There are few disasters more traumatic than a major fire. It can occur at any time, and in just a few minutes, it can turn your entire life upside-down. As the fire burns, its damage can have a huge impact on your property.
Some aspects of fire damage are obvious, but others can be harder to detect and assess. To make sure you understand the full impact of the fire in your home, work with fire damage restoration professionals who know what to look for in assessing the effects of fire.
Burning and Explosions
Burning is what most people think of as “fire damage.” It’s when heat causes objects to combust, undergoing a chemical change. Burnt objects often change form, typically turning black and giving off smoke and heat.
When you have a house fire, you will see burning in the area where the fire was located. Much of the structure of your house and its contents are liable to burning, depending on the temperature of the fire and the nature of the objects. Objects that are burned are often lost, sometimes completely obliterated by the flames. This includes parts of the house that are burned, which may need to be demolished and rebuilt.
When some substances catch fire, they can explode. This type of combustion creates shockwave damage that can blow out windows and shatter brittle objects. Depending on the nature of the space and the explosion, it might literally blow the roof off. A blown off roof might be difficult to spot, as it can settle back down onto the house after the explosion, even though the connection with the house is broken. This type of damage can make the house more vulnerable to wind, rain, and other sources of storm damage.
Heat Exposure
Many objects are resistant to burning, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t affected by the heat that fire produces. The heat of a fire can shatter ceramics and melt metals. Plastics will also melt at a much lower temperature than they typically burn. Fiberglass insulation won’t burn, but it can melt at temperatures common in house fires.
Other times, the damage from heat exposure might not be so easy to see. Steel, for example, won’t melt at typical house fire temperatures, but its properties can change. It can lose strength and hardness, becoming softer and more malleable. Sometimes heat that doesn’t cause wood to burn can change its properties. Exposure to heat for a prolonged period can weaken wood.
A fire damage restoration professional can look at the heat conditions and let you know if you might have to worry about damage to things behind the wall that you might not be able to see.
Smoke Exposure
Smoke that comes off a fire can spread throughout a building, and it can cause significant damage of its own. The type of smoke damage depends on the nature of the smoke.
Some smoke will cause a thick, oily residue that can seep into the surfaces it lands on. Cleaning this off is more than a matter of using simple soap and water.
Some smoke is highly acidic, and it will attack electronics and other metals on contact. If you’re not aware of this type of damage, you might turn on electronics that you think were unaffected by the fire only to find that they are badly damaged inside. This might mean it simply won’t turn on, or it might mean a short circuit that could ironically start another fire.
Residual smoke smell can persist for months, even years after a fire. Some smoke contains organic chemicals that may outgas for a long time after the fire, filling the air with toxic chemicals. Other smoke might penetrate walls, fabrics, and cushions, creating a persistent smell, but without toxic properties.
A fire damage restoration professional can look at the type of fire and the smoke created to help you understand what smoke damage you have after the fire, and what steps are recommended to deal with its effects.
Water Damage
When you have a major fire, you need the intervention of the fire department to extinguish it. Most of the time, the fire department will extinguish the fire using copious amounts of water. While this is a very effective way to extinguish a fire, it can also cause problems of its own.
Of course, there are many items in your home that will be immediately ruined by contact with water. However, it’s also possible to save more objects after water damage than you think, especially if you act quickly to remediate the water damage.
First, it’s important to remove standing water immediately, if possible, then start controlled drying of everything exposed to water. You want to use controlled air flow to dry everything fast enough to avoid mold growth and other damage, but there are many items you don’t want to dry too fast, as this can cause other damage such as warped wood. You might think that heat is a good choice to speed drying, but it can speed mold growth more than it aids drying.
A water damage restoration professional can evaluate water-damaged items to determine the best approach for preserving them. This includes identifying when an object would benefit from drying under controlled conditions or other specialized restoration techniques. They can also help you identify which items are worth saving, and which ones would cost more to restore than replace.
Let Just Right Cleaning & ConstructionHelp You Recover from a Fire
It is possible to recover from a serious fire at your home or business. Working with an experienced restoration professional can speed up recovery.
JRCC Damage Restoration Experts has been the leading fire damage restoration provider throughout the greater Seattle & Spokane Metro Area since 1954. We have maintained our position by providing outstanding restoration services to all the communities in the area. When you call JRCC Damage Restoration Experts, we can be out quickly at any time, day or night, with our 24/7 emergency response services. We’ll begin work quickly, inspecting the property to make sure it’s safe, then prioritizing restoration steps to preserve as much of your property as possible.
JRCC Damage Restoration Experts can handle every aspect of the restoration process, from initial inspection and board-up service to the final touches that can make it almost impossible for anyone to tell that there was ever a fire. That’s thanks to our meticulous approach and our use of the restoration industry’s leading-edge technologies.
Perhaps best of all, JRCC Damage Restoration Experts can coordinate directly with your insurance company. After the trauma of a fire, the last thing you need is to deal with your insurer’s complicated process. We work with insurance all the time, and we know how to manage their system. When we arrive on site, we will start documenting the damage, and we’ll document all the repairs to satisfy the requirements of your insurer. We can help you get compensation to the full limit of your coverage – you won’t have your claim delayed or denied because it was poorly documented.
You have many things to deal with after a fire. Let JRCC Damage Restoration Experts handle the fire damage. Please contact us now to get a restoration professional out immediately.