Smoke damage, soot, and odor are three things no one thinks about after there’s been a fire. Without proper treatment, these things can bring additional and continuous damage to your home. Below, we’ve provided resources and steps you can follow to minimize the damage yourself.
Ultimately, choosing professional fire and smoke damage cleanup is one of the best decisions you can make. It’s overwhelming to try to cope with the trauma and stress of the event, and it will help immensely to have certified technicians come in and assist with recovery, remediation and repair. If you want to make it as easy as possible, give us a call at (801) 676-3500.
So, Is Smoke Damage Removal Possible?
While soot and smoke are difficult to remove because of their acidity, it is possible to remove them. This does require lots of patience, time, and effort. Each part of your home (your walls, furniture, and carpets) require different types of cleaning methods, tools, and techniques.
Keep in mind that soot and ash will cause more damage to your property if they are left unaddressed. Because of this, you have to act swiftly post-fire if you want to effectively clean your property from smoke damage without it costing you more money and more effort.
Why Do I Have To Remove Smoke Damage?
Not only does smoke damage pose a threat to your property’s value, more importantly, it’s a threat to you and your family’s health.
Individuals with existing respiratory and cardiological illnesses are at significantly greater risk since the smoke’s fine particles can aggravate their health conditions. Inhalation of smoke can trigger asthma and heart attacks. Pregnant women also risk exposing themselves and their unborn babies to increased risks and dangers.
Smoke damage will also continue to deteriorate the structural integrity of your home. Because of its acidic nature, smoke and soot can contribute to the corrosion of your walls, furniture, and even your electric appliances.
It’s a necessity to remove smoke damage from your house. If you want to attempt this massive project on your own, we’ve made a general list of the steps you’ll need to take.
Steps To Remove Smoke From a House
1. Ventilation
Your very first step is to make sure the area is well-ventilated, and that no debris poses danger to your safety. Proper ventilation is necessary since smoke particles and other fire remnants can be flammable, and you don’t want to breathe anything in, so make sure air flows properly in the area.
2. Gather & Purchase Equipment
After surveying the smoke damage around your home, it’s time to get the tools that you need to remove the smoke and soot.
You’ll need the following:
- Smoke vacuum
- Goggles and masks
- Gloves–preferably rubber material
- Buckets of warm water
- Soot remover
- Rags & dry cleaning soot sponges
- Liquid soap or Trisodium Phosphate (TSP)
If you don’t have a soot remover, you can also choose to use bleach, vinegar, paint thinner, or even rubbing alcohol. Make sure to thoroughly understand the effects of each substance before use.
Gloves and masks are a top necessity because you’ll be exposed to fine particles which can aggravate your respiratory system and cause long term health damage.
If you don’t have a specialized smoke vacuum, you can use a standard vacuum, but be aware of the potential damage and how difficult it will be to clean it thoroughly.
3. Vacuum The Soot
After gathering your tools, start removing loose soot and smoke around the area by vacuuming your walls and floor to remove them.
Be sure to vacuum gently, because being too harsh will likely spread the smoke and soot even further into your floorboards and your walls.
4. Treat Soot And Smoke Stains
After removing the largest portions of soot and smoke stains off your floor and walls, the next step would be to clean your walls using a soot cleaning sponge. You’ll want quite a few of these on hand because you’ll go through them quickly.
Gently rub the sponge over the black stains until you no longer see them. After that, use your cleaning solution (soot remover, vinegar, paint thinner, etc.) mixed with warm water on a rag, and wipe down your walls.
5. Liquid Cleansers
After doing this, mix a bucket of warm water with liquid soap or TSP to remove the residual stains. These cleaners are specifically formulated to combat oil which makes them good stain fighters.
You will most likely need to perform this multiple times depending on the severity of the smoke damage. As your rag gets dirty, rinse it in your bucket of warm water to clean soot off of it, and repeat the process of removing residual stains over again.
Do another wipedown of clean, warm water to remove any residue left over from the cleansers.
6. Dry
The last step for smoke damage removal is to dry everything up.
You can wipe everything down with a clean rag, or you can use fans and blowers to speed up the process. You should do this to make sure that the smoke’s odor does not stay in your belongings. Be aware that odor dissipation may take weeks to complete, so you need to be patient.
Get a Professional Smoke Damage Removal Service
If these 6 steps seem daunting, and if you’re processing the heavy emotions surrounding a home fire, you can also give Complete Restoration a call at (801) 676-3500 for fire damage restoration. We are happy to do all we can to fully restore your home. Our prompt and professional service will be tailored to your situation and your home, providing you with a well-communicated, personalized plan for fire and smoke damage restoration
We understand that cleaning your house of soot and smoke damage is a very lengthy and difficult job.
The steps that we outlined are general–you still have to go over the specific needs of each unique material in your home.
Because of this, it is best to hire a professional smoke damage removal service like Complete Restoration.
Repairing fire, smoke, and water damage since 2005, our company boasts years of experience that allows us to deliver quality restoration services to homes like yours.
Contact our team now for more information!
References:
https://cr-slc.com/water-flood-damage/
https://jenkinsrestorations.com/how-to-clean-smoke-damage
https://www.bmscat.com/2019/09/how-exactly-does-smoke-damage-affect-the-contents-of-your-home/
https://rarefiedairenvironmental.com/blog/can-soot-and-smoke-damage-be-removed-from-my-home/
https://rainbowintl.com/blog/how-to-clean-a-smoke-damaged-house
https://health.ny.gov/environmental/outdoors/air/smoke_from_fire.htm
https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/how-smoke-fires-can-affect-your-health
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health
https://www.idealresponse.co.uk/blog/is-it-safe-to-stay-in-a-house-with-smoke-damage/
https://www.ebi.net.au/how-does-smoke-damage-affect-a-building/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokehttps://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/748-what-is-smoke#:~:text=Another%20danger%20is%20that%20smoke,or%20by%20their%20own%20temperature.&text=Smoke%20can%20often%20cause%20more,the%20heat%20of%20the%20fire.
