SERVPRO Tips: How to Neutralize Odors After A Fire

2/19/2023 (Permalink)

According to a stat regarding fire damage from the U.S. Fire Administration says, grills on balconies, terraces, and patios were the cause of 52% of overall fires. Many homeowners switch to electric indoor/outdoor grills; however, they also have safety aspects.

SERVPRO received a call to mitigate fire and odor damage in a Michigan City kitchen caused by an indoor electric grill. Protein fires that occur during cooking are a frequent cause of remediation calls.

This type of fire is misleading because there is very little in the way of visible soot damage commonly seen in fire loss incidents. Instead, when burned, the animal fat in proteins becomes a fine mist that is almost invisible to the naked eye. Anywhere this mist lands has a pungent odor that cannot be masked or wiped away. Protein-based fires require professional cleaning and odor control methods.

When we arrived at the home, the strong odor of burned meat permeated the air. SERVPRO uses professional-grade cleaning formulas that cut through the greasy, pungent film left behind by a protein fire on surfaces from floor to ceiling. Wiping down the kitchen area significantly decreased the level of odor in the room, but required stronger scent control methods.

Our SERVPRO technicians possess several different types of equipment specialized for eradicating foul odors. When dealing with the aftermath of a protein fire, multiple applications of varying odor control methods may be needed to neutralize foul scents left in the room thoroughly.

Two powerful odor neutralizing methods our technicians frequently use against protein fires are thermal fogging, which is the application of an odor neutralizing fog to the affected area, and a piece of equipment called a hydroxyl generator. Both are effective against protein fire residue. We chose to use the hydroxyl generator as it abstracts hydrogen atoms and essentially takes apart odors at the molecular level.

SERVPRO of La Porte County is available 24/7 by calling (219) 879-1883. Our team of certified restoration professionals can cleanup fire and odor damage in your home and make it "Like it never even happened."

Click here for more information about the city of Michigan City.

Fire Odors? Don't Worry, SERVPRO Can Help?

9/24/2022 (Permalink)

Making popcorn on the stove is a fast, easy way to prep snacks for movie night with the family. When your skillet suddenly catches fire during cooking and leaves soot and unpleasant odors from fire damage stuck to your walls and ceiling, however, it can put a damper on the evening before it even starts. 

When cooking mishaps leave fire damage in your Westville home's walls, it can be difficult and time-consuming to clean on your own. Our team at SERVPRO, however, can address the mess in hours with a restoration-focused approach to save you time and money. 

After calling SERVPRO, our 24-hour emergency response team can survey the damage in your kitchen. Once evaluated, our technicians endeavor to clean your walls and ceiling thoroughly. Dry or wet cleaning methods may be used depending on the amount and type of soot on your surfaces. If nearby kitchen windows or objects affected by smoke, odors, or residue, our team takes care to clean those, as well. The casings on electronics such as kitchen appliances are also cleaned to ensure that fire damage does not lead to future electrical failures. 

Cooking fires, in particular, can leave residues and unpleasant odors in unexpected places that can linger for long periods. Deodorization after cleaning eliminates odors from smoke and burnt food particles. Factors that determine the method of deodorization include the type of smoke and soot affecting property and structures, the material that has burnt, and the amount of space that has been impacted by the fire. In confined spaces, the use of thermal foggers makes for effective odor removal via a dense fog filled with deodorizing solution. This solution binds to and eliminates particles that create odors.

SERVPRO of La Porte County is ready to respond to your disaster cleanup needs. Call (219) 879-1883 to request our services today.

Read more about Westville here.

Fire Damage is Tough! Check Out what to Avoid

9/24/2022 (Permalink)

Assessment and Estimation for Fire Damages in La Porte Homes

Fires and other unexpected disasters that can affect your La Porte home requires dedicated professionals with the ability to respond to the situation quickly. Part of understanding the severity of the damage to your home is getting the right assessment done by trained technicians with the experience to understand what has to happen to restore a property entirely.
 
When it comes to overcoming fire damage in your La Porte home, the first logical step is to determine how bad the damage is throughout your house. From the point of combustion through the lingering effects spreading throughout the rooms, damages rarely remain isolated to a small area of the property. Our SERVPRO estimator can begin the thorough assessment of the property beginning the moment that we arrive at your address with our mitigation equipment.
 
