Clean Up Flood Damage Safely

Flood damage is an extreme form of water damage and the majority of people are fortunate enough to live in areas where it is likely they will never be threatened by the prospect of their house being inundated by flood.

In other areas there is a real likelihood that some people will be facing annual flood damage. This may be because they live in close proximity to a river which floods after heavy rain or because naturally occurring phenomena such as hurricanes are common at certain times of the year. Those regularly flooded out would be somewhat used to the clean up process, not that it ever gets easy.

Safety Clothing For Flood Damage Clean Up

When attempting to clean up flood damage you will be handling items that are potentially contaminated with all kinds of mildew or floodwater debris. The potential for sewage to contaminate the water is very real so proper protective clothing should be worn at all times.

The proper protective clothing to use when cleaning up flood damage may include:

• Gloves
• Goggles
• Respirator
• Rubber boots

Safety Steps When Cleaning Up Flood Damage

A flooded home can be a very dangerous place to be. There are some steps that should be followed to ensure your safety.

Turn off the electricity. The electricity may already be turned off or the power to the area may have been lost, but you must also be sure that the mains power has been switched off to cut all electricity to the house.

If it is dark indoors and you need light to see by always use a flashlight. Never strike a match or use open flames in case there is gas present inside.

If you have a flooded basement along with flooding in the rest of the home, only partially remove the water in the first stages. It is likely that there will be water outside the house pushing in and removing the water from the basement could result in the pressure from outside the house becoming too great, pushing against the basement wall causing structural damage.

Fresh food, medicine and cosmetics that have come in contact with the floodwater will have to be thrown out due to the potential for contamination.

Appliances that have come in contact with the water should be examined by someone who is qualified to repair electric goods to ensure they are still in working order.

It’s bad enough to have to pick through the damage that has been caused by floodwaters that have inundated the home. Make sure you don’t make the situation worse by ignoring simple safety steps while performing your flood damage restoration.

Steps To Kill Mold In Carpet

If you have carpet in your home, you might not be aware that you have mold in carpet. Mold is a deadly fungus and when it settles in anything, be it carpet or walls, it begins to consume items. From there, it can spread to other parts of your house, from carpets through walls, destroying wallpaper, walls and ceilings. When mold takes root in your home, it can be nearly impossible to get rid of, so it is important to ensure you prevent mold before it happens. Since carpet mold needs heat and dampness to grow, it often puts off a musty smell. In addition, mold is very versatile. If it does not have the moisture it needs to grow, it can lie dormant to create spores. Once the moisture is present again, the mold then becomes active and can resume its various methods of destruction. You must take steps to remove mold from the carpet.

If you are looking for ways to get rid of carpet mold, or to completely kill mold in carpet, you should consider your own safety. Protective items such as gloves and a face mask should be worn, including items, which will cover the skin on your arms and legs. In addition, any footwear, which you wear in the area, should be contained to the area, to prevent it from spreading to the rest of the house. While many people do not have negative reactions to mold, other individuals are highly susceptible to the effects. Using carpet cleaning mold ridding techniques you may not be able to get all of the mold out of your house without professional assistance.

If you inspect the area, which is infected with mold in carpet, you should be able to determine just how infected your home is. If the surface area of the mold infection is likely less than ten square feet, you should be able to perform the cleaning yourself. However, if there is a larger infection, it is recommended to contact professionals who can kill mold in carpet.

Even if you do manage to clean up the carpet mold, you should be aware that a water source is needed to supply the moisture, which allows mold to spread. If there is a water source which is making the floors and carpet wet, mold will continue to grow, even after you clean it up. Looking for plumbing leaks in the walls is the first place you should start when looking for moisture problems caused by mold. This is a vital step in the prevention of future carpet mold and should be the first step you take followed by a complete carpet drying process.

Before you begin heavily cleaning up carpet mold, you should cleanse the entire area with some form of detergent, which can be applied with a steam cleaner. Once this is done, the area should be dried completely before you begin more efforts. A strong cleaner like Lysol should be used to rid the area of mold spores.

Another way of ensuring the mold spores are eliminated once the carpet has been cleaned is to use a HEPA air filter that will capture all of the mold spores that have been released into the air.

The process of completely removing mold from the carpet may require a second application of the cleaning product to ensure that every trace of mold and mildew is removed and there won’t be a reoccurrence of the mold infestation.

Emergency Water Damage Removal

In the majority of cases if there has been some kind of water disaster such as a flood or a failure of the water mains pipe that has resulted in significant damage to the home or property it is going to be crisis time. An emergency water damage restoration is going to have to be organized and you are going to have to rely on the help of water damage specialists very quickly.

You will need to know what kinds of services you are looking for the restoration company to be able to provide so that you can be sure the necessary help is available. Some essential features to look for include:

• A 24 hour service from the company where you can rely on help any time day or night.
• Water extraction.
• Mold remediation.
• Drying of the structure that includes all aspects of the home – the structure and the contents.
• A dehumidifying service.
• Sanitization and disinfectant service.
• Pack-out and pack back of the household contents. This includes off-site storage.

