Posts Tagged ‘Super Restoration Restores Fire Damage’

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The Leading Causes of House Fires

Monday, October 4th, 2010
House causes can be devastating, leading to the loss of not only your home but everything within it, as well as the memories and emotional attachments associated with the house. Many fires, unfortunately, are preventable. Knowing the top causes for house fires can help you avoid actions that could bring about this catastrophe in your home.

Cooking Fires

The leading cause of house fires in the US is cooking accidents. Over forty percent of fires in the home occur in the kitchen. In order to avoid starting a fire in this vulnerable area, follow these guidelines:

1. Do not leave the stove unattended while it is on.
2. Do not leave flammable items near the stove.
3. Keep a fire extinguisher in the kitchen where it is easily accessible in case of a kitchen fire.

Always follow standard safety procedures while working in the kitchen, and be sure you know how to respond to different types of fires. Grease fires must be dealt with differently than other types of fires, for example.

Smoking Fires

About twenty-five percent of people who die in fires are killed in fires started by cigarettes. Cigarettes fall or brush against flammable materials inside the house, igniting a fire. To avoid these types of fires, smoke outside the house and never smoke while in bed, as the cigarette could fall to the sheets if you fall asleep.

Fires Triggered by Heating Mechanisms

During the winter, keeping the house warm is a necessity. But a large number of wintertime fires are sparked as a result of heating equipment. During the winter, be sure to:

1. Keep flammable objects away from heaters, fireplaces or space heaters.
2. Keep furnaces, heaters and chimneys properly maintained.
3. Do not use fuel that is not meant for the heating mechanism.

By following these safety guidelines, you can greatly reduce the possibility that you will experience a house fire.
Call us today for a free consultation 800-516-8059 or by email at: info@superrestoration.comIn your service,

Rene Vargas
Super Restoration
1 800 516 8059

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The Cost of Peace of Mind

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Property ownership can be both rewarding and fraught with uncertainty. Costly nuisances such as water, mold, or fire damage can come without warning. The purpose of insurance is to offset the high cost of uncertainty. The keyword here is offset, because peace of mind comes at a cost.

The insured–the party who purchases the insurance–must pay a premium and a deductible to the insurer. The insurer is the company offering the insurance. The premium must be paid regardless of whether there is property damage. The premium is the amount that the insured pays for the option to allocate the risk of property damage to the insurer. The deductible, on the other hand, is the threshold amount that the insured must pay the insurer before the insurer will reach into its coffers to cover the remainder of the expenses associated with the property damage.

For example, if the deductible is $1000 and the property damage totals $5000, then the insured must pay the $1000 before the insurer will pay the remaining $4000. The same is true if the damage is $20,000 with a $1000 deductible. The insured must pay the first $1000 before the insurance company will pay the remaining $19,000.

It is possible to have a deductible of zero; however, the price of a low deductible is generally a high premium. The reverse is also true; the price of a low premium is a high deductible.

The choice between a high deductible or a high premium generally hinges on risk. For instance, a person who lives in a floodplain or a place known for its fires may choose to pay a higher premium in exchange for a lower deductible. Where risk is difficult to predict, the choice will boil down to what you can afford.

Either way, it is difficult not to choose the security of insurance.

Call us today for a free consultation 800-516-8059 or by email at: info@superrestoration.com

In your service,

Rene Vargas
Super Restoration
1 800 516 8059

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Smoke Odor Removal

Monday, August 30th, 2010
A fire on any scale can be a disastrous event, and often it is not just the fire damage itself that has to be dealt with. Cleaning up after a fire or accident that has left smoke or soot damage can be just as challenging as cleaning up the burned material. Smoke and soot have a tendency to penetrate many other rooms in a structure, often permeating things like furniture, drapes, clothing, and carpets. While vacuuming and wiping may help with the surface material, removing the smell usually proves to be the biggest challenge.

Removal of smoke and soot after a fire should always be left up to a professional, even in cases where the fire was small like a cooking accident. If the smoke and soot removal is not performed properly, there are real health risks that can arise. Smoke and soot are made up of fine particulates that float very easily when disturbed and are very easy to inhale. Some of these particulates come from toxic materials like burning plastics. An improperly cleaned piece of furniture, for instance, can become a source of smoke odor and respiratory irritants for many months after a fire.

Not all surfaces and materials can be cleaned of smoke odor in the same manner; some materials require specific chemicals and treatments to remove smoke odors and soot. Special techniques are needed for certain materials, particularly porous ones like concrete, masonry, drywall, and ceramic. These materials can absorb smoke odors and fine particles into walls, floors, and ceilings making them almost impossible to remove. Contacting an experienced professional in time can make the difference between salvage and reconstruction.

Relying on a professional for smoke odor removal also ensures that the items that can be saved, will be saved. Many times a professional can rescue furniture or other items that were considered a total loss. The chemicals and treatments used for smoke odor removal can also be hazardous if mishandled or used improperly, possibly posing health risks and making the situation worse.

