Smoke, Ashe, and Soot Problems after a Fire in Your West Hills Home? Easy Choice--Call SERVPRO for Cleanup and Restoration

3/13/2019 (Permalink)

West Hills House Fire? There is No Match for SERVPRO's Cleanup and Restoration

Fire Damage Technicians From West Hills Explain Soot Removal Techniques

Burning candles is an activity that could cause a fire to take place inside your West Hills home. When candles get hot, they can burn flammable items next to them and cause fire damage to take place. If candles get knocked down onto the floor, then they could ignite your carpet. If an unfortunate occurance ever does happen to cause a burning inside your house, it is wise to call a professional fire damage restoration company such as SERVPRO.
 
When items burn inside a house, the smoke coming from the burnt materials can cause different issues other than those caused by the heat and flames. During most fire damage projects in West Hills, our SERVPRO technicians deal with the removal of soot and soils created by smoke as much as, if not more than problems related to burnt items. When smoke travels through a building, it solidifies when coming into contact with cooler surfaces like your ceilings and walls. The result is then, the presence of soils and soot residues. Since fires all burn different materials, various types of soot can exist.
 
During any restoration project, our SERVPRO estimators arrive at your residence with a test kit. The testing kit helps us determine which items got negatively affected by smoke and what methods will work best to clean them. During the initial estimate, we utilize different chemicals to figure out which items we can save and clean and which items will need to be removed and replaced.
 
Since soot affects materials differently, we utilize several different methods to clean off the soils and ashes. For example, when cleaning more porous materials like softwoods, dry sponges get used to clean off soot. Dry cleaning methods work best for porous materials because water could make the damage worse by soaking the soot deeper into the materials. Harder, non-porous materials such as tile can be wiped and cleaned with powerful water-based detergents.
 
If you ever notice the presence of soot residues after contents or structural elements inside your house burn, call SERVPRO of Canoga Park / West Hills at (818) 998-1500 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

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