Cleaning Smoke Damage in Your Home

7/21/2018 (Permalink)

Cleaning supplies for cleaning smoke damage in your home or business

Smoke is the product of soot, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Combined with the potentially harmful chemicals of whatever material is burning, smoke damage can affect the air quality of your home and render damage on physical structures, making cleanup a necessary and immediate need for the safety of your home and health of all dwelling inside.

Materials You Will Need

Smoke cleaning can be a difficult process and even the smallest of impacted areas will need extensive attention to remove the smoke and soot damage left behind. For an effective cleaning, you’ll need several materials:

• Dry-cleaning (chemical) sponge
• Bucket of hot water
• Vinegar
• Rubbing alcohol
• Degreaser or commercial soot remover
• Vacuum
• Clean rags, sponge

With tools in hand, it’s time to enthusiastically and vigorously clean.

Steps You Will Take

As quickly as a fire spreads, the process for cleanup is comparatively slow and methodic.

1. Ventilate: Turn off your HVAC system to avert the spread of smoke and soot. Circulate fresh air into the smoke damaged area by opening windows and turning on fans.

2. Protect: The irritants contained in smoke and soot can be risky to inhale or contact with bare skin. Wear protective gear and consider a respirator mask if there are significant levels of soot to be cleaned. Protect clean items by removing them from the room or covering with plastic sheets.

3. Vacuum: Remove loose soot particles by vacuuming the area with an upholstery attachment on a powerful shop-vac.

4. Wipe down: Use the dry-cleaning sponge before any soot cleaner or water touches the damaged area. This chemicals in the sponge work to remove layers of soot, and should only be used in a wiping motion, never scrubbing.

5. Clean: Using your preferred liquid cleaner, wipe every surface in the room with a wet rag. Follow with a diluted solution of two tablespoons of degreaser and one gallon of hot water, ensuring you use a clean rag and/or clean solution as soon as either appear murky from the soot deposits.

Smoke damage can be an invasive problem worthy of professional cleanup. Keep the number for your local Slidell, LA, restoration company nearby for when the aforementioned materials just aren’t enough.

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