Smoke and the damage it can cause

10/19/2021 (Permalink)

Occasionally we get a request regarding smoke damage, this can include a multitude of categories, causes and effects. How so? Smoke from fires, stoves, candles, oil lamps, fire places, smoke from tobacco or cannabis, BBQ smoking, incense, and vehicle exhaust.

First, lets look at the explanation of smoke.

Smoke is a collection of airborne solid and liquid particulates also gases.

We had a smoke damage once that was caused in a garage. The homeowner had been smoking some salmon in his garage, and some interested critters got in and tipped over the smoker. Causing quite a mess and fire too.

Other smoke damages we frequent are landlords whose tenants have odor from tobacco or cannabis residue.  It’s amazing the damage these can do within your home. One of our employees is a rental owner and used our services to remove tobacco stains from the walls. Nicotine can leave an orange-ish brown residue to your walls, and other surfaces. It can be an easy clean up on some surfaces and others it requires a little more grunt work.

We’ve had a fire/smoke damage where the client had a basket weave to her head board and bedroom set. She also had respiratory problems, because of that basket weave we could not guarantee all the smoke or soot had been completely removed. We cleaned the bed set, we placed it in our ozone room to remove all odor, we cleaned it again. And the truth is, as many times as we could clean that with the smallest of surface areas, we could not guarantee that that set was going to be clean enough for her health.

Smoke produces an odor that like its residue, is not the easiest to remove. Odors take some time to remove and proper precautions need to be taken. All our techs have experience in removing smoke, odor and smoke residue. A homeowner can attempt this on their own but will not always end with the desired conclusion. Sometimes they can get lucky, but it truly is best to let the professionals take care of your smoke, or odor damage. The Removal process can be anywhere from a small to extensive process. Ranging from cleaning and taking contents to our shop for the ozone room. The next step would be to be sealing and painting the effected rooms. And the most extreme case is to dispose of the items, this would-be worst-case scenario and best for you and your family’s health.

Just remember as trained and certified professionals, there isn’t much we haven’t seen. Let us provide you with excellent service with great communication, customer friendly technicians and office staff, and a quick and speedy response and turn around. SERVPRO Gig Harbor/North Tacoma strives to make every experience one that is pleasant. Nobody wants to have their lives turned upside down, and nobody wants their lives turned around for an extended amount of time. If something isn’t right, we have amazing accountability. We want to make it right and WILL.

We don’t wish for damages, in fact SERVPRO understands how devastating it can be to have a disaster. We just want you to know that we are a trusted, local family operated business. Our goal is to get in and get out quickly and help you get back to life, we want your damage to be “Like it never even happened.”