A home fire is one of the most traumatic events that any family can go through. Dealing with the aftermath is a total nightmare even if one hires the best fire damage restoration services. Fire damage restoration is no easy job.
Mitigating any residential fire damage requires planning and professional help. It may take a long time before one can return to everyday routine.
To help you understand the basics of fixing fire damage, we have compiled a quick help guide below that will give you a fair idea of what steps one must take after a house fire to decrease the damages and restore the situation. Let’s begin.
What steps one must take after a residential fire?
After a house fire, you need to take the necessary steps to ensure the structural safety of your home and the health of your family members by salvaging what can be salvaged and throwing away what needs to be thrown away. Here is a quick guide.
Conduct a quick home assessment and roughly assess the intensity of the damages
You can conduct a quick inspection on your own but it is ideal to hire a professional for an in-depth house inspection before you enter back and start the cleanup.
There might be serious structural damages inside. Also, there may be loose wires posing a risk of fire or short-circuiting. The walls may lose their strength, the damaged roof, or there might be stagnant water in the basement from the plumbing.
It is better to know what to expect than blindly stepping your foot back in.
Sift out the items that need to be disposed of or thrown away
Even though many of your belongings may seemingly appear fine, but if you do not throw them away you may suffer from serious side effects. You do not want to sit on a half-broken sofa or eat infested food items or use a microwave that is at risk of short-circuiting. Figure out what needs to throw and get rid of it immediately.
Now you start the mission cleanup
When you step back into your home for the mission cleanup, make sure all the windows are open and the fans are on for proper ventilation. This will get rid of any smoke or bad smell from the air including the harmful vapors.
Now grab a shop vac to remove any water on the floor. Get rid of damp carpets, rugs, or vinyl floor and throw them away safely. You can even hire a carpet cleaning service to help you restore the original state of your carpet if it is stained with a lot of soot.
Sift out all the wet items so you can thoroughly clean the floors or the walls after inspecting what needs to be done, what can be salvaged or restored, and what should immediately be thrown away.
Make sure you properly analyze all the surfaces inside of your home before vacuuming. Assess the health of your roofing and before using your HVAC system, hire a professional or an expert to properly clean them and find out if there are any short wires inside.
Make sure you regularly change your HVAC filters every week for the next few months to ensure pollutant-free air in your home.
How can one remove the soot?
To remove the soot stains, use the vacuum to remove any accumulated ash on the carpet, curtains, rugs, or even your clothes. When the clothes are dry, pour some baking soda on the soot stains and let them absorb.
Try to get back to a normal routine
Once you are done with the mission cleanup, you may need to sit with your family or your therapist to process the trauma and accept the fact that the worse is behind you. Slowly and gradually, step back into your normal routine, start cooking, doing your chores as you did before.
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