Restoring Your Home After a Fire

2/2/2021 (Permalink)

For homeowners, residential fires are a nightmare. Devastating the home and its contents, a fire can turn the lives of those living in the home upside-down in a matter of minutes. With life as you knew it uprooted, the urge to take matters into your own hands and combat the fire damage cleanup is understandable. However, one misstep could actually make matters worse. When dealing with the aftermath of a fire, it is critical that you take steps to restore your home, but it’s even more important that your home is protected from further damage. Continue reading for some of our professional Fire Damage Tips, as well as ways in which you can keep your home fire-safe in the future.

Fire Damage Restoration Tips

The following are some of our Fire Damage Tips, which we have put together after years of experience in fire damage restoration. These can be helpful in the process of quickly restoring your home.

1. Lessen Movement

When you move around your house after a fire, movement can cause fire soot particles to travel into the air. Those particles can inflict additional damage to fabrics, carpets, and upholstery in your home. In order to prevent further soot damage, keep movement to a minimum and exercise caution when moving throughout your home.

1. Don’t Attempt to Clean Without Professional Guidance

Without professional guidance, attempting to clean surfaces or items in your home may be more harmful than helpful. Before you attempt to wash fire-damaged carpets or surfaces, be sure to consult professional fire damage cleaners. It can be dangerous to clean electronic appliances or devices that have been exposed to or damaged by fire, heat, or water.

1. Keep Hands Clean

Objects in your home can sustain additional damage if they are handled with unclean hands that carry soot particles or other remnants of the fire. In order to protect items from unnecessary damage, be sure to thoroughly clean your hands or wear clean gloves when attempting fire damage cleanup.

Preventing Future Fires

While your first priority is mitigating the fire damage or smoke damage and restoring your home, taking steps to prevent future fires in your home is just as important. The American Red Cross recommends that you take the following preventative measures:

1. Check on Your Smoke Detectors

Remember to inspect your home’s smoke detectors and change batteries regularly to make sure that they are functioning properly. Smoke detectors should be located in multiple rooms throughout your home. Consider interconnecting your home’s smoke detectors in order to improve communication between them, as every alarm will sound when one detects smoke, alerting you as soon as possible.

1. Fire-Proof Your Home

When furniture shopping, it may be beneficial to select fire-resistant items. These days, you can buy a wide range of fire-proof pieces, from couches to house plants. By furnishing your home with fire-resistant items, you can prevent any fire that ignites in your home from spreading, saving you valuable time.

1. Limit Fire Risks

Even in simple activities that you perform every day at home, from heating your home to using electronics, steps can be taken to protect your home from fires. When you see a frayed wire or cord, replace it immediately, even if it still seems to be doing its job. It’s better to be safe than sorry. When heating your home during the colder months, be sure to clean heating sources, such as your chimney or stove tops, prior to use.

Fire Damage? Call SERVPRO

We know that residential fires can be overwhelming, and deciding what comes next is challenging. A good first step is picking up the phone and calling SERVPRO of Harrisburg West at (717) 510-6779 immediately. We’ll arrive quickly and initiate a damage assessment, which along with our professional expertise, will help you make sense of the situation. SERVPRO is here to help your home recover from the fire with our restoration fire damage services and make the fire damage or smoke damage “Like it never even happened.” Interested in more of our Fire Damage Tips? Check them out here.