Steps That Ease Cleaning of Levittown Homes after Fire Damage

12/20/2022 (Permalink)

Just call SERVPRO when you want your fire damaged Levittown home to appear "Like it never even happened."

SERVPRO Helps Levittown Homeowners Address Fire Damage

While you may expect difficulties when addressing fire damage, what you may have in mind may differ from the realities you face once the process starts. One aspect that can be surprisingly difficult is cleaning the spots soiled by fire at your Levittown home. Without the right strategies, you might not achieve your restoration goals.

Once your Levittown home sustains fire damage, restoring it to its preloss condition is an achievable goal. That means you must identify and take note of all soiling and deterioration that may have occurred before the fire. Such damage may be permanent, and thus you should not waste time or other resources attempting to fix it. Our SERVPRO technicians check for signs such as significant material wear from foot traffic or other daily activities. Corrosion can also cause long-term problems. Once the overall goal is established, the restoration can be broken down into distinct steps.

Unique Steps to Deal with Fire

• Locating smoke residues
• Identifying residue types
• Identifying surface types
• Selecting cleaning methods

Locating fire residues may sound like a counterproductive step since combustion produces soot and other readily visible deposits. However, since the smoke has unique movement patterns, residues travel further than the immediate surfaces. The convection currents that drive smoke produce unique outcomes since the hotter smoke is pushed towards colder areas of the room. Concealed spots such as cabinet spaces tend to collect more soot residues. Our SERVPRO technicians start locating residues by inspecting the area close to the source of the fire and then moving further away. Running a cleaning sponge along wall or ceiling surfaces helps establish where most residues accumulate.

Identifying Fire Residues

You may think of fire residue simply as soot or ash. That assumption is inaccurate and complicates cleaning processes since smoke residues can have different physical properties like being dry or wet and smeary. Residue variation is possible within the same loss environment of your house. That is why casual observation is not an ideal identification method.

Distinctive Smoke Residues

• Fuel oil residue
• Protein smoke
• Dry smoke residues
• Wet smoke residues 

Although the soils left by fires influence the cleaning process, the affected surfaces also have some impact. Soiling might be easy to clean, but if the surface is susceptible to damage during the cleaning process, there is no need to try. Our SERVPRO crews have specialized solutions for such challenges. For instance, residue accumulation on vulnerable ceiling materials such as acoustic tiles means wet cleaning would be detrimental. However, a proprietary method such as peroxide-active cleaning removes the soiling and saves the underlying material.

The choice of a cleaning method takes several considerations apart from the state of the soiled surface. The time it might take to complete the process and the finishing procedures necessary after cleaning are also compelling reasons to pick or avoid some methods. Pressure washing may seem like an obvious choice when cleaning fire residues from vast areas. However, when you consider the massive moisture introduced to the materials, it quickly becomes unideal unless in outdoor locations made from resilient materials. Agitating surfaces with compressed air removes the moisture problem, but the fine debris released into the air limits its usefulness. Our crews explore other options, including vacuuming surfaces and blast cleaning with soda or dry ice.

SERVPRO of Levittown, Bethpage, is ready to accompany you throughout the recovery journey after fire damage. Call us at any time at (516) 261-9600. We're Faster To Any Size Disaster.