One of the most devastating things you can go through is a fire to your home. Your home is a place that you want to feel safe and keep all your most precious belongings. That is why when you have a fire it can be hard to recover. Most people don’t even know where to begin after the fire has been extinguished. You need to start deciding on what is able to be saved and what you are going to have to throw out in the trash. There is not just one level of damage that you will come across after you have a house fire. There is of course the damage that has come from the flames of the fire itself. This is what will most likely disintegrate and destroy what it touches leaving soot and ashes behind. The other devastation that happens when you have a fire is that there is smoke that comes off the flames. The smoke will also cause damage to areas of your home and this can often be cleaned but it will take the right cleaning process. The last part of cleaning after a fire is you need to worry about is what was used to put out the fire. The fire department will use water to extinguish the fire which is another level of damage you need to treat.

American Hometown Services Outlines Some Do’s & Don’t to Help Clean Up after a House Fire

Look for What is Salvageable: After the fire has been extinguished and you know that the home is safe to enter you want to start a walk through. This is where you take time to walk through each of the rooms and look at what is able to be cleaned and saved from the room. Just because it is black from soot does not mean that you need to throw it out. It is a good idea to keep a list of what you want to try and keep, and set up a space outside to start to keep them. You can line them up outside so that someone can start to clean the items. It is best to bypass what you are not going to clean and take all the trash out at the same time.
Decide What to Throw Away: You don’t want to try and save everything in the house. There are many items that will be so extensively damaged that it is not worth cleaning but better to rather have it replaced. You want to go through with a way to remove the garbage so that you can clear the rooms. You can use a wheelbarrow or bring large construction bags. Remove the bags and place them in a dumpster so that they can be removed from the area.
Decide What Needs to Be Repaired Or Cleaned: The next step is to determine what needs to be repaired because it has been damaged. The repairs may be minor or it can be major depending on how long the fire was able to burn. The next thing is to call out a professional so that they can determine what areas can be cleaned such as the carpets, walls and even some of the furniture.

Fire Damage Clean Up, Restoration & More in Quincy, Macomb, Hamilton, Warsaw & East Alton Illinois | Hannibal, Missouri

American Hometown Services offers expert cleaning and restoration services. Contact us to schedule an appointment for our quality services today!