A house fire is one of every homeowner’s worst nightmares. If you’ve experienced a fire, you may not know where to start when it comes to cleanup. However, when you break it down, the cleanup process becomes a lot easier to process. When the smoke has cleared and it’s safe to enter, here are some steps to clean up your home after a house fire.
What To Throw Away
When it comes to cleaning up after a fire, a safe place to start is by throwing away what you can’t save. Some items are downright dangerous to hold onto after experiencing fire damage, such as electrical cords to appliances and tech, food, medicine, and furniture. Textiles such as carpeting, blankets, and mattresses can hold onto smoke odors and soot, so don’t keep them. Once you’ve cleared out your damaged belongings, you can start to clean the rest of the house.
How To Get Rid of the Smoke Smell
The next step to clean up your home after a house fire is to take care of smoke damage. Smoke damage from house fires can cause a lingering smokey smell that’s unpleasant as well as unsafe. Remove everything you can that smells like smoke—such as furniture—and treat what you can’t. Start by getting some circulation into your home. You can open windows or use portable fans (if it’s safe to use your electrical outlets). It’s essential to tackle the smoke smell as soon as possible—because the longer you leave it alone, the harder it’ll be to remove later.
Getting Rid of Soot Stains
Soot removal is essential to the future health of your home and its inhabitants. Soot contains chemicals and particles from the fire and can hang onto your walls, flooring, and furniture because of its oily texture. It also attributes to the smokey smell in your home and can be dangerous to breathe in for long periods of time, so do your best to remove it. You can use a heavy-duty shop vac to remove most of the soot residue. For resilient cases of soot and lingering smoke odors, you may want to call in a professional restoration company.
If you’ve experienced a recent house fire and don’t know where to start, try following these steps. It’s important to try to tackle the cleanup process early, to avoid any lingering effects, like smoke smell and soot. By following these tips, you can help your home on the way to recovery.
