4 Ways to Clean Belongings After a Fire

7/22/2021 (Permalink)

After a fire, you want to get everything back to normal as soon as possible. You can contact SERVPRO of Chattanooga for professional help.

After a Fire, How to Clean Your Belongings

Watching your Tyner, TN home burn can leave you with an ache in your heart. Not only do you have to deal with a massive insurance claim, but there's a good chance you'll end up losing some of your treasured possessions. When you work with a residential fire damage cleanup crew, some of your smoke-damaged belongings may get saved. Content cleaning is a delicate art that can take the following shapes.

1. Dry-Cleaning: Clothes, furniture and other porous items often have to be cleaned with a dry-cleaning method. This helps remove the smoke and soot that built up during the fire. If you try to wash your clothes on a normal cycle, you may end up causing more damage. The soot has to be removed from the textiles before you can return to a typical cleaning method.
2. Ultrasonic: Non-porous items can go through a more vigorous cleaning than materials that soak up water. The ultrasonic treatment incorporates ultrasound and a cleaning solvent to rid your belongings of soot.
3. High-Pressure Water: If the ultrasonic machine is not big enough for some of your non-porous furniture, the professionals may choose to use high-pressure water. This only works on non-porous items because they won't soak up the excess water.
4. Odor Removal: Smoke isn't the only thing that can cling to your possessions. The odor after a fire can be a long-term reminder of what you went through. After dry-cleaning, ultrasonic or high-pressure water methods have been put in place, you may want to do some sort of odor removal too. Professionals often use thermal fogging or ozone treatments to rid your home of the funky smell.

After a fire, you want to get everything back to normal as soon as possible. This means you need to clean your belongings. If the cleaning process takes longer than expected, you can also use content storage to get your dirty, smelly items out of the house until they're clean.