Month: February 2018

If water damage in your home is not taken care of immediately, excess water can wreak havoc on your home. It can promote electrical hazards, cause expensive damage to your home’s structure and furnishings, and can even lead to the growth of hazardous mold.

Within minutes water damage can spread to other areas of your home. Within hours pressed wood swells and disintegrates and bacterial odor spreads throughout your home. Within days, water can cause severe complications and secondary damages resulting in disruptive, costly repairs.

Water damage within minutes

• Water contamination spreads, rapidly increasing claim costs.
• Moisture-sensitive furniture finishes begin to turn white.
• Furniture standing on saturated carpets will begin to leach and stain the carpeting.

Water damage within hours

• Furniture in direct contact with water begins to delaminate and swell.
• Normal household odors, amplified by humidity, become glaringly apparent.
• Dyes from non-colorfast fabrics begin to bleed.

Water damage within days

• Fungi appear, along with their characteristic musty odors.
• Severe warping and cupping of wood become apparent. Wood floors may become unsalvageable.
• Paint blisters and wallpaper adhesives release and start to peel away.
• Wood structural members begin to swell, warp and split apart.

Water damage within weeks

• Mold sinks roots into organic materials and destroys their integrity.
• Occupants must be evacuated due to health hazards.
• Allergen sensitivity may arise from microbial growth.
• A complete gutting of the structure may be necessary, which will drive the claim up astronomically and displace the occupants.

How Insight Restoration Can Help

Water damage from a flood or other source can quickly go from bad to irreparable. Damage from water and bacteria growth can begin within hours. Call us for professional help 24/7 at 208-427-2825. Our certified technicians use advanced technology and equipment in our water damage restoration services. This technology removes moisture and promotes effective drying. Drying time can be dependent on the location, duration and source of water damage, building materials and weather. To learn more visit www.insightrestoration247.com/water-damage-restoration.

As a restoration company that has 50 years of experience of removing odors from fire damage, we can tell you that the fire is the easy part. Every fire has a special damage type and leaves behind a different, unique smoke odor.

Time is of the Essence

The faster you start the restoration process, then the less likely you are to have damaged property. The IICRC has a certain timeline for fire damage and smoke odors. Within minutes, acid soot causes plastics to turn yellow, and highly porous materials will discolor permanently. Hours after a fire, grout, and fiberglass will turn yellow, uncoated metals will tarnish, and countertops, appliances, and furniture may fade. Within a day, the paint on the walls will be stained permanently, metal will corrode, wood will require refinishing, vinyl will need to be replaced, and upholstery will stain permanently. Finally, within weeks, the restoration costs rise tremendously. Unfortunately, however, you cannot save all items.

Removal Process

How you clean is as important as how fast you clean. If you clean the wrong way, your home may never be able to get rid of unpleasant odors. The first order of business is to get rid of the source of the odor. Items that are a total loss or that can be cleaned offsite should be removed from the home as soon as possible. How can you tell if something is damaged beyond repair? Here are some things to look for:

• Solid counters will clean without a problem, but if smoke is inside, it will require sealing the under-layer. Sometimes you’ll see the silhouette of where an item sat on the surface and darker residue around it from the smoke. The longer the smoke sits, the more likely the discoloration will be permanent.
• Carpet can be cleaned from very light smoke, but moderate to heavy damage needs replacement.
• Laminate floors have a layer of highly absorbent foam underneath. If smoke managed to get underneath the floor, your only option would be to remove the floor, to remove the foam, and then replace both.
• Real wood floors need to be sanded and refinished to clean smoke damage.
• Insulation is one item that you must always remove if there is any smoke inside.

Once you remove all items, clean everything left behind and use an odor counteractant. This is where professionals like us come in handy! We always guarantee our homeowners that they won’t be able to detect any form of smoke odor following the work we do in their homes.

Call the Professionals

A trained professional can eliminate smoke odors from fire damage more quickly and thoroughly. At Insight Restoration, our technicians use special neutralizing products, HEPA vacuums, hot thermal fog, ozone machines, hydroxyl generators, and odor counteractants. These methods and tools are not readily available to the general public. Within 24 hours, these products can permanently remove odors.

General cleaning is not enough to remove odors from fire damage. In fact, it may make the situation worse. Call 208-427-2825 and let us get to work on restoring your property and home. The longer you want to call, the costlier the damage. At Insight Restoration, we are always available to respond to emergency situations.