Archive for January, 2014

Fire Damages Your Home in More Ways Than One

Sunday, January 12th, 2014 by Lisa Pixley

Nobody wants to think about the catastrophic effects of a home fire. The devastation and loss can cause immense trauma for any family. So people rarely want to think about the job of fire restoration, but this is a way to start to reclaim your home from the damage the fire inflicted.

At Alpha Air Corporation, we offer insurance-mandated fire restoration services that will remove the deposits throughout your ventilation system to help you get your home back as soon as possible. We have experience with residential and commercial fire restoration in St. Paul, MN, and we bring our years of experience to the job of restoring your home’s ventilation.

People are often unaware that the damage a fire inflicts on a home is not of a single type. Fire restoration experts must deal with more than one kind of damage when on the job. Here are the types of smoke and fire deposits that we deal with:

Wet residue

This is a side-effect of the dousing of the fire, either from the fire department or a sprinkler system. The water may stop the damage and danger from the fire, but it leaves behind a webby and smeary residue that is extremely hard to clean. The residue has a powerful and musty odor, which is often the most noticeable smell in the air after a fire.

Dry residue

Different materials burn at different rates and temperatures: wood, for example, has a high combustion rate and burns fast and at high temperatures. Burning highly combustible material leaves behind a dry smoke residue that is powdery and sooty. This is usually the easiest residue for fire restorationists to remove, although it requires a special dry-cleaning process and must be done before any wet cleaning begins.

Oily residue

This occurs because of grease fires, a burning oil furnace, or burning plastic. Oily residue resembles a smeary soot that is resistant to water-based cleaning. Not all home fires will have this kind of damage, fortunately.

Protein residue

The burning of some organic material—specifically meat and eggs—leaves behind this almost invisible residue. Even though you can’t see it, it can enter surfaces throughout your home and result in an extremely noxious odor and damage to paint and wood. This residue can only be eliminated through special cleaning.

Fire restoration is a specialized skill; you don’t want to try to clean up damage from a major fire on your own, since most of the byproducts of the fire resist standard cleaning. Contact St. Paul, MN fire restoration experts before you make any further clean-up attempts. Alpha Air Corporation can help you with our safe sanitizing agent that will leave no extra chemical residue behind after we’ve gotten rid of all the other residues from the fire.