Call us today for a free consultation 800-516-8059 or by email at: info@superrestoration.com

In your service,

Rene Vargas
Super Restoration
1 800 516 8059

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Lead Based Paint Remediation

Friday, July 30th, 2010

Lead based paint remediation is a job for a professional company that is certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This certification ensures that the company is knowledgeable and competent in water, mold, and fire restoration when handling lead-based paint. The managers, inspectors, and technicians of a lead-safe certified company take classes and do field work to garner skills and expertise in safely removing and disposing of lead-based paint. The debris from it is hazardous waste.

A new federal law applies as of April 22, 2010. It compels contractors that execute renovation, restoration, and painting projects that unsettles an area bigger than 6 square feet of paint in structures constructed before 1978 to be trained and certified in work habits that stop lead contamination. This law applies to work done in homes, day care facilities, and schools.

Professionals know the correct procedures to lessen, control, and confine lead dust produced by removing lead-based paint. They specialize in water damage repair, mold inspection and elimination, and fire damage renovation.

People usually get lead poisoning from lead contaminated dust or deteriorating lead-based paint. All of the methods for paint removal which includes heat guns, torches, sandpaper, chemicals, and scrapers may generate floating lead dust and fumes. People can inhale or ingest these dangerous contaminates, which cause lead poisoning. This poisoning may cause irreparable brain damage in children. In adults it may cause nerve damage, decrease muscle coordination, and raise blood pressure.

But trained professionals working for a water, mold, and fire restoration company know how to control the lead dust that is stirred up during the elimination or abatement process. The strict procedures they follow prevents the lead dust from contaminating your home, day car facility or school.

The professionals can remove window sills, molding, and trim to strip the paint outdoors. The restoration company can remove and change or cover-up lead-based paint. They can restore your home to a lead paint free condition that is safe for your family.

Call us today for a free consultation 800-516-8059 or by email at: info@superrestoration.com

In your service,

Rene Vargas
Super Restoration
1 800 516 8059

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Is Your Condo Protected?

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
So, you finally made a leap of faith and purchased your dream condo, but how do you know that it is properly protected? More often than not, your condo’s maintenance will be under the supervision of your respective condo association, who may not be hiring the proper restoration companies to take care of water, mold, and fire damage. So how can you convince them to do so? This guide will help you learn how to make sure that your condo association is using the best restoration company available to properly take care of water, mold, and fire damage if and when it occurs.

The first thing you will want to do when making sure that your condo association chooses a company that can properly manage such damage issues is to communicate to them the huge disadvantages of not contracting a company that can handle such repairs. Make it clear to them that hiring an unqualified company can lead to more damage and unforseen lost time. Let them know that hiring a qualified company will mean less headaches and less work for them in the long and short-term. More often than not, condo associations will hire a company based on their price quotes and not on the actual quality of work. Though this may seem smart to them, this is a huge mistake for those that own condos under the supervision of the association, since it can mean that the job will not be done right the first time. Such scenarios can lead to lost time for the condo owners, as well as an embarrassment when friends or family decide to visit them and see subpar work done, or worse, no work done at all on the damaged areas of their residence.

The second thing you’ll want to communicate to your condo association is that a cheap price quote from their current unqualified vendor may not translate into any price savings whatsoever. Let them know that a cheap price quote often means cheap work done, which usually only leads to more repairs down the road, which cause even more expenses, since the job wasn’t not done right the first time.

Call us today for a free consultation 800-516-8059 or by email at: info@superrestoration.com

In your service,

Rene Vargas
Super Restoration
1 800 516 8059

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Pack-Outs

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

When disasters, such as floods or fires, strike, the interior of a home or business can sustain severe water or smoke damage. In these cases, office equipment and personal belongings are often in states of disarray and disrepair. This is why the pack-out procedure is often a critical component of the renewal process. When Super Restoration begins the maintenance process, they must consider these items before any other work can commence.

As part of the pack-out, trained technicians catalogue every item in the home or office before removing them. Technicians document the item in both written and photographic form. Then the on-site manager that is coordinating the pack-out double-checks the item before it goes to the transport. During this process, pack-out technicians are working under the guidance of a range of experts, such as electronic technicians and hygienists. This way  Super Restoration can consider every factor before the item leaves the home or office. It also allows them to give immediate attention to those items that require it.

From the moment of departure, the homeowner or business owner has full access to the detailed documentation of their belongings and equipment. These items will now be en route to the company’s cleaning and storage facility. Once there, warehouse technicians immediately enter the items into the restoration process so that is absolutely no delay prior to the cleaning and deodorization process beginning.  Super Restoration will also handle the disposal of all items that the disaster has ruined beyond repair.

Belongings and office equipment are loaded onto the transport room by room. They are unloaded and entered into the renewal process in this manner as well. In this way, the restoration service can maintain the items, if storage is required, or return the items to the customer in the simplest and most logical manner. A premier restoration service, such as Super Restoration, understands that their customