How To Clean Severe Fire & Smoke Damage

Do you have a fire damaged house and have no idea how and where to start cleaning?

We will show you how we do it, but first you must understand....

It is important to call a professional restorer to do the job otherwise you may be wasting your time and causing more damage to your property. Also It may be unsafe for you to do it yourself, especially if it is severe fire damage like the property below. Visit the clean trust website to find your local professional restorer. 

Ok thats out of the way, this is how we do it:

Let me use an example. We completed this job this week, and the owner was extemely happy with the job.

These are before and after pictures of a fire damage property we cleaned out.

The first step was to remove all the damaged contents and clean the walls as well as remove the non-recoverable plasterboard (dry wall) on the ceiling.

Here is the cleaning of the ceiling in progress. We generally use a dry chem sponge (pictured right) to clean the soot from the ceilings. Ceilings are more porous than walls, so it can stain if cleaned with water. We purchase our chem sponges from Prochem Australia.

Walls (see picture below) are generally cleaned with a high alkaline cleaner such as Prochem Renovate also purchased from Prochem Australia. Recoverable plaster walls will be bleed sealed and repainted after they have been cleaned.

Here is the cleaning of the bathroom in progess:

Cleaning of the soot from the tiles is usually completed using a high pressure hot water extraction machine. These days, more restoration companies use a process called dry ice blasting to clean bathrooms. In this case we applied the chemical, scrubbed the tiles and used a a Prochem Legend machine high pressure water and extraction to finish the cleaning.

It some cases it can be impossible to remove the smoke odour from ceiling insulation. So we removed all insulation from the property.

This is a before and after picture of a garage which was the source of the fire. Notice how we have completely stripped out non-recoverable building components.

The work remaining involves work carried out by trades including builders, plasterers, and painters. Which is work best left to the professionals.

In future we will explore the different technologies used in removing odour from properties as well as how to packout and clean the affected contents from the property. 

Further Reading:
Removing Odour from Clothing - http://extension.missouri.edu/p/GH145
Handling Smoke Damage after a Fire - http://disaster.ifas.ufl.edu/PDFS/CHAP13/D13-17.PDF 

More Before and After Pictures

How to Dry Wet Carpet (Water Damage Brisbane)

You may have had traumatic experience with water, flood or sewage damage entering your home of business. Here is a video showing exactly how we dry water damage from carpets and walls. The steps of drying wet carpet are listed below the video.

• Extraction of water with a commercial extractor. This will take around 85% of the water out
• Use of water claw to help remove extract more water
• Movement of furniture
• Careful placement of air movers, dehumidifiers and hepa filters to dry down final 15%.
• Plug all electrical equipment into an RCD (pictured right) so it is electrically safe
• Dry down takes about 48 hours on average but varies from job to job
• Moisture tests such as dew point, humidity and WME should be taken to see if carpet, subfloor and walls are dry
• If there is an odour in the environment (e.g. sewage spill). We run a Odorox Hydroxyl machine to deodorise and purify the air.

The most important step to call a water damage clean trust certified professional such as New Life Restorations to dry down your property. If the dry down is managed incorrectly, you may risk having mould growth to your property.

Book Smoke Damage Removal

This video shows our contents division team cleaning soot damaged books onsite. There was a mild soot coverage over everything.

Equipment Used in this Video

• Soot Hepa Vacuum Bench
• Hepa Rated Vacuum Cleaner
• Hepa Air scrubber with carbon filter
• Chem sponge
• Vacuum with horses hair head

Steps to Soot Removal

• Hold Book closed
• Hepa Vaccum the books with horses hair head on top of the hepa vacuum bench
• After book have been hepa vacuumed the books can be wiped with a dry chem sponge.
• Run an air scrubber in the background with a carbon filter. This will help capture the the smoke smell by filtering the air through carbon granules.
• Remember not to wet the books when cleaning

Removing Smoke Odour from Books

We also us an Odorox XL3 machine which uses hydroxyl to remove the smoke odour out of the books. This can run in the background while we are working unlike the alternative technology called ozone which is poisonous if inhaled. Another reason we don’t use ozone is that it can in some cases damage the integrity of the media.

We have a fire damage contents restoration and cleaning facility for cleaning soot damaged books and other smoke damaged contents. Please give us a call if you require a quote to clean your soot damaged books or other treasured belongings after a fire.

Make sure you check out our fire smoke damage restoration brisbane service for cleaning of structures, walls, ceilings etc after fires.

Library Mold Removal: How to Remove Mould from Library Books

This video shows how to prevent a mould outbreak in a library as well as how we remove mould from library books:



Visit our Library Mould Removal page for more info.

Prevention tips include:

• Keep humidity under 50%
• Check books when they are returned for mould. Hepa Vacuum books before they go into storage.
• Have a maintenance program including monthly inspections with air conditioner inspections
• Always look out for water leaks
• Have a disaster recovery plan for water damage or mould outbreak

PPE Gear Used

• Level 1 - P2 mask
• Level 3 and 4 -Must have Proper gloves and Full face mask. Full suit up and taped at the joins
  

The description of the levels can be found in the Australian Mould Guidelines

Removing Mould from books

We use a HEPA vacuum work bench. When we vacuum and clean books on the bench. the mould spores will fall into the filter. This prevents cross contamination with the rest of the library.

This unit is used in an environment such as a library where we can wheel the bench in between the isles. We can then catalogue them and move them onto the next stage of the remediation.

To find out more give us a call. 1300 356 633

Electrical Safety In Water Damage Restoration

In this video Warren explains why we need to be electrically safe and the role an RCD box plays in this.

Mould Remediation Daily Vlog Update

A Daily Vlog of what we have been up to. Today we have been on a commercial premises doing a mould remediation job. We will keep you up to date on what is happening

You will see us working behind the scenes cleaning a decontaminating a commercial premises that was flooded by the Brisbane 2011 floods. This is a PPE level 2 classification, according to the Australian Mould Guidlines 2010.

How to use a fan (air mover) to dry wet carpet

Here is a video where Warren shows us how to use an air mover to dry wet carpet: