Smoke damage is when your home is irreversibly damaged by the effects of smoke. Learn more about smoke damage and how to act quickly to clean your home
After a fire, home and business owners are merely trying to pick up the pieces in the wake of a disaster. However, there's an overlooked, unpleasant side effect of fires: smoke damage.
This damage lingers long after the flames die down, containing harmful carcinogens and acidic soot. It's an often overlooked aspect of homeownership during a crisis.
In fact, 96% of all homes in the United States are recipients of smoke and fire damage. It's a massive issue that needs addressing, especially during the cleaning process.
That's why you must tackle the problem of lingering smoke odor and soot stains after a home or business fire.
Any damage to the home or objects within your home due to smoke is smoke damage. Everything from an unpleasant smoky odor to a singed wall, this damage is widespread.
While fire damage is devastating, its results can easily ruin your possessions, walls, ceilings, carpet, and nearly every other aspect of your home or business.
For example, while a house fire may have missed scorching your family heirlooms, it did coat them in soot.
As you'll see, this can be a massive issue. Once soot and damage from smoke sets in, it's vital you start cleaning as soon as possible.
Without cleaning surfaces and furniture in your house, it can be permanent. Unfortunately, the smoke particles in your business or home won't go away on their own. Not only that, but particles (like mold spores) find their way into crevices and cracks, permeating your home with odors and damage.
To get a better idea of what smoke can do to the home, here are a few types of damage a structure is susceptible to from smoke.
Determine which one you've experienced and if you need professional resurfacing, restoration, and cleaning services.
There are a few types of damage from smoke.
When highly-flammable materials like wood and paper go up in flames, it produces dry smoke. Dry smoke, caused by high-intensity, high-temperature fires, is easier to clean than other forms of smoke damage due to its powder-like consistency. When damage from dry smoke is present in the home or business, cleanup is significantly easier for everyone. It also doesn't have a strong, lingering odor.
This form of damage derives from a smoldering fire, the opposite of dry smoke. Unlike its dry counterpart, this form of damage has an unpleasant, noticeable odor that seems to stick to everything. Wet smoke is usually thicker and darker, too. Unfortunately, this form of damage is challenging to clean properly and requires professionals to help you remove the smell, damage to items, and property restoration.
This is an invisible, low-impact form of smoke that derives from burning items like food and other organic matter. While protein residue is the form of smoke with minor consequences, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect furniture, walls, and other surfaces. The smoky smell is also more subtle than wet and dry smoke.
Possibly the rarest form, the cause of this smoke comes directly from fuel and oil products like gasoline. This type usually occurs at businesses or places where people store fuel and oil. However, even a home isn't immune to the effects of fuel and oil. For example, if a furnace in your building releases soot after malfunctioning, you could have a severe and potentially lethal situation on your hands. Like wet smoke, it takes a lot of work to clean. If this form of smoke enters your home, it'll take a team of experienced professionals to help clean and restore a building. Furniture and other different items will likely also need to be replaced.
Depending on the case, you can either clean up yourself or call experts to use heavy-duty cleaning materials.
If damage is minor, you can usually use a potent mixture of soap, water, and various cleaners to deal with damaged surfaces.
However, if you've experienced the results of wet smoke and fuel, you'll need the services of experts to help you clean items, furniture, ceilings, carpets, and clothing.
It can be extremely expensive to replace items in your home after the damage is done, so we aim to mitigate the effects by implementing our comprehensive cleaning strategy to restore your home back to normal.
Losing the contents of your home is difficult enough to deal with; don't let smoke claim any more of your time, money, or items.
Yes, you can. However, you must ensure that you act quickly. The longer that smoke damage remains untreated, the higher the chances of permanent damage.
And, depending on if you've experienced minor or significant cases of damage, you'll have to call experts to come to clean your residence with heavy-duty chemicals.
That's why you must depend on professionals with years of combined experience in smoke remediation.
At Five Star Restoration, we know precisely how to tackle any business or home damaged by smoke and soot. We extensively deodorize the house, helping remove odors left behind by smoke. It's part of our extensive repair and reconstruction in California since 2016.
If you need to repair smoke damage in the Inland Empire, we'll give you a free diagnostic of the damage in your home. Then we get to work helping you recover.
Additionally, we can determine which specific services you need. Once we get inside your home and start the smoke damage removal, we'll pinpoint the cause of the initial fire.
We'll even check for any wire damage to ensure there won't be a repeat.
Be sure to give us a call today (951-368-2227) to rid your home of the lingering effects of smoke and the dangers it causes. Make the cleanup an easy and stress-free process, and finally put that damage in the rear-view.
If you are not sure your location is in the areas we cover, or if you'd just like to chat or ask a question, give us a call.
We are committed to an excellent finished product and even better customer service. Rest assured that when we show up for your restoration needs, you'll be informed, confident and stress-free.
