Smoke Damage Hacks: A Cheat Sheet for Property Owners
Regardless of how unpleasant burned and smoky odors crept into your home, until effective methods permanently remove the stench it is impossible to put a fire event behind you. Sometimes your house was the venue of a household fire, the combusted materials littering your house and emitting smells exacerbated by airborne smoke particles.
Other times a wildfire or other external conflagration leaves your home untouched, no charring or other fire damage evident. However, the interior of your home still smells awful because of the smoke and soot that sifts through your dwelling’s exterior. The odor remains in your home long after the neighboring fire is history.
Either way, ridding a home of the odors produced by a fire is not a task conducive to a do-it-yourself effort. The initial steps crucial to odor elimination include disposal of the burned items and surfaces followed by a thorough cleaning. If not completed carefully, post-fire cleaning can make matters worse, the soot spreading everywhere along with the smell.
Professional fire damage restoration technicians complete a series of training that teach industry best practices. These methodologies ensure that the odiferous particles locked into furnishings, carpets, and unsealed surfaces are dislodged and removed. Using high-efficiency steam cleaners and innovative products with efficient wetting agents and surfactants that loosen the particles, trained workers remove the solids and liquids, also known as soot, which were deposited out of the smoky vapor.
Smoke also contains vapors and gases that carry the noxious odors in the most minute particles. These airborne molecules can be cleared in part with fans and ventilation, but not entirely. A complication in a home that has ductwork is the probability that smoke vapor and soot particles recirculate through the HVAC system. Expert cleaning of the venting and replacement of the filters goes a long way toward eliminating the residual odors.
Odors can remain to remind and prevent healing from the fear and confusion of the original fire despite the most thorough of cleanings. Homeowners respond by using candles, air freshener sprays, and other masking agents. These attempts do not help for long, and often worsen the situation, mixing synthetic chemical smells with the smoke to create an even ranker aroma.
Top-notch fire restoration firms invest in advanced technologies that scrub the particulates from the air and penetrate into crevices, cracks, and fibers where the odor-bearing particles hide. These tools use thermal fogging and an ever-evolving range of hydroxyl and other oxygenation generators to neutralize the odors at the molecular level. The chemical changes effected by this unique equipment essentially eliminate the last vestiges of the smoky odors lingering after a fire.
The practical and powerful results of a reputable professional odor elimination company do more than get rid of unpleasant smells permanently. Their efforts return a sense of normality and comfort to the homeowner, as well as a renewed peace of mind.
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