Before

After

How SERVPRO Restores Contents of Clearwater Homes After a Fire 

Doing whatever it takes to help Clearwater homeowners after a fire means cleaning and restoring on all possible fronts. While an immense volume of work awaits our responding technicians working on this home, equal participation goes into preserving and restoring removed contents, furniture, and items from the property. After a fire loss incident occurred, the pack-out process benefited this home, trucking soot-damaged belongings to our nearby SERVPRO of Clearwater South / Clearwater Beach facility for detailed inspections and restoration approaches.

Much of the furniture and contents of the property appear as they do in the Before Photo when our SERVPRO professionals first arrive. The degree that this damage exists varies based on the proximity to the worst of the fire. In the ignition area, contents like the dresser in the first image could be irreparably harmed by a thick layer of soot and oily residues. An inspection of the property and these belongings individually can determine the best course of action for multiple items. The production manager walks through the property and determines what contents are too damaged to preserve and protect. Cataloging these findings can help ensure that things get boxed up from the appropriate room and kept together throughout the off-site cleaning and restoration process.

The Before and After Photos show the general cleaning process starting with the condition of items like the dresser when it gets unloaded from the production vehicles. Content Claims Inventory Service (CCIS) focuses on keeping close tabs on where your items are and returning them to their original condition.

For this dresser and other pieces of furniture pulled from the house, dry smoke damage was removed initially by using chem sponges, which can eliminate thin, chalky deposits on smooth and textured surfaces. Thicker residues require more concentrated cleaning approaches. Our professionals have multiple cleaning agents, solvents, and detergents specifically formulated to emulsify and dissolve stubborn smoke deposits on various material types. It would be this approach that restored this dresser to its preloss condition in the After Photo.

Another critical step in restoring and recovering the pack-out contents in our SERVPRO of Clearwater South / Clearwater Beach facility was to remove set-in odors. With our on-site ozone chamber, we can deodorize multiple contents simultaneously in a safe, controlled manner. This process is among the most effective for eliminating harsh smoke odors trapped in porous materials.

Content cleaning completes when the removed belongings can be returned to their original places in the newly restored home. The dresser in the After Photo shows a tag indicating where this piece of furniture belongs to ensure the items stay together through the move-back process to make fire losses “Like it never even happened.”