by burn-through or heavy charring, our rebuilding division can assist with demolition and repair, and reconstruction.

Engaging the services of SERVPRO of Hampshire County gives homeowners a seamless and low-stress restoration experience after a destructive fire. We can handle everything from initial assessment to rebuilding severely burned structures, starting with a call to (413) 324-1300.