Tasks such as water extraction can be major operations, particularly if you live in an area that is prone to such natural disasters as hurricanes or floods. An emergency water extraction should be undertaken by professionals who know what they are doing. The sooner the water is removed from the property the greater the chance that belongings ill be able to be salvaged.

The reason why you want to choose a company who offers full 24 hour service is because water can destroy things in a matter of hours and these hours might make the difference between saving and losing valuable possessions.

The water damage doesn’t necessarily have to be confined to the home for an emergency call out to a restoration company to be necessary. Vehicle water damage is also an occasion where the very best of help will be required with techniques required to dry out the car motor as well as the interior of the car itself. Just because the vehicle has been completely flooded doesn’t necessarily mean that the car is destroyed.

Removing the water from the vehicle is only the first step with drying out the interior essential. If mold is a potential problem following water damage in the home then it is a dead certainty for the car. Interior surfaces provide the ideal conditions for any sort of mold to form with warm conditions adding to the perfect setting.

So remember there is merit in making your call to water damage specialists a priority in times of emergency. By delaying the call you will only be making their job more difficult and less likely to succeed. A good water damage service will provide you with solutions from the moment they arrive. You should get a feeling of confidence when the emergency help arrives.

There are also some tips available on what to do when you have some drywall water damage.

How To Clean A Smoke Detector

Possibly the most effective ways of avoiding having to use the services of a fire damage clean up expert is to install a smoke detector. The next task that will be required to make doubly sure is to keep the smoke detector in good working order. For most of us we install our smoke detectors and then virtually forget about them as they sit unobtrusively on the wall or ceiling.

The question may come up over whether you should clean your smoke detector. The answer is a resounding yes. Dust can affect the workings of your smoke detector and you don’t want to allow anything to get into your smoke detector that may affect its operation in any way. The last thing you want is to find out that your smoke detector has been rendered useless because of too much dust because it hasn’t gone off during a fire.

To clean your smoke detector, all you have to do is run the vacuum cleaner over the top of it to free every possible crack up from any dust that may have made its way in through the gaps.

Another task that must be undertaken on a regular basis is giving the alarm a test run. One piece of advice I have followed to ensure that this important task is carried out twice a year is to test my smoke detector at the start of daylight savings in the Spring and then again at the end. When you set your clocks forward and back, also go around and check that the smoke detectors work properly. You may even carry that a step further by changing the batteries over on this day.

Smoke detectors also will not last forever. Studies have shown that they start to become a little less reliable after around 5 to 7 years and by the 8 to 10 year mark should really be replaced with a new version.

Fire prevention is a much better option than fire restoration so you should be taking every reasonable precaution you can think of to make certain that it is very unlikely that a fire will break out in your home.

When To Use An Odor Counteractant

After a fire one of the lingering reminders that will permeate through the entire house is the sharp smell of smoke and other burnt chemicals. It’s a smell that will remain until some sort of action is taken to get rid of it. Unfortunately, smoke odor is not a substance that can be easily removed because it permeates into every surface it comes in contact with. Air fresheners will only mask the odor and are largely ineffective over longer periods of time – the smoke odor will return when the effects of the air freshener wear off.

In order to perform an effective smoke damage remediation job you will require an odor counteractant. These products have been designed to do more than simply mask the smoke odors, they are active and work by introducing live bacterial cultures and free enzymes to attack the odor molecules to break them down completely.

There appear to be quite a lot of products that claim to be able to work as odor counteractants and they should be worth considering when faced with the prospect of having to start a fire damage restoration job.

Look at the JonDon Unsmoke 9D9 Odor Counteractant: this is a product to use for the initial suppression of charred and burned surfaces. You can also use it to clean walls, upholstery and carpet in conjunction with other cleaners. The counteractant is sprayed onto the surface affected by the smoke odor with a pressure sprayer or, if using it with the wall or furniture cleaning solutions it can be mixed as required. The dilution quantities advise to mix 1 to 3 ounces per gallon of lukewarm water. This is a product that has been made specifically for eliminating smoke odors during the process of conducting fire damage restoration.

Another product that looks as though it could perform a similar type of job is the Citrus Neutrox Odor Counteractant Concentrate which is a water soluble odor counteractant that works to destroy odor molecules produced by organic and non-organic sources. This is another product that can be diluted and used with other cleaners. According to the product MSDS sheet the product contains no hazardous ingredients so it is a stable product to use too.

These types of products are also often referred to as malodor counteractants and they are often used when dealing with other situations where unpleasant odors are common such as when working with cadavers, animals and bars and restaurants that are constantly filled with smoke odors.

Remember, if you are trying to clean up smoke damage and you have to attack the smoke odors that seem to have seeped into every surface in the house you will not be achieving anything by attempting to clean those surfaces with straight disinfectant and air fresheners.

