After Fire Damage Protect Upholstery and Carpets

3/8/2022 (Permalink)

Hot air rises. As hot air rises, it pushes cooler air beneath, creating pressure. Understanding this process can help you to understand the types of harm your home may sustain during a fire, and how you can avoid excess damage. Property fires can come from just about anywhere. Leaving a hob on or a portable heater too close to dry fabrics and material can set alight, forcing you to evacuate in the middle of the night while the fire department deals with the resulting blaze.

The success of restoring your home depends on the extent of your knowledge of fire, smoke, and ash. Once a fire official declares your home is safe for entry, the first thing you may notice is the extent of soiling. The pressure created by rapidly rising temperatures causes smoke to spread out from the source of the fire exponentially. This pressure is why even a contained fire may present a homeowner with a myriad of soiling on ceilings, furniture, walls, inside cabinets, and your building's exterior.

When temperatures cool, loose soiling may drop from the ceiling onto your floor or furnishings. At SERVPRO of Calumet City- Lansing, we always recommend that homeowners protect furnishings in the affected area as quickly as possible. You can use old sheets or tarpaulin to place over surfaces and upholstery as a simple solution that could mitigate losses significantly. Unfortunately, while soots remain in the property, the affected rooms are unusable. 

The quickest way to regain access to living rooms or kitchens is by using a professional fire restorer like SERVPRO of Calumet City- Lansing. Our team can scope the property, assess the damages, and put in place a gameplan to recover your contents. Carpets and upholstery that show signs of smoke damage are frequently restorable to a good condition. SERVPRO deposit carpet conditioners using truck-mounted wands in combination with rotary machines for upholstery and carpets. These can remove soiling while cleaning the carpet at the same time.