Battle Ground's Fire Damage Experts Explain Odor Problems

8/14/2018 (Permalink)

Once a fire gets large, it can burn through a house taking building materials and contents as fuel to spread to other areas of the property.

Fire Damage Experts Explain Odor Problems

A fire starting inside a home is rare, but it could happen to your Battle Ground residence. Some fires are big and very devastating. Once a fire gets large, it can burn through a house taking building materials and contents as fuel to spread to other areas of the property. Once a fire grows to a certain size, many things inside a building can get burnt and ruined. Other fires that start indoors are small and get put out quickly by you or a family member. These small fires can still cause much damage to things inside your home. Usually, you have to use a fire extinguisher or water to put out the fire which can damage structural components and your possessions. Once anything burns, it puts out smoke that consists of materials that did not fully combust. Therefore, even if the original blaze seemed minor, there is a chance the smoke coming from it will cause problems after the fire is put out.

Burnt materials can release foul odors into the area that can spread throughout your house. As soon as our SERVPRO technicians arrive at a fire damage project in Battle Ground, we inspect the entire home for problems. Any place that smoke went could contain soot residues. Soils and residues left behind from smoke also contain burnt aromas. Residues can also ruin and corrode surfaces if not cleaned.

Whenever our SERVPRO restoration crew finds smoke residues, we clean a section of the affected materials as a test. Our estimators carry a test kit with them that is equipped with various cleaning supplies and chemicals. We test every affected area and figure out if the items can be cleaned or not. We also use the testing phase to determine which methods and chemicals work best for removing each type of soot found.

In some cases, unpleasant fragrances can still exist after all smoke-related soot and soils have been removed. Tiny odor particles can travel deep into porous materials and contaminate them. When odors exist after all cleaning procedures get taken, then we use foggers or ozone systems to neutralize odors.

Ultra low volume foggers mimic the properties of smoke and penetrate the materials in the same fashion. Ozone machines send out unstable O3 particles that attach to odor molecules and chemically neutralize them. If your property ever suffers even the smallest fire or smoke damage, call SERVPRO of Lafayette at (765) 420-0077 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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