7 Steps to Mitigating and Restoring a Fire-Damaged Building
By Admin | November 12, 2020
Nobody goes into homeownership expecting to lose everything in a fire. Nobody opens their business assuming that one day they’ll need to rebuild after a fire. Fire damage is never part of the plan.
We assume everything in our home or company is set up correctly with no issues. We take advantage of our appliances and believe they were made properly up to standards. But the real world can be cruel without caring about our plans and needs.
Appliances can be faulty. The electrical wiring of your home or business may have been installed poorly or damaged. Humans can make errors and neglect their food while it’s cooking. These are only a few things that can go wrong and end up causing a fire.
People should always be the number one priority when it comes to a fire. If one day you find yourself in a situation where your home or business is on fire, the most important thing to do is get your family or colleagues to safety. The next step is to call 9-1-1 to have the fire department put out the fire as soon as possible.
But what comes next? The challenging task of getting your household or company back on track. After the firefighters get their job done, you’ll need to move onto mitigation and restoration. The following are seven steps Ungerman will take to help you get back on your feet.
1) Board-Up
Fire can destroy windows, doors, or openings in your house or business. When this happens, it’s important to board-up any holes left in the building. This keeps your home or office safe from the elements, but it also ensures protection against potential looters and even critters.
2) Dry Out
When you think of fire, your first thought probably isn’t, “Water damage.” However, fire can lead to serious water damage for numerous reasons, including:
- Water getting into a home or business when firefighters are putting out the fire.
- Fire damaging your pipes and other plumbing components.
- Depending on the weather, rain and snow getting inside the house when a fire is happening, or after a fire has caused its devastation.
Fire damage mitigation crews bring in specialized equipment to help dry out water residue and humidity to prevent further damage to your home or business.
3) Deodorization and Emergency Pre-Cleaning
Just because fire has been extinguished, that doesn’t mean that the damage is done. Water is one thing that can cause further damage, but another is soot residue. The acidic and corrosive traits of the soot can cause secondary damage to your property surfaces. Emergency pre-cleaning of your home or business and your belongings needs to happen immediately.
Who you hire to do this job matters a lot because not every company uses the same strategy. At Ungerman, our crews use safe and specialized deodorizing techniques that reach into small areas to neutralize odors caused by fire and soot residue.
4) Contents Pack-Outs
The structure of your home or business isn’t the only thing that gets destroyed by a fire. Any belongings in your house can and will be damaged as well. Unfortunately, sometimes this means losing things with rich histories or great sentimental value. Items like these are simply irreplaceable, and it’s one of the struggles you’ll need to overcome if you’re in this terrible situation.
However, some items are not beyond fixing, so it’s important to carefully pack up your contents in order to facilitate necessary repairs. Depending on your insurance, repairs or replacements might be covered without you having to pay out of pocket.
5) Contents Inventory
Each mitigation company is different, especially with how they handle your possessions after fire damage. In some cases, families and business owners need to facilitate the storage of their contents. As you might imagine, this can be extremely stressful when you’re dealing with the fallout of a fire damaging your home or business.
There’s so much that needs to be done and too much to coordinate that needing to find storage is just another burden. We help our clients alleviate this stress by offering to create an itemized inventory of all of their personal property. Then, we remove and store their contents in our secure, climate-controlled facility.
6) Dry Cleaning and Garment Restoration
Electronics, appliances, and furniture are a few things that get damaged during a fire, but one big thing that doesn’t get taken into consideration is clothing. The brutal reality is that your life isn’t going to stop because of a tragedy.
You’ll need clothing to continue functioning in your day-to-day activities. The problem is that the smoke and soot from a fire leaves clothing unwearable. In order to get your clothing restored, you’ll need to find a professional laundry and dry cleaning company to do the job.
We help our clients by connecting them with a professional laundry and dry cleaning company to determine their clothing restoration. It’s a small gesture, but people are thankful for it because it saves time and stress.
7) Contents Cleaning and Restoration
For any possessions that haven’t been destroyed beyond repair, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Soot and smoke damage to things like:
- Photographs
- Paintings, statues, and other types of art
- Furniture such as couches, recliners, desk chairs, etc.
Cleaning and restoring these types of things is difficult. Generally, it isn’t something most people can do on their own. It requires experience and professional-grade tools to fully clean and restore these contents back to their original quality.
Outside of restoring the structure of their homes, offices, or warehouses, one of the services that we offer to our clients is to have our specialized professionals clean and restore all aspects of their possessions. This could include anything from photos, art restoration, furniture, and more.
It’s also important to note that sometimes fires can cause additional damage, and cleaning alone isn’t enough to fix the problem. If the fire damages the structure of your home or business, we can also offer reconstruction services. Reconstruction may seem scary, but it’s worth it to avoid completely starting from scratch by finding a new home or business location.
Finding the Right Fire Restoration Company
These seven steps can be overwhelming. Nobody can do them on their own, which is why it’s necessary to hire an experienced mitigation and restoration company. If you’re looking for a mitigation, restoration, and renovation partner, we can offer emergency and non-emergency services for all your needs.
How We Can Help You
UNGERMAN is a family-owned company providing full-service mitigation, restoration, reconstruction, and renovation. We have spent over 40 years perfecting our soot damage cleanup, fire cleanup, and smoke odor removal. We are experienced in cleaning techniques for walls, floors, cabinetry, appliances and many other specialized items. We also have the know-how to attack smoke odors hidden in carpets, clothing and furniture upholstery.
Our crews use safe and specialized deodorizing techniques that will reach into small areas to neutralize odors caused by fire and soot residue. Our fire and smoke technicians understand the effects of heat, smoke, and residues left behind from a tragedy. Mitigating the loss immediately can help save the insured personal belongings.
We have the proper certification, training, and extensive experience to assess and resolve your emergency damage needs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We are licensed, bonded, and insured and will work directly with your insurance company to restore your damaged property with the highest quality.