Flood-damaged living room.

After a fire, the aftermath you are left with can be quite overwhelming and stressful. It is highly beneficial to consult with professionals to help clean up the mess, deal with the water damage, and perform the necessary smoke damage removal. In the meantime, however, there are steps you can do on your own to speed up the process or help cut down on the costs if you do not have the proper insurance to handle the situation for you.

The first thing you should do is get the air in your home to help dry up moist or wet areas by increasing the circulation inside. If you don't pay adequate attention to this step, you will be dealing with much more that smoke damage restoration in a short period of time. If the air outside is humid or warm, you will want to keep the windows closed and use a dehumidifier and fans. If you open the windows with warm weather, the setting will be optimal for mold. If the weather is cold outside, you should open the windows and run your heater (if you wish) because this will help speed up the process for drying out the moist areas. Also, remember to change your furnace filters almost daily until no soot is present on them.

Another step you could do on your own is removing the soot off of the items that were effected. Generally, you could hire a company to do this with their high powered vacuums, but you can also do it yourself. Hold the vacuum just above the item and vacuum the soot away. Do not use a brush though, as it will push the soot deeper into your belongings. This is the same process you will use when vacuuming carpets to remove the soot. Keep in mind that using anything with bristles could push the soot further into the carpet. You may want to use a handheld vacuum or use the setting on your regular vacuum that is meant for tile floors so that the bristles don't spin.

For professional smoke damage removal, you may want to contact a fire damage restoration company. You can attempt to do it yourself if it is a small area but you will need to be confident first that you understand exactly what to do. You want to use a "counteract-ant" to break up the smoke molecules. You could try Fabreeze, but it would only be a temporary fix. For a more permanent fix you can try soaking the articles overnight in a mixture of one cup of dish-washing detergent per one gallon of water. The next day rinse the items and they should be as good as new.

For most cases, smoke restoration should be left to the professionals, but as you can see, there are "home remedies" that can be used to help with the process. Please let us know how we can help to ensure that your smoke remediation is done the right way the first time.

Phoenix fire water damage