Products like the odor counteractants mentioned above will break down the molecules producing the odor and give you the result you are hoping to achieve. When choosing the counteractant you will use try to go for a product that specifies it is odor-neutral. Sometimes the smell of the cleaner can be more overpowering than the odor that is being removed.

What To Do With A Smoke Damaged Piano

A piano is a delicate instrument even though it looks pretty solid and when it has been involved in or near a fire it will have sustained some kind of smoke damage. Smoke is a corrosive substance containing all kinds of toxic chemicals that have not completely combusted in the fire. Smoke also has a habit of invading anything it comes into contact with, getting into the pores and tiny fissures of anything and everything.

A piano is made of wood, metal, plastic and felt among other materials. During and following a fire the air temperature and the humidity in the immediate vicinity fluctuate wildly causing materials such as the wood in a piano to expand and contract. While this expansion is taking place the smoke from the fire finds its way deeply into the wood’s pores where it is trapped.

Other parts of the piano, moving pieces that are sensitive to changes in the atmosphere and in impurities in the air, are also affected. The metal pieces can corrode and the inner workings can become misaligned as the materials suffer from various kinds of smoke damage. Changes also take place in smoke affected rubber and plastic turning soft, pliable parts into hard pieces that are prone to cracking.

In short, the piano will slowly fall apart and the tuning will not be able to be maintained because in all probability the tuning pin block will be destroyed.

As with all other items that have been affected by smoke and soot damage avoid touching surfaces with your bare hands. If you want to attempt a basic clean up, you can remove any soot lying on the flat surfaces with a vacuum cleaner, making sure the nozzle doesn’t come in contact with the piano. Try to make an assessment of the damage that has already been sustained with a visual check and, if you have to touch the piano, do so while wearing gloves.

The best course of action is to call in a smoke damage restoration expert. If possible you will need a professional who has had experience with the remediation of precision instruments such as pianos. The critical point about the fire is the smoke line of the fire and where it descended to. If it descended too low and enshrouded the piano then no amount of restoration is going to save your piano.

You can find out about other kinds of smoke damage in unexpected objects here.

How To Avoid Chimney Fire Damage

Whether you own an open fireplace or a combustion heater the common factor is the chimney that draws smoke up from the fire and out of the house. But a chimney is not a set and forget proposition, they get dirty and they can become clogged if they are not occasionally cleaned. The potential if the necessary maintenance is not carried out is for a chimney fire with all kinds of resultant damage that is associated with it.

A chimney fire is an awesome event and can be incredibly destructive. The fire can burn explosively producing a great deal of black smoke and heat and all of it directed inside a small area. It doesn’t take very long for a chimney fire to spread from the chimney to more combustible parts of the house such as the roof.

The purpose of a chimney is to draw poisonous gases and smoke away from the living area and out into the air. When these gases and other particles leave the fire they are very hot and travel quickly up the chimney but as they near the top of the chimney they cool and condensation occurs. Substances such as unburned wood particles, gases, vapour, tar fog and hydrocarbons all form part of this condensation to form a sticky substance known as creosote. This creosote sticks to the inside of the chimney as a hardened surface that may be sticky, shiny, crusty or flaky.

The problem lies in the fact that the creosote that is now lining the inner walls of your chimney is highly combustible. If it is allowed to build up into sufficient quantities there is the real risk that it could catch fire inside the chimney causing a chimney fire.

The creation of creosote is accelerated in certain conditions such as burning unseasoned wood, restricting the air flow to the fire and a cooler than normal chimney temperature. Each of these circumstances result in the wood burning at a lower temperature than normal where there is not as much fine particulate burn. Those particles are actually being emitted into the chimney.

So how can you prevent chimney fire damage? You can start by burning the right type of wood and ensuring it is properly dried before adding it to the fire. Even more important is to get your chimney swept and the chimney venting system is inspected annually. You can find a Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) certified chimney sweep who will come and check your chimney for you. There may be some additional recommendations apart from simply having the chimney swept.

You don’t want a chimney fire and you can prevent them by burning smaller fires that burn quickly and hot. You want to create fires that don’t produce very much smoke. You shouldn’t ever burn cardboard boxes, wrapping paper or trash. Monitor the heat of the chimney, possibly installing a thermometer to track the flue temperature.

How To Put Out A Chimney Fire

An important item to keep in any household but particularly a house where an open place fire or a wood burning stove are in use is a fire extinguisher. The fire extinguisher should be in close proximity to the fireplace in the desperate case that a fire has broken out. In many cases though a chimney fire will be inside the chimney itself where a fire extinguisher will not be able to reach.

Products exist specifically to extinguish a chimney fire and they work by throwing them into the fire where the resultant burning chemicals rise up the flue to replace the oxygen, removing all of the oxygen from inside the chimney, thus smothering the fire. If you are faced with a chimney fire the first consideration should be the safety of you and your family. If there is time to use a chimney fire suppressant then throw it into the firebox before vacating the house and calling the fire department

It is little comfort that chimney fire repair and the damage and restoration work necessary to recover are covered by the homeowners insurance.