Melrose Park, IL Flood Damage CleanUp

Fire can be devastating for you and your property. It can claim lives and reduce your possessions to ashes within a few seconds. Papers and fabrics are two of the most susceptible materials. Here are a few tips to recover you paper and fabrics from fire damage.

How can I recover my fire damaged papers?

If your books and documents are packed tightly together, they will not get damaged by fire easily. This is because the circulation of oxygen will be low between the pages of the books.

If your books have just been burned, there will be an acidic smell and smoke emanating from them. You will need to remove this smell and smoke. Put on some protective overalls and gloves. Remove your newly burned books and documents from the fire. Remove the smoke from it. This will help in preventing the occurrence of lasting stains on your papers.

Hire an expert to help get rid of the smell completely and treat the paper of any stains.

How can I recover my fire damaged fabrics?

Fire damages on fabrics can be of two types. The first is soot which can be easily seen. The second type is smell which is not visible. Removing these fire damages from fabrics is difficult. Therefore, most people tend to throw away fire damaged fabrics into the trash can.

However, if you have a valuable and expensive bed sheet or one of a kind dress, you may not want to discard it without at least trying to recover it from fire damage. You may want to take the help of an expert who will help restore your fire damaged fabrics back to their original condition.

Although it may prove to be a costly affair, hiring a professional may be the best thing you can do to recover your precious clothes and prevent them from getting further damaged. Soot, for example, is mostly oily and it easily stains fabrics. Professionals will do the best job on removing this soot depending on the kind of fabric and its present condition.

However, if you still think that you do not need the services of an expert, you can try removing soot with the help of a vacuum cleaner.  Hold the nozzle of the vacuum slightly above the fabric and switch it on. It will suck in the soot.

Smoke is another fire damage that you might have to deal with. Fire leaves the smell of smoke in your clothes. Fire damage restoration professionals use ozone treatment for removing this. Ozone treatment involves removing the smoke smell by breaking up the particles of smoke.

You can use bleach for treating your fire damaged clothes. Mix 4 to 6 tablespoons of trisodium phosphate and 1 cup of chlorine bleach in a gallon of water. Put all your fire damaged clothes in this solution. Leave it overnight or for at least 12 hours. After 12 hours, wash your cloths with clean water and let them dry in fresh air.

Clothes that are washable at home should be washed in the washing machine or by hand wash. After 1 to 5 washings they will be clean and without the smell of smoke. If your fabrics are for dry-clean only, then send them to the dry-cleaners.

As previously mentioned, professionals will be the best people to handle fire damaged fabrics. They have the right equipments and the right expertise for this. If you think that you will not be able to deal with them yourself or if you think that they have damaged just too much to be handled at home, then hire a professional.