Additionally, this estimator is working to provide a realistic look at the work that is necessary to return the home to its original condition most cost-effectively and efficiently. We catalog damages, document the work to get performed and take photographic evidence to present your insurance company to help expedite the claims process. We work closely with many of the major and local insurance companies to understand what they need to approve a claim on your behalf to get your home restored after a fire has taken place.
 
Damage assessment is also designed to identify risks present throughout the home as well. After a fire, structural concerns are among the chief potential problems that our SERVPRO professionals face, as many materials become overly damaged and unstable. This inspection of the property helps to identify potential hazards with structural elements, indoor air quality, debris and destruction, and other areas that could threaten the safety of the home’s occupants or our technicians on site.
 
Our SERVPRO of La Porte County technicians take great pride in the thorough nature of the work that we do, while still being able to provide our customers with an efficient restoration result that can save them time and money. If a fire has occurred in your home, reach out to our professionals today at (219) 879-1883.

Click here for more information about La Porte.

When Fire Hits Your Home or Business, We Are Here for You

7/23/2022 (Permalink)

Any variety of disaster that could affect your home does not always require the intervention or involvement of your insurance provider. While many widespread disasters can get resolved much more quickly with the approval of a damage claim which can afford professional restoration services like our team, there are also many cases that can appear worse than they end up being. The way that you can determine which situation you are dealing with involves a preliminary inspection and assessment of the damages.

Fires can be notorious for providing a scary appearance to your home, but in truth, many of these fire damages can be more aesthetic than actually harmful to the exposed materials. Depending on the severity of the situation, your fire damages could also end up contained to a single area or room of your home before getting extinguished, greatly limiting the work that is necessary to return your home to preloss condition. Our SERVPRO team can help with an accurate assessment of the situation with honest personnel working to make this damaging incident “Like it never even happened.”

This initial assessment catalogs the damages discovered and begins to determine the necessary processes, personnel, and equipment required to return your fire damaged property to its original condition. We can share this estimation of that cost and the work to get performed directly with you to help you make an informed decision as to whether involving your insurance company, paying the deductible, and potentially raising your premium later is wise compared to the out-of-pocket expense of funding professional restoration yourself.

Should you choose to involve your insurance company, we have already comprised the information and documentation of the damages necessary for them to process a damage claim and get it approved quickly.

While you cannot predict when disaster can strike, it is always wise to make the best choice in restoration that is financially smart and efficient for your household. Give our SERVPRO of La Porte County rapid response team a call for our honest assessment of the damage and effective restoration work at (219) 879-1883.

Learn more about a small town just 15 minutes from Lake Michigan worth checking out, click here for more details.

Fires are devastating, know help is on its way, call the experts at SERVPRO today

6/27/2022 (Permalink)

Fires inside your home can be scary experiences. Although the flames themselves are usually under control relatively quickly, the feelings of panic and stress associated with them can last much longer. That is why removing the odor of smoke damage is not only vital to ensuring healthy indoor air quality but also in helping to alleviate painful reminders of the event. Responsible professionals can help you achieve this.

When we enter properties that have suffered from fire damage in Wanatah our immediate concern is safety. A brief but thorough visual inspection alongside a pre-test to establish what types of materials caught fire is essential. Only once we can assure the safety of your property can you return or contractors enter on the site.

SERVPRO use a vast array of methods and equipment to remove residual damages and restore your home. It is more than likely that we send an IICRC smoke odor control certificate holder to your property to help complete the job. These technicians are adept at removing odors with a range of equipment.

The most straightforward route to clean indoor air quality is usually the most effective. SERVPRO can deploy air scrubbers in the affected area. Air scrubbers use vacuum technology to pull contaminated air through a series of filters. We use HEPA filters which are fitted with charcoal and are capable of removing odor particles as small as 0.3 microns. Filtering air quality is far less harmful than releasing chemicals into your home environment and, where possible, is the method of choice for home fires.

In areas of the home that a busy or often occupied, we can deploy hydroxyl generators. Hydroxyls are naturally occurring molecules that remove odor from an outdoor environment. Hydroxyl generators create the same effect but for indoor properties passing odors through a series of filters and naturally removing them. The advantage of this technique is that it removes odor after fire damage without filling the home with chemicals that could be potentially harmful, especially for younger children.

For specialists in odor removal, contact SERVPRO of La Porte County at (219) 879-1883.

