House Fire in Shreveport? Professionals Talk Soot Removal

1/20/2020 (Permalink)

Smoke and soot damage is difficult to DIY. We have the cleaning agents and expertise to remove the damage and restore your home.

Get Efficient Soot Removal After Fire Damage in Your Shreveport Residence

After a fire, your home is likely to have soot damage. Fine soot particles might cling to walls, ceilings, furniture, and other items in your house.

When there is fire damage in your Shreveport home, you need to remove different types of soot residues. Some residues are more challenging to clean than others. The four different kinds of soot residues include:

• Wet smoke residues
• Dry smoke residues
• Fuel oil smoke residues
• Protein smoke residues

Fires progress through stages, and they generate both dry and wet smoke. Some fires mainly produce wet smoke, while others mainly produce dry smoke. We use different cleaning methods to eliminate various kinds of fire damage residues. At times, soot is dry in one room but oily in another, based on the materials which burned. We can deal with soot damage through:

Dry cleaning 

If you have primarily dry soot in your residence, dry cleaning methods can remove it. For instance, you can use a dry cloth to remove soot from furniture and a vacuum to remove it from carpets and upholstery. Dry cleaning ensures that powdery soot does not smear into blackened grime. However, this cleaning method is tedious and, therefore, only suitable for small areas. Remember that if the soot starts to smear after using a dry-cleaning method, you should try to wet clean it.

Wet cleaning

Wet cleaning is effective in eliminating wet or oily soot. To use this strategy, you can mix water and soap and then scrub the affected areas slightly. It is advisable to test the method in a small area to determine if it can remove the soot without ruining the underlying surface or making a mess. Wet cleaning can remove residue mixed with water or oil. However, it requires significant effort and is tedious. Furthermore, wet cleaning is only feasible on nonporous surfaces. It is unsuitable for cleaning wood or drywall.

DIY techniques can work on smaller areas of soot damage, but they are not always a great option. It can be overwhelming to clean significant soot damage on your own. There is also the risk of ruining some surfaces because of lacking the right cleaning solutions. In such cases, you can seek assistance from fire restoration experts.

SERVPRO has several products specifically designed to eliminate soot from a wide range of surfaces. Sometimes, it is impossible to remove the soot because of the nature of damaged items or the severity of the soot damage. Our technicians can discard such items.

Soot residues may contain different kinds of acids. If acidic soot residues remain on affected surfaces for a long time, they can cause corrosion or discoloration. Our SERVPRO crew has the expertise and tools required to remove soot residues from all affected materials and surfaces.

When dealing with soot damage, you can trust SERVPRO of South Shreveport to eliminate it efficiently and make it seem “Like it never even happened.” Call us today at (318) 865-4655.

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