Cleaning Your Walls and Ceilings After a Space Heater Fire in Your Wetumpka Home

10/11/2017 (Permalink)

Improperly used space heaters can quickly start fires. Make sure to use your space heaters as directed and contact SERVPRO after a fire.

SERVPRO Technicians Clean Your Property Efficiently After Fire Damage

Space heaters are one of the most common appliances which can cause fires and fire damage in Wetumpka homes. When they are run continuously or are too near items which are combustible, such as curtains, you run a greater risk for a fire starting. You should place your space heaters at least three feet away from anything flammable. A space heater can start a slow burn, going unnoticed for a long while if you are sleeping, as your home fills with smoke.
 
When your Wetumpka home has suffered smoke and fire damage from a space heater, do not attempt to clean up the damage yourself. A professional fire remediation company, such as SERVPRO, is needed to take care of the problems the smoke and fire have left behind. We can also clean up any water damage which has been left from putting the fire out.
 
Restoration after a fire includes us removing soot residues from the various materials and surfaces in your home. Not all soot is the same. Some of it is simple to clean, while other soot can be very difficult to remove.
 
Procedures for cleaning ceilings and walls after a fire address various surfaces including painted, stipple, textured plaster, finished or unfinished paneling or wood, and sprayed-on acoustic plaster. Before beginning any work, we identify the surfaces of your walls and ceiling while pretesting for cleanability.
 
SERVPRO technicians organize the dry cleaning of your home to avoid creating a bigger mess. Therefore, we dry clean ceilings before walls, and walls before floors. We start at the top of walls, working downwards. When this is the only process to be done, we avoid making the area dirty again by wiping from dirty areas to clean ones.
 
When we need to wet clean ceilings and walls, we do the walls first. Cleaning the ceilings first with this method can cause cleaning solution to fall from the ceiling, dripping on soiled walls and creating streaking. We also start cleaning the wall from the bottom and work upwards, as this stops solution from dripping down onto a soiled surface and make streaking as well.
 
A spotting pad holder and extension pole are used to reach higher ceilings, and a five-foot ladder can be used to reach ceilings that are eight feet in height.
 
For areas that are heavily soiled, we use steel wool pads to clean more aggressively. As the pads become moderately contaminated, we rinse them thoroughly and keep using them. Since the pads might scratch the surface area, we use them only when walls or ceilings need to be repainted.
 
SERVPRO of Prattville is well-trained in the proper cleaning of fire and smoke damaged homes. Contact us as soon as a fire is out at (334) 358-1186 when you reside around the areas of Millbrook, Wetumpka, or Prattville.

For more information regarding Wetumpka, click here