Smoke and soot damage is created after a fire has been distinguished in a home or a business, soot residue settles into the property. Soot is a very fine, black powder substance (0.25 µm in size) which binds to walls and fabric.
During a fire and minutes after the fire has been extinguished, soot and smoke spread incredibly quickly throughout the affected property.
Soot is a byproduct of burning fossil fuels and can consist of chemicals, acids, and dust. It is not only dangerous for your health but it causes significant damage to your property if not dealt with immediately and in a proper manner.
Like soot, smoke damage can be problematic and it can cause serious health damage. It will cause discolouration of walls and it will sink into all property contents, causing smoke odour to linger for long periods of time.
This is why it is extremely important to hire a cleaning company to restore the damage.
How does the SafeGroup evaluate smoke and soot damage?
The type of smoke or soot damage will define how we clean and treat the affected areas, but our process has several steps. We are trained extensively on all types of soot or smoke damage and if you contact as quickly enough, we will be able to restore most items. We also utilise Personal Protective Equipment as per Health and Safety regulations.
We will carry out a full inventory of all the contents in the affected areas. Electrical items will often be Beyond Economic Repair (BER), and these will be listed separately for your insurance company. Items which can usually be restored include carpeting, rugs, furniture, clothing, cutlery, china and others.
All restorable contents listed will be removed from site, cleaned and stored by us. The building fabric will require specialist cleaning, depending on the type of fire and smoke damage caused. Based on our observations, our professional team will assess what is the best practice for the cleaning.
Once the building fabric is cleaned it will nearly always need a full redecoration. The cleaning process should be viewed as preparing the surfaces for redecoration. To reduce/eliminate smoke odours we will carry out a thermal fogging treatment to the affected rooms which acts to bind to the smoke particles and render them odourless.
We will then return all cleaned items once the property is fully reinstated. You will also have a detailed list of all the items that were not salvageable and a list of those items that were salvageable.
It is almost impossible to properly remove smoke or soot damage which is why we highly advise that you give us a call should you require professional smoke/soot damage restoration.
