Fire Damage Restoration Process

When a fire ruins your house it is more than a disaster, it is a real apocalypse. But life goes on, and after the fire has been extinguished, it is time to comprehend what to do with your burnt property. All this is related to the term fire damage restoration process.

To deal with all the aspects that are included in fire restoration process, you have two options to your choice:

• Doing all the things yourself. That is quite possible for DIY fans or those who have time and inspiration to restore the house in full.
• Hiring fire damage restoration team. In this case, you will get all the work done quickly, but you have to pay for it, sure.

Both ways have their pros and cons. Yet, essentially, the full fire restoration damage process will be quite the same in both cases. Let's talk about it in detail.

What Happens to Your House after a Fire?

Restoring a home after a fire is a complex and time-consuming job. It is impossible to get rid of the pungent smell of smoke and soot just with the help of weathering. And soot will never succumb to conventional detergents. Combustion products settle in hard-to-reach places and penetrate deep into the surface. Furniture, clothing, dishes and other objects don't just turn into a source of unpleasant odor, but into a time bomb that poisons the body.

If the walls and roof are completely burnt out and only the foundation remains, it will not be possible to restore such a house after a fire without dismantling the burnt walls and roof. In this case, you need to rebuild the house from scratch. That is, no matter to say, a long and complex process that requires dozens of tons of dollars. But this is the hardest situation. More often, a house after a fire requires fewer efforts and money. If your walls, slabs, roof and floors are intact, it's good news. All you need to do in that case is to follow the steps of the fire damage restoration process.

Methods of House Restoration after a Fire

We'll provide you with several methods that will help you to restore your house and get rid of soot and smoke odor.

Here they are:

• airing the whole house will help to reduce the level of toxic substances in the air,
• cleaning frames, slopes, installing temporary shield structures on the windows with damaged glazing,
• deep cleaning of walls, floors, ceilings from soot, removing the topcoats,
• drying surfaces with industrial hair dryers after extinguishing the fire with water,
• replacing the damaged electrical wiring,
• plastering, priming and puttying surfaces in case of severe damage,
• spraying reagents using technological equipment; this procedure helps to get rid of the pungent smell of smoke in hard-to-reach places.

In each case, the number of these methods could vary. But, in general, you can make your to-do list based on them to go through the whole fire damage restoration process.

The selection of methods is carried out taking into account the intensity and duration of the fire, as well as the composition of the materials which were burning. In order to restore a house as quickly as possible after a fire, special equipment and reagents are used. With their help, you can quickly break the bond between carbon particles in dry and greasy soot. This greatly simplifies the work. Trial cleaning is carried out in order to determine the desired concentration.

Experience and a professional approach are of great importance when dealing with the consequences. Breathing combustion products, carrying out work without respirators and overalls is hazardous to health. Contacting specialized companies that provide fire damage restoration services will help the owners return to their home ground as soon as possible.

When to Start?

Be sure, the quicker you start restoring your house, the better it is for the whole process. But, in fact, you need to document all the losses caused by the fire before you start the restoration.

Usually, the timeline for the fire damage restoration process looks like that:

1. wiring off the whole house to get access to it without any hazards,
2. taking photos of the burnt house and all its premises for your insurance claim,
3. calling fire damage restoration service to start the restoration,
4. taking away all the belongings from the house,
5. airing and ventilating all the premises to reduce the odor of smoke and burning,
6. taking all the damaged belongings that can be salvaged to a dry cleaner service and repair services,
7. controlling the process of house restoration after a fire,
8. getting compensation from the insurance company to cover the expenses for restoration,
9. buying necessary items instead of burnt ones,
10. re-settling in your restored house.

Thus, you can see that there are lots of steps to be taken. So, do not wait even a minute as the whole fire damage restoration process could drag on for a long time, which leads to extra losses of money for renting a house or booking a hotel. On average, the timing of the fire damage restoration process is from 1-2 months up to a half of a year and even more, depending on the complexity of damages and your dexterity in solving all the problems.