Fire and Water Damage Restoration

Fire and water damage restoration is a vital process to undertake immediately if you've been a victim of either fire or flood. And because battling fire requires dousing the flames with water, often you're forced to address both issues at the same time. If your home has suffered fire or water damage, here are a few preliminary steps to take to ensure you can get your home back into shape as soon as possible.

Safety First
Both fire and water can cause significant structural damage to your home. You must be aware of this when you begin to assess the damage that your home has incurred. With fire, be sure to look for structural damage to walls, roofs, stairs, ceilings, and floors before you move on to assessing less significant losses. The same goes if your home has incurred water damage of any kind. Beware that water damage is less obvious, and you need to be especially careful about re-entering your home without knowing exactly what damage has been done. Also, be very aware of possible electrical damage, especially if water was involved, in order to avoid serious injury. In all cases, it's best to play it safe and hire a fire and water damage restoration company to assess and approve the structural integrity of your home before you return.

Fire Damage Basics
Anytime your home suffers a fire of any magnitude, you're in for a big cleanup. The areas directly affected will most likely have to be remodeled and restored to ensure their structural stability. Beyond that, smoke and fire residue present health risks (mostly respiratory), and the smell of a fire can be almost impossible to get rid of. In all cases, clean everything thoroughly to begin with. Use a HEPA vacuum to ensure you capture all small particulates of soot, debris and fire extinguisher residue. After that, be sure to remove all other larger debris from your home. Ventilation is also an important step. Open all windows, and use fans to ventilate the affected rooms to help get rid of the smell. Be sure to clean first, however, as using fans around dust, soot and other fine dusts can cause respiratory distress. Finally, call in a fire and water damage restoration company to do the real dirty work. They have equipment and procedures at the ready that no average homeowner has access to.

Water Damage 101
With water damage, the primary concern is drying out your home as soon as possible. Once you've had the structural integrity of your home assessed and approved, do whatever you can to get the moisture out. Vacuum out any standing water with all purpose vacuums, set up dehumidifiers in the affected rooms, and set up as many fans as possible to speed up the drying out process. Failure to do so can lead to mold, fungus and mildew problems, all of which will require a major mold remediation project to eliminate the problem. If your home has incurred substantial water damage, be sure to hire a fire and water damage restoration company to come in and tackle the job. Just as with fire damage issues, a professional has many processes at their disposal, such as freezer, cryogenic, vacuum freeze, and vacuum thermal drying techniques to get things back to normal as soon as possible.

Other Restoration Issues
Finally, securing and repairing the home itself is only the beginning. You'll still have all your personal belongings to deal with. Most fire and damage restoration companies will also be able to help you restore your possessions to original form. If that's not a service they provide, you might need to seek out the services of furniture restoration company as well.

As mentioned before, the most important thing is not to sit on these restoration tasks. The longer you do, the more significant the end damage is likely to be. Your best bet in the face of serious fire or water damage is to call in the pros immediately. It's really the only way to satisfactorily rescue a fire or water damaged home.