Understanding Home and Business Fires And The Damages That Follow
A fire in your home or business can leave you with more than just a mess. It can leave you with a sense of loss and uncertainty. Reading this document will hopefully provide you with some basic understanding of fire damages, and how your property will be restored. From the professionals at ICC in St Paul, here are a few tips:
Fire Damage In St Paul
A large majority of home fires start because of faulty wiring and appliances. This is followed by heating devices; often not directly starting because of the heating device but rather items such as furniture being placed too close to the heater. Regardless of how the fire started, it can begin to spread and heat to over 1100 degrees Fahrenheit in under four minutes. Even areas that aren’t directly on fire can reach temperatures of over 300 degrees, hot enough to melt plastics and create dangerous fumes. The fire itself can burn items near it and also burn the structure housing it, while creating soot and smoke damage elsewhere in the home.
Often the structural damages left behind from a fire can play as quite a shock factor, but that doesn’t mean that the smoke and soot damages should be of less priority. If not addressed quickly by a professional restoration company, such as ICC Restoration, the smoke and soot can begin eroding all the items in your home. Soot is highly acidic and can corrode all the metal items in your home, including your appliances, door handles and faucets. Soot can also enter into your HVAC system and continue to circulate dangerous soot particles throughout your home.
A licensed professional restoration company will first come into your home and assess the damages. They will help determine what items in your home may or may not be salvageable. They will create an inventory of your items, noting what they can restore and what must be disposed of. They will then provide you and your insurance company with an estimated cost to restore your items and home. After this, they will begin moving belongings out of your home; the longer your items stay in the home, the more difficult they will be to restore.
Once the restoration company has cleared the area of belongings, they will take any preventative measures needed to prevent further damage from occurring while restoration takes place. For example, if any structural damage took place, they will board up those areas to prevent things such as rain from entering and causing mold and water damages.
Once your items and home are free from getting damaged further, the restoration company will begin restoring your home and items. A good restoration company will work quickly and effectively, while keeping you up to date on their progress. Of course, the timeframe for how long it will take to restore the damages can vary depending on many factors such as the size of your home, the extent of the fire and smoke damages, as well as how long it takes to obtain any materials needed to replace and restore your home completely.