‘Flood, fire, soot, ash and stains — what can be saved?’ A new report from the San Luis Obispo fire damage remediation professionals 

-Flooding and fire do more than damage and destroy property, they are disasters that break people’s hearts and cause emotional trauma. Examining the after-effects is rarely done without shedding tears over the loss of personal treasures, “but,” says Mark Powers, owner of SERVPRO of San Luis Obispo, “we can save and restore more water and fire-damaged possessions than many people realize.”

In addition to remediating fire damage to the building, SERVPRO is the industry leader for repairing and restoring a wide range of furnishings and personal items. Using state-of-the-art industrial equipment, supplies, and methods, the SERVPRO team can clean a surprising list of items, including items that might seem lost causes:

• Rugs, carpets, and drapes.
• Upholstered furniture.
• Books and documents.

How do they do it?

The SERVPRO “restore versus replace” mindset inspires the team to restore as many valued family treasures as possible. After pretesting items to determine if they can be restored, the team has several advanced methods for cleaning a variety of items:

• Dry cleaning for preliminary cleaning to remove loose dry residue like ash.
• Wet cleaning is an effective way to remove moderate to heavy residue.
• Spray and wipe cleaning is effective for items that can’t hold up to wet cleaning, such as books or photographs.
• Foam cleaning is used for upholstery and fabrics that might shrink or bleed.
• Abrasive Cleaning helps remove residue by agitation.
• Immersion Cleaning is just that, immersing the items in a special cleaning solution to remove deeper residue.

The San Luis Obispo fire damage remediation team uses industrial quality equipment and specially formulated cleaning solutions that are highly effective for removing a wide variety of residue and stains, even blood, when necessary. The household vacuum cleaner is not up to the deep cleaning and water extraction job. The usual household cleaners are formulated for general cleaning, and even those that have special uses, like removing mineral scale, don’t contain the cleaning substances in the same strength as industrial-level cleaners.

In addition, knowing which cleaner to use for which problem is a skill the SERVPRO technicians acquire through training, certifications, and experience.

Cleaning documents, books and photographs

These are obviously items that need special handling. The singes of burn damage are permanent, but ash, soot can be removed, and water damage can certainly be remediated in many cases. Paper documents, by the nature of paper, may not be restored to their pre-damage condition, but many can be saved by using any combination of the following:

• Air Drying
• Dehumidification
• Freezer Drying
• Vacuum Freeze Drying
• Vacuum Thermal Drying

Electronics and appliances

The San Luis Obispo fire damage team coordinates cleaning and repairing electronics and appliances with experts. Attempting to repair these kinds of items yourself can be dangerous and might void the warranty, or further repairs not be covered by insurance.

The experts SERVPRO works with include manufacturer authorized technicians to protect the warranty and insurance approved technicians for proper insurance coverage.

Electronics and appliances include:

• Television sets.
• DVD players.
• Refrigerators/Freezers.
• Stoves and ovens.
• Washers and dryers.
• And more.

Call the professionals

Fire damage leaves a significant amount of smoke and soot that can very destructive. Water damage from firefighting efforts is also common. The team at SERVPRO of San Luis Obispo is trained in fire and water restoration. The team understands the stress and emotions their clients are experiencing and walks side-by-side through every step of the remediation and restoration process, including working with the insurance company.