No-one wants to think about their homes or businesses destroyed by fire or flood. Unfortunately, it’s a reality for many people every year and those people are left wondering how they’ll restore their property.
It’s always better to prepare for any eventuality, so knowing where to turn for fire and flood restoration will mean you can start to slowly recover if the worst should happen. Take a look below at some tips for recovering from fire damage.
Table of Contents
Focus on Your Health
First and foremost, your health and the health of your loved ones should come before anything else. If you or anyone you know was in the building during the fire, it’s important that you/they seek medical attention.
Burns or inhalation of smoke can cause serious damage so it’s vital to see a doctor before worrying about building restoration. Once you’re feeling healthy enough, you can begin to look at damage restoration.
Call Your Insurance Company
Before doing anything to your property, you should always contact your insurance company to let them know what has happened. By doing this you’ll be able to talk to an insurance expert that is used to dealing with emergencies like fire and flooding.
You’ll get an idea of what your coverage entitles you to in this situation and your advisor may also be able to offer you cover for hotel stays, food, clothing, and more. For many people, these are the basic essentials that are needed to get up and running again.
Secure Your Property
Sadly, your property will still be at risk even after the fire is put out. There are lots of hazards that can remain after a fire that can make the property a no-go zone. For instance, the property structure may be unstable and ash or soot may still be in the air.
If firefighters had to use water to put the fire out, the property may still be wet and could be full of chemical hazards. Similarly, leaving your property unsecured puts it at risk of looting.
Your local restoration company will be able to secure the property in a professional manner that keeps everyone safe when entering. Restoration can include boarding, fencing, water extraction, and dry out.
Put Together a Damage Report
As hard as it may be to see your home or business in ruins, it’s important to collect as much evidence as possible as you go through your property. Take as many pictures as you can of the damage and ask your restoration service to do the same.
Pictures of structural damage and the interior of the property are often best taken by restoration experts who enter the building before anyone else. You should also take pictures of any contents that are extracted from the building as you go through it.
Clean and Move Undamaged Items
It’s very rare for items in a fire not to have some kind of damage. Even if they aren’t burnt during the fire, they’ll usually have smoke or water damage from the aftermath. It can be difficult to clean and restore items, such as furniture, to their original state but not impossible.
It’s often necessary to search for fire and flood restoration near me to save items you want to keep with professional cleaning. Try and clean the items as soon as possible to eliminate any chemicals or odors that the fire would have left behind.
Clean Throughout the Building
It’s notoriously difficult to clean a building that’s damaged through fire. It will be full of soot and ash, along with possible chemicals in the air and damage to the building’s structure. It’s certainly not something that can be achieved overnight.
Different cleaning techniques will need to be applied to different areas in the building. Similarly, fire damage is often tough to remove from places like attics or crawl spaces.
A restoration professional will also need to remove smoke and soot from HVAC systems, otherwise, it poses a danger of spreading harmful odors throughout the property. If the system can’t return to its pre-fire condition, your restoration company will recommend you have a new one installed which should be covered by your insurance.
Never Restore Alone
You may be keen to get your hands dirty and get back into your property as soon as possible. However, taking matters into your own hands can cause more harm than do good. The restoration of a fire-damaged property should always be in the hands of a professional.
Not just because the property can be dangerous to enter before it’s secured and cleaned but also because these processes need to be done by the book. The last thing you want to find is your insurance company refusing to pay out because you tried to run before you could walk and forgot to tick all the boxes along the way.
How to Find Fire and Flood Restoration Near Me
When you want your property restored to all its former glory after a fire, there’s only one thing to do; hire a local fire and flood restoration expert. If you are affected by a fire or flood, at CTR we have all the experience you need to get back on your feet.
Take a look through our website for more information on what we offer and contact us with any queries.
