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Friday 26 July 2024

What Are the Steps Involved in Fire Damage Restoration?

Posted by at 3:41 PM in

What Are the Steps Involved in Fire Damage Restoration?

When you have a fire at your home, it can seem devastating. Fire can completely obliterate some of your possessions, and what it doesn’t destroy, the smoke and soot can thoroughly contaminate. Plus, there’s the huge volume of water that firefighters might use to put out the fire that can result in significant water damage. You might think that it’s impossible that your home should ever be what it once was.

However, at JRCC, we’ve helped many families and businesses recover from fire damage that seemed total. It isn’t easy, but it’s possible, and we are very successful because we take it step by step.

Step 1: Assess Damage

The first step in fire damage restoration is to assess the extent of the damage. This is in itself a multi-step process, because we first have to make sure the property is safe enough for inspection. Once we’ve established that it’s safe, we will go through the property room by room, and based on our training and experience, we’ll assess each one in terms of:

  • How much fire damaged the structure
  • How much smoke and soot have penetrated the room and its contents
  • Where water damage restoration is necessary and possible
  • Which contents can be saved, and which will need to be discarded

Once we’ve completed the process, we’ll have a comprehensive estimate for you, which will include the cost and expected time necessary for completion. When it comes to the contents, you will have the opportunity to decide what you’re prepared to save and what you’d rather replace.

Remove Salvageable Belongings

After inspection, we will remove the property that we’ve identified as salvageable. This is likely more than you think, thanks to our state-of-the-art cleaning facilities and procedures. Often, too, it’s much less expensive to save possessions than replace them – it may cost as much as 80% less to restore items than replace them.

Once your items are cleaned, we’ll place them in our specialty drying and deodorizing rooms. When they are dry, deodorized and stabilized, we’ll store them until your home is ready for them.

Secure Property

Once your salvageable items are removed, we will seal the property for its protection. We’ll board up windows, put tarps on damaged roofs, and seal off damaged areas from undamaged ones to avoid contamination.

Securing the property protects it from further damage from rain, animals, vandals, and thieves.

Demolish Damaged Structures, Dry Excess Water, and Remove Debris

With salvageable property out of the way, we are free to demolish the damaged areas, dry out excess water, and remove debris.

The order these steps take place will depend on what makes the most sense. Sometimes, demolishing damaged areas will make it easier to dry excess water, but other times removing water makes demolition easier. It may also be efficient to do the two processes simultaneously in different parts of the structure.

Clean Up & Smoke Removal

Once we’ve removed all the excess water as well as any damaged structures, it’s time to clean everything that’s going to remain in place. Soot falls on every surface within the building. Smoke odors can penetrate deep into the structure of your house or office during a fire. It’s not sufficient to simply cover up smelly structures – we want to clean it thoroughly to make sure that no odors remain.

It’s important to get this step complete before we begin construction because it can be a lot harder to remove smoke odors once we reinstall drywall and insulation.

Construction

With debris, soot, and smoke odors removed, we can begin reconstruction of your house or business. When you work with JRCC, you will have just one contact for the entire fire damage restoration process. We can handle the entire fire damage restoration process, including all reconstruction work, ourselves. This provides for a smoother restoration process than is often possible when the reconstruction work is farmed out to a third-party contractor.

At JRCC, our comprehensive reconstruction services include:

  • Carpentry
  • Flooring
  • Electrical
  • Plumbing
  • Roofing
  • HVAC
  • Insulation
  • Drywall installation

All of these stages are done to the current building standards, which will likely represent an upgrade for many older buildings.

Restoration and Move-In

Finally, we want to restore your home to the exact condition it was in before the disaster – or better. This means installing matching finishing and trim. We’ll paint or install other wall coverings to your specifications.

We’ll inspect for any remaining odors and make sure there is no risk of mold or mildew growth. Once the space is ready, we’ll move your salvaged property back into your repaired home.

Then you will be able to move back in yourself. With JRCC, your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. If you aren’t absolutely satisfied with the result of our fire damage restoration services, let us know and we’ll see about making it right.

Get Fire Restoration in Central Washington

If you have had a fire at your home or business, JRCC is ready to help.

JRCC offers 24/7 emergency response services. We have been the leading restoration provider in the area for over 30 years, and we can show you why: our meticulous process uses state-of-the-art technology and techniques to deliver outstanding results. We can handle the entire process so it’s easy for you. You don’t have to juggle different contractors and schedules – we handle all that for you.

We also coordinate with your insurance company to make sure everything is documented according to their standards. This helps ensure that you will get compensation for the full amount covered by your policy, and that you get paid quickly.

Contact us today to get the fire damage restoration process started. JRCC serves homeowners and business owners in Moses Lake, Wenatchee, Ellensburg, Yakima, and the surrounding areas of Washington.