Call SERVPRO of La Porte County to clean and restore your home from fire damage

6/20/2022 (Permalink)

What to Do Once the Firefighters Leave Your Michigan City Home

Knowing what to do when a disaster impacts your Michigan City home is critical to getting the restoration process started as promptly as possible. The faster that experienced technicians can get to work on recovering the damages to your home, the faster that this process goes. In a situation like a fire in your house, there are some steps that you can take to ensure that you get the help you need as quickly as you can get it.

Fire damages in your Michigan City home can vary significantly from one situation to the next, so there is no telling what a homeowner should expect, or what the technicians that work on the restoration could expect as well. One of the first things that you should remember is that you should wait until a competent individual informs you that it is safe to walk back into your home to see the damage for yourself. Structural weakening or failure is always a persistent possibility depending on the severity of the fire itself.

One of the first things that you should do before you reach out to dedicated restoration specialists like our SERVPRO team is to call your insurance provider. When you get your agent on the phone, you can get all of the details about what you need to provide them and what they need to begin and approve a claim to restore the damages to your home.

The next call that you should make is to our SERVPRO emergency response team. This dispatched small crew of experts can help to mitigate the immediate damages, and our estimator can help to provide the necessary documentation and cataloging of the damages needed by your insurance company to move these repairs and restorations along through approval of the claim.

Locally Owned Company with National Resources

Fire damages in your home might seem overwhelming at first, but with the right plan in place, recovering from a disaster like this does not have to be such a burden. You can depend on our SERVPRO of La Porte County technicians and advanced equipment to overcome any effect from a fire that your home faces. Give us a call anytime at (219) 879-1883.

Recovering After A Fire, SERVPRO Is Here To Help

4/10/2022 (Permalink)

While you might not know all of the steps that go into recovering a Westville home after fire damage, you should leave it to trained professionals like us. The SERVPRO rapid response team that you can reach by calling our number can usually arrive within 4-hours after you reach out, bringing along with us the full measure of our restoration equipment, personnel, and experience to protect your home in this trying time. We can help prevent further damages and costly repairs.

From the time that our team arrives at your home, we can begin an assessment of the property. This inspection can be useful for your home insurance adjuster with the necessary information to process a damage claim. We are not insurers, but we do liaise with you and your agency to expedite the claim. However, it also can identify the areas of your property that require controlled demolition techniques and debris removal. Taking out these problem areas can improve indoor air quality and also provide a seamless transition between mitigation and reconstruction. Smoke odors and soot penetrations can be significant negative effects of a house fire.

Our SERVPRO experts can suggest what contents in your home can get preserved and restored during this initial inspection as well. Those items that require focused cleaning, deodorization and restoration efforts get removed from your home and taken to our nearby facility. Our contents department can restore these belongings entirely, and keep them safe until they can get returned to your home after our restoration efforts. We have industry-leading equipment like Esporta washing machines and ultrasonic baths for cleaning porcelain dolls to toy fire trucks.

Fires are never easy to overcome, and they can be impossible for a homeowner to restore or clean up on their own fully. Trust in the fast response and expertise of our SERVPRO of La Porte County fire restoration specialists. We're Faster To Any Size Disaster. You can reach us 24/7 by calling (219) 879-1883.

The Importance of Fire Cleanup in Your LaPorte Home

4/5/2022 (Permalink)

When your La Porte home has fire damage, you can trust SERVPRO to help you remove the fire-damaged contents, cleanup the smoke residues, and deodorize your property. In most cases, fires also cause water damage because of firefighting efforts. The water can soak everything that was near the fire. Within a few days, drywall can disintegrate, wood can warp, and mold infestation can occur.

You should take action to dry out the walls, furniture, carpets, and other affected items. Our technicians can remove the water and excess moisture quickly using water extraction, air moving, and dehumidification equipment. We also understand how mold grows and how to prevent infestations. Our technician can check for hidden sources of moisture using equipment like:

•  Thermal hygrometers

•  Moisture meters

•  Moisture sensors

•  Infrared cameras

We can then dry the affected areas thoroughly to prevent mold infestation. Our technicians can also use a soda blaster to remove soot and cleanup carbonized wood. Soda blasting is also useful for cleaning up brick, concrete, and stone. A soda blaster uses baking soda as a media to clean dirty surfaces. Baking soda is safe for the environment, cost-effective, less aggressive, and easy to rinse away with water.

After a fire, discomfort and frustration can ensue from the unpleasant smells in your home. Our technicians can remove the lingering odors resulting from the fire using sophisticated odor restoration technology. Our Odor Control Technician (OCT) can pinpoint the source of the odor such as charred debris and eliminate it. If it is impossible to remove the materials causing bad odors, we can wrap them in polythene to prevent odor vapors from escaping into the air.

