The Smoke and Fire Damage Restoration Process

Every year, there are around 350,000 home structure fires that take place all throughout the U.S. They do more than $7 billion worth of property damage.

Some of these fires are caused by cooking accidents. Others are the result of faulty electrical systems or malfunctioning heating equipment. There are even some fires that are set intentionally.

If your house is ever involved in a fire, you should spring into action right away and have smoke and fire damage restoration done. A great smoke and fire damage restoration contractor can bring your home back to life and erase any memories of a fire taking place.

Today, we’re going to walk you through the steps that will occur during the fire damage restoration process. Learn about them below so that you know what to expect when you arrange to do smoke and fire restoration in Dallas or Fort Worth.

Step 1: Find a Smoke and Fire Restoration Company ASAP

In the immediate aftermath of a fire in your home, you shouldn’t hesitate to reach out to a smoke and fire damage restoration company for help. Ideally, you’ll want to touch base within just a few hours of a fire taking place, if not sooner.

The good news is that there are more than 55,000 of these companies operating throughout the country. It should make it simple enough for you to track down a reputable company to take care of smoke and fire restoration in Fort Worth or Dallas.

But whatever you do, make sure you don’t just settle for the first smoke and fire damage restoration company you can find. Your goal should be to locate one of the best companies in the business to assist you to ensure things go smoothly.

DFW Turnkey Restoration is a great example of a company you can trust for all your smoke and fire damage restoration needs.

Step 2: Take Part in a Smoke and Fire Damage Evaluation

Once you have the right smoke and fire damage restoration company in your corner, you should arrange to have them take a trip out to your home. They’ll be able to evaluate it from top to bottom to see how much damage was done to it.

During their evaluation of your home, a company will check each room to see what damage soot, smoke, and fire were able to do to it. It’ll put them in a much better position to come up with an actionable plan for restoring it back to its former glory.

You might not necessarily want to set foot back in your home when it’s damaged since it might be hard for you to see what was done to it. But a smoke and fire restoration contractor will be able to get access to as much of it as they can to formulate their plan.

Step 3: Have Your Home Boarded Up and Your Roof Tarped

There is a good chance that at least some of the walls and windows in your home will be severely damaged by the fire that took place in it. Depending on where the fire occurred, there might also be extensive damage done to your roof.

Because of this, there might be certain parts of your home that will need to be boarded up. You might also need to throw a tarp up over your roof to prevent rain from getting inside it.

As you might imagine, boarding up your home and tarping your roof can be very dangerous. So you’ll be happy to hear that a smoke and fire damage restoration company will take care of doing all this. It’ll stop even more damage from being done to your home while they’re working on restoring it.

Step 4: Remove Water From Your Home and Dry It Out

A home is typically going to sustain more than just smoke and fire damage when a fire takes place in it. There will also be quite a bit of water damage done to it, too. A fire department will need about 2,500 gallons of water to put out a fire in the average home.

In certain cases, all that water can actually end up doing more damage to a home than a fire. It can ruin a lot of the things that are in a home and cause mold and mildew to begin to grow almost right away.

For this reason, a great smoke and fire damage restoration contractor isn’t going to start cleaning up smoke and fire damage first. Instead, they’ll set their sights on cleaning up water damage and drying a home out before doing anything else.

Step 5: Get Rid of Soot and Smoke From Your Home

Once a smoke and fire damage restoration company is able to get all the water from inside your home out, they can set their sights on getting rid of soot and smoke from it. This can be a very tedious part of the process that can take some time.

They’ll need to rely on specialized types of equipment and proven techniques to rid a home of soot and smoke damage. As long as they’re able to do this, they should be able to remove any signs of damage from walls, floors, ceilings, etc. in no time.

Step 6: Clean Parts of Your Home Affected by Smoke and Fire

After a smoke and fire damage restoration is able to remove soot and smoke damage from your home, they’ll get to work on sanitizing and cleaning it from top to bottom. This is the part of the process when things will really start to come together.

A smoke and fire damage restoration contractor will put special cleaning supplies and techniques to good use to clean just about every single surface inside your home. They’ll also use everything from industrial scrubbers to fogging equipment to eliminate any smoky odors that might still be hanging around.

Step 7: Restore Your Home Back to Its Previous Condition

When a smoke and fire damage restoration company is finished cleaning all the various parts of your home, you’re going to be itching to move back into it. But there will still be one very important step they’ll need to take.

A smoke and fire damage restoration will help you restore some of the parts of your home that couldn’t be salvaged. This will include doing things like:

Hanging up new drywall
Putting fresh coats of paint on the walls
Installing new flooring
Reconstructing individual rooms
Completing larger-scale renovations

In some cases, this step isn’t going to be as complicated as it might seem. If there was only a small portion of your home damaged by smoke and fire, it shouldn’t take long for a contractor to restore it.

If, however, the vast majority of your home sustained smoke and fire damage to some degree, it’ll be a different story. You will need to have most of it restored and brought back to life so that you can begin living in it again.

This will be especially true for those who may have sustained structural damage to their home. Your home won’t be safe enough to move back into if you don’t correct structural issues right away.

Step 8: Move Back Into Your Home

If you’re able to get all the way to this point, the smoke and fire damage restoration process will officially be coming to a close. The only thing left to do will be for you to move back into your home and start living in it.

You might need to invest in new furniture for your home to replace any pieces that were damaged beyond repair during a fire. You might also need to get your hands on things like clothing, kitchen appliances, etc.

But generally speaking, you should be able to move into your home quickly and begin getting things back to normal. You’ll be so glad to be at the end of the smoke and fire damage restoration when everything is finished.

Call Us to Start the Smoke and Fire Damage Restoration Process

The smoke and fire damage restoration process isn’t a process that can be carried out overnight. It can take days, weeks, and sometimes even months to carry this process out.

If you’re going to need to start going through the smoke and fire damage restoration process soon, you should make sure you have the right company on your side to help. DFW Turnkey Restoration can provide you with assistance and make the process go so much better than it would otherwise.