Cleaning Soot Residues During Fire Restoration in Dover

4/12/2022 (Permalink)

Smoke is produced with even small fires. But no worries! SERVPRO knows how to remediate the damage.

SERVPRO Provides Fire and Smoke Remediation Services in the Dover Area

After a fire inside your home gets extinguished, one of the most visible forms of damage can be the presence of soot residues. Not all fuels get combusted when things burn, and partially combusted particles get released as smoke. When the smoke travels through the air, it can solidify when it touches cooler surfaces and turn into soot.

Fire restoration in Dover often involves a large amount of soot cleaning. Soot residues can be present on your building materials and contents, like your furniture. Our SERVPRO technicians know that figuring out how to clean the various types of soot can be a significant portion of the remediation project.

When cleaning soot residues, the process must break the bond between the soot and the affected item. We can use the following four methods to loosen the soils from the affected surfaces in your home:

• Mechanical Action: Agitating the affected surface is often an effective way to dislodge soot residues. For example, we can use mechanical action to pre-clean a surface before using water-based chemicals.
• Lubrication: When we use a chemical to lubricate an item, we make it slippery. Lubrication can help break the connection between the soot and the affected surface.
• Chemical Action: We can also use products that chemically alter the soot. The changes made to the soil's molecular structure can allow it to be removed from the affected item.
• Suspension and Dispersion: In some cases, it is best to soak your affected contents in a cleaning solution.

Other services available after you suffer from a fire:

• Smoke Remediation
• Fire Debris Removal
• Fire & Water Damage Restoration
• Structural Deodorization

If several of your contents ever get covered in soot residues after a fire ignites in your home, call SERVPRO of Dover / Stillwater at (973) 810-2825.