Any damage to one’s home is stressful, but the dark, sticky mess left behind after a house fire causes many homeowners to panic. Can extensive soot damage really be repaired? According to Robert Gordon of Gulf Coast Restoration and Repair, soot damage is a common problem after a house fire, and one to which many homeowners react quite strongly. “With a limited fire,” Gordon says, “the primary damage, in fact, could be the soot that permeates the wall coverings and contents. The effects can be quite dramatic.” Gordon, whose company provides damage repair in Fort Myers, Florida, says that although soot damage looks very serious, with the right professional help, many items in your home (and even the walls themselves) can quickly be restored to pre-loss condition.
What Is Soot Damage?
When a fire occurs, most of the resulting damage doesn’t come from the flames themselves, but from smoke and soot. Soot is the black or brown powder produced when something burns at a low temperature with a reduced supply of oxygen. Soot damage, Gordon explains, is different than smoke damage. While the primary issue with smoke damage is a persistent smoky smell and possibly some discoloration, soot damage is more dramatic. Soot appears as a dark, sticky coating on walls and other surfaces.
How Is Soot Damage Repaired?
Many people assume that items covered in soot after a fire cannot be salvaged. Not true, Gordon says. “Although it may look quite serious,” he explains, “soot damage is actually not such a horrible thing to deal with.” In most cases, he says, soot damage will not even require the drywall to be removed. Most soot can be lifted from drywall using specialized “dry” sponges. If the soot is not from a very hot fire, it is likely to come off the wall easily. Once the soot is removed, the wall may not even need to be repainted.
If the soot is near where the fire occurred, more extensive cleanup may be necessary. Once the soot has been lifted, a special primer can be used and then painted over to restore the wall surface to its pre-fire condition. “Unlike damage from the fire itself,” Gordon says, “soot damage is largely a cosmetic issue. Most of the time, the walls are undamaged - they just need to be cleaned.”
The same is true, he says, for other items in the house. Furniture, carpets and drapes, for example, will certainly require cleanup, but are likely to be salvageable unless they’ve been damaged by flames. These items can generally be restored using special vacuum cleaners and professional cleaning agents.
Getting Help from Your Insurance Company
Finding the right contractor to restore your home to its pre-fire condition, Gordon says, is as simple as making a phone call to your insurance company. Many insurance companies recommend certain local contractors to handle certain types of projects. This, according to Gordon, is the best way to find a company you can trust to do a good job while working within your insurance company’s budget and guidelines. “There’s no need to make the claims process more complicated than it needs to be,” he says. “Working with a contractor recommended by your insurance company will ensure that your cleanup goes smoothly and that you’re back in your home as quickly as possible.”
According to Gordon, even extensive soot damage, when handled correctly, can be repaired in a fairly short amount of time. “What we ask potential customers to do,” Gordon says, “is to take a look at some of our ‘before and after’ photos. Very quickly they realize that soot is like any other dirt - it just takes the right cleaning techniques to remove it.”
