Is Smoke Restoration Safe?

Smoke is essentially fuel that didn’t burn. Smoke is made visible by the presence of small particles of carbon and other materials.

In most situations smoke doesn’t only come from burning wood, but also plastics, fabrics, foods, and other construction materials.

These give off a range of toxic gasses as well as various odors. Just the smoke from burning wood consists of carbon monoxide, methane, VOCs, formaldehyde, benzene, acetic acid, formic acid, and toluene, oxides of nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, organic carbon, and even traces of heavy metals. Essentially, smoke is dangerous to inhale by any person or animal, and will over time deteriorate the contents in your home like furniture, drapes, and other items.

Advertisement

What are the most common causes for House Fires?

According to the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) the most common area for house fires is in the kitchen. This is mostly from leaving the kitchen unattended while cooking. Kitchen fires can also be caused by grease getting too hot or previous grease splatters not cleaned up before cooking again.

Fire in a kitchen can also take place by leaving flammable materials like paper towels or dish towels too close to hot surfaces. A different common cause of house fires is from smoking. A smoking fire is typically caused from overloaded ashtrays and unextinguished cigarettes left unattended. Fire can even happen by a person falling asleep with a lit cigarette in their hand.

An additional common cause of fire is from heating the home during the winter months. This is from a furnace not regularly serviced, a space heater too close to flammable materials, or from either flammable materials too close to a lit fire place or an unclean chimney. Other common house fires are from children playing with lighters or matches, candles lit and left unattended, electrical fires caused by overloaded extension cords or appliance malfunctions like microwaves or dryers, and live Christmas trees drying out wrapped with hot Christmas lights.

Do different materials cause different smoke?

Examples of odors would be synthetic cause by burning plastics. Natural odors caused by burning wood, cotton, and paper, and protein odors caused by burning meat, and grease.
Synthetic materials form a residue that is typically black in color and smudges easily. Natural material residues are typically gray to black and usually powdery. Then proteins produce residue that is greasy and yellowish to brown in color. All of these are acidic nature of the film causing discoloration, corrosion, and overall damage.

Why is it Important to have a quick response for Smoke Restoration?

The quicker the response to Smoke Damage the more likely a person’s property can be salvaged, thereby saving a lot of money.

It only takes minutes for the residue from acid soot to cause plastics to yellow and small appliances to discolor. Materials that are highly absorbent, such as marble and alabaster, become permanently discolored.

In just a few hours acid residue starts to stain the grout in bathrooms and causes fiberglass bath fixtures to yellow. Uncovered metals can become tarnished, countertops can turn yellow and many furniture finishes may discolor. After a few days without Smoke Restoration permanent damages can begin to occur like permanent yellowing on your walls. At this point you will need to replace vinyl flooring. Also, clothing and upholstery develops permanent stains. If a person waits weeks before having Smoke Restoration services then their restoration costs escalate as synthetic carpet fibers become permanently discolored. Even silver, china, glass and crystal will begin to erode.

What’s involved in Smoke Restoration?

First things first, the space needs to be opened up and ventilated to let out dust.

Next service is to clean from top to bottom all ceilings, walls, and floors. This includes using a specialized sponge that is great for removing soot, smoke damage, smears and smudges on any surface where water cannot be used (ceiling tile, walls, doors, etc.). These sponges also work on acoustical tile ceilings, latex walls, cabinetry, furniture, books, etc.. During the cleaning we would run our air scrubber machines with high-efficiency filter systems. This takes out the dust and debris in the air and produces clean air for breathing.

Another part of cleaning is to pressure wash and rinse exterior surfaces. At this time we would remove the source of any residual odors which is anything that had been badly burned and couldn’t be cleaned.

Then clean any salvageable items to physically remove odor-causing residue. Once this is done we would removing any remaining odors with a commercial-grade odor counteractant. Other deodorizing methods would be to use a thermal fogger that neutralizes odor-causing substances.