Smoke and fire damage may have occurred in the HVAC system of your home. In such a case, our SERVPRO crew can clean the HVAC system thoroughly and seal it. We can also ventilate the affected areas by running air scrubbers with activated carbon and potassium permanganate filters to eliminate odors and gases.

After the unfortunate event of a fire in your Michigan City, Westville or Trail Creek home, call SERVPRO of La Porte County for help. We have the expertise and equipment to make the incident seem “Like it never even happened.” You can reach us at (219) 879-1883.

After A Fire - You Can Count On SERVPRO To Deodorize!

2/7/2022 (Permalink)

You can count on our fire loss specialists to make these effects “Like it never even happened,” by calling (219) 879-1883.

DIY recovery of fire loss incidents that occur in Valparaiso homes is becoming more and more common, yet the risks of doing a poor job are as relevant as ever. Homeowners need to carefully decide their competency against the money that can get saved by seeking to do this alone. Odors can especially prove problematic for inexperienced DIY enthusiasts, yet the right equipment employed at the appropriate times can help.

While many have come to expect our SERVPRO professionals to have the leading industry equipment for fire damage in Valparaiso homes, these same powerful tools are not readily available at any hardware location. The best options that many homeowners are likely to find are limited in power and capacity to our commercial-grade units. They can be nearly as effective at eliminating the odors present in the house, however, with the appropriate applications.

Make the situation easier on yourself by turning off air circulation systems to prevent access to all areas of your home. If possible, seal off lightly affected or unaffected areas with plastic sheeting or other barriers to prevent odor compounds from traveling to new areas of your property. Once you have the effects contained in a specific region of your home, you can get to work with the deodorization equipment you have acquired temporarily.

In most cases, multiple units of varying types can lead to more effective results as our SERVPRO team has seen. You can rent a hydroxyl machine, for example, which can work to reduce airborne particulates as well as present odors after fire damage. Additionally, you can use a thermal fogging machine. This unit has a dense chemical compound it expels, which can seep into construction materials, contents, carpeting, and other surfaces to break apart odor molecules and neutralize them on contact.

Fire odors can be a very challenging effect to overcome, especially when it has moved throughout the majority of the property. Even with the acquisition of powerful equipment, the situation might still feel overwhelming for some homeowners, and our SERVPRO of La Porte County team is here to help. You can count on our fire loss specialists to make these effects “Like it never even happened,” by calling (219) 879-1883.

See more about Valparaiso.

Get Damage Remediation Success With SERVPRO

9/27/2021 (Permalink)

Suffering through fire damage can be quite overwhelming. Team SERVPRO is the service company that you need to make it "Like it never even happened."

Assessment and Estimation for Fire Damages in La Porte Homes

Fires and other unexpected disasters that can affect your La Porte home requires dedicated professionals with the ability to respond to the situation quickly. Part of understanding the severity of the damage to your home is getting the right assessment done by trained technicians with the experience to understand what has to happen to restore a property entirely.
 
When it comes to overcoming fire damage in your La Porte home, the first logical step is to determine how bad the damage is throughout your house. From the point of combustion through the lingering effects spreading throughout the rooms, damages rarely remain isolated to a small area of the property. Our SERVPRO estimator can begin the thorough assessment of the property beginning the moment that we arrive at your address with our mitigation equipment.
 
Additionally, this estimator is working to provide a realistic look at the work that is necessary to return the home to its original condition most cost-effectively and efficiently. We catalog damages, document the work to get performed and take photographic evidence to present your insurance company to help expedite the claims process. We work closely with many of the major and local insurance companies to understand what they need to approve a claim on your behalf to get your home restored after a fire has taken place.
 
Damage assessment is also designed to identify risks present throughout the home as well. After a fire, structural concerns are among the chief potential problems that our SERVPRO professionals face, as many materials become overly damaged and unstable. This inspection of the property helps to identify potential hazards with structural elements, indoor air quality, debris and destruction, and other areas that could threaten the safety of the home’s occupants or our technicians on site.
 
Our SERVPRO of La Porte County technicians take great pride in the thorough nature of the work that we do, while still being able to provide our customers with an efficient restoration result that can save them time and money. If a fire has occurred in your home, reach out to our professionals today at (219) 879-1883.