Fire Damage in my Newark Residence Has Left Bad Odor, How Do I Remove It?

4/27/2020 (Permalink)

Has fire and smoke damaged your home? Call SERVPRO to come in and elimanate the problems.

Call SERVPRO Restoration Professionals to Eliminate the Smoke Odor

A fire is one of the worst incidents that can occur in your Newark home. Apart from destroying structural materials and your belongings irreversibly and quickly, fire can also cause supplementary hazards like water damage from firefighting efforts. The byproducts of the fire could continue causing damage to your home long after it was extinguished, even if it was small and contained. Stubborn smoke odor is a common example of the consequences of a fire. The odor can linger for a long time and compromise the quality of indoor air.

Which Factors Determine the Ease of Removing Smoke Odor?

It is challenging to eliminate the smoke smell because smoke particles are tiny, and they can get anywhere, including wall cavities. After a fire damages your Newark home, the smoke particles can stick to many household surfaces and become embedded into different kinds of porous materials such as fabrics, furniture, carpeting, and paint. Removing the smoke particles requires effort and specialized odor removal equipment.

Several strategies are effective in reducing the number of smoke particles in a house. However, some factors determine if those methods can restore the safe living conditions you are used to in your house. They include:

Length of exposure – When a home has been exposed to smoke for a long time, the smoke odor can be embedded into household materials more deeply.
Size of the fire – A more significant fire produces more smoke. Therefore, the resulting smoke smell can be more intense and pervasive.
Kind of burned materials – When different materials get burned, they provide different odors. Some smells are easier to remove than others.

What Can I Do to Eliminate the Smoke Smell After a Fire?

As you deal with the aftermath of a fire, you can try some proven DIY smoke smell removal techniques to determine if the results are satisfactory. If the outcome is unsatisfactory or you do not want to do the job yourself, the best option is to enlist professional odor removal services. Some DIY techniques you can use to remove the smoke odor include:

Air out your home – Open all windows and doors so that there is good ventilation and a lot of fresh air in your house. You can also place fans strategically throughout your home for an added effect.
Deep clean your house – Remove porous materials like area rugs, decorative cushions, furniture covers, blankets, duvets clothes, linens, and towels from the affected areas and wash or dry clean them.
Wash the windowpanes to restore their shine and transparency, but pay more attention to the window sills and frames. Smoke residue mainly sticks to the window sills and frames. You can place them in a washbasin or tub and use shampoo or soap to clean them.

Use a solution of white vinegar, dish soap, warm water, and white vinegar to wash all solid surfaces. This includes doors and door frames, walls, ceilings, cabinets, baseboards, furniture pieces, light switches, light fixtures, and shelves.
Clean upholstery and carpets – Smoke particles can get embedded deeply into carpet fibers and upholstery, making it difficult to remove the odor. You can sprinkle baking soda on carpets and upholstery and let it stay for a few hours to allow the soda to absorb the smoke smell. Vacuum the surfaces after that with a vacuum cleaner that contains a HEPA filter.

As you can see, it takes several steps to eliminate smoke odors from a house completely. Therefore, it is advisable to work with restoration experts from SERVPRO to deal with the smell. We are fully equipped with sophisticated restoration equipment and years of experience.

What Can SERVPRO Do to Eliminate the Odor?

Our team can control and remove odors from your home and personal belongings by starting with basic deodorization procedures. They include:
Removing the source of the odor.
Cleaning odor-causing residues from surfaces.
Recreating the conditions for odor penetration.
Sealing surfaces as required.
Our crew determines if the odors are light, moderate, or heavy and then chooses the most suitable deodorization techniques. We also consider which materials burned. If the fire burned natural substances such as wood and paper, we can remove the smoke residue using suitable chemicals, a specialized vacuum, or a dry chemical sponge. If the fire burned protein-based substances like beef and chicken, a greasy film could be covering the nearby floors and walls. The grease can sear onto surfaces, and powerful chemicals are required to remove it. If the fire burned synthetic materials, the cleaning process requires specialized techniques and equipment.

Our SERVPRO team can use a thermal fogger to deal with the odors. We start fogging in the source area and dispenses less fog while moving away from the source area. Thermal fogging is an effective procedure for removing smoke odors because it recreates the fire-related properties of pressurization and heat. Porous materials pick up the thermally activated deodorant droplets in the same way they picked up smoke odors. The deodorant droplets enter deep inside tiny crevices, cracks, and pores of surfaces like the way smoke deposits were created.

If one deodorization technique does not remove the smell altogether, we consider which other methods could be useful for the kind of odor we detect. In many cases, we combine several deodorization techniques to produce the desired results.

When you need to remove odors from your home after a fire, call SERVPRO of Newark at (302) 733-7933. We have the expertise and tools required to remove the odor to make it, “Like it never even happened.”