Odor Control and Soot Cleanup Needed/ SERVPRO Helps Bradley Property Owners

8/6/2019 (Permalink)

Fires Big and Small in Bradley Are Restored by SERVPRO, "Like it never even happened."

Cleaning And Restoring Bradley Homes After Fire Damage

Surrounded by state and federal highways, Bradley is an important stop along the eastern border of our state. Residents work all over the area, but choose here for their home and to raise a family. Despite the benefits of living here, disasters, like a fire, can still happen.

Restoring a fire damaged Bradley home to its original condition takes a professional service, trained to handle physical damage, smoke residues, and odors. Most house fires are relatively small and extinguished quickly. For SERVPRO restoration teams, that means they deal primarily with cleaning and removing smoke residues, and eliminating the odors they generate.

As an example of what specialists clean and deodorize are the cabinets in a kitchen fire. Since these wood or composite surfaces are smooth, team members can usually wipe off the residues with a dry sponge. For thicker, or stickier residues left behind, they break them up with a minimal amount of water or cleaning agent for easier wiping and removal. In some homes, it might be necessary to remove the handles and hinges and clean them separately.  

The problem here for SERVPRO specialists are the odors the wood or composite absorbs before they can remove the residues. If the residues are dry and powdery and removed quickly after extinguishing the fire, then very little odor transfers to the cabinets. Stickier residues take longer to remove, so the cabinets absorb more odor particles.

With either type of residue, if odors linger after removal, team members start with a deodorizing spray. They apply it to the surface, allow it to dry, and repeat as needed. If odors remain after several applications, they can use a stronger deodorizing agent, switch to another method, or dispose of it.

To remove the deeper odors from the cabinets, specialists use a fogger to create a cloud of deodorizing particles. This cloud can penetrate as deeply as the smoke from the fire to neutralize the odor and eliminate it.

Our goal at SERVPRO of Kankakee County is to return every residence to a clean, safe, and odor-free condition it enjoyed before the fire. If your home here, Bourbonnais, Manteno, or in Momence, has had a fire of any size, call our office 24/7 at (815) 935-0077 to schedule a service call. We are here to help you restore everything to normal.

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