Fire and smoke damage can be devastating to your personal property and structure. The quicker a home/business owner gets moving on the clean up the quicker the repairs can begin. STOP Restoration has been helping property owners for over 25 years and we understand how important it is to respond quickly. But in some cases the job is small enough that the property owner may want to tackle the work on their own.
If there is significant damage—read through the 5 tips and once you realize how BIG of a job this will be—call STOP—we will handle the entire job for you. If the challenge is not too big and you want to tackle the job on your own— here are 5 tips that we provide to our clients to help get life back to normal quickly.
- Step 1: Do not enter your property until the Fire Marshal has deemed it safe to re-enter. How soon you can enter will be based on a number of factors but most will stem from the severity of the fire.
- Step 2: Make sure the room where the smoke damage accrued is properly ventilated. Open windows will help increase the amount of air flow and then use a fan to get air circulating.
- Step 3: Put on your old grungy clothes; get a bucket of water, safety goggles (protection when you are cleaning the ceiling and other overhead items) and ad good pair of rubber gloves that will help protect your hands from the cleaning chemicals. It would also be a good idea to purchase a drop-cloth from your local Home Depot or Lowe's to help avoid transferring soot from the cleaned area to carpet or flooring in areas that have not been damaged
- Step 4: Begin by getting rid of the loose soot on the surface of any damaged walls. You can use a dry sponge or vacuum cleaner. After you have removed the loose soot you can prepare for the scrubbing by using either Trisodium Phosphate (TSP), bleach or any other cleaning agent you think can help clean the stains off the walls. After you have thoroughly cleaned the area you will need to decide if you will need to prime and re-paint the walls.
- Step 5: After you get rid of the soot and stain you will need to deal with the smoke odor. It will seem that the smoke has absorbed into everything you own. There are many household items like Febreze that will help absorb some of the odor. It is hard work—but the quicker you can get to start the cleanup the better.
STOP Restoration has been in business cleaning up smoke damaged buildings, homes, etc. We take pride in helping home and business owners cleanup their property after a fire and smoke damage. You can call us 24/7 in the event that a disaster strikes your property. Call us at (505) 892-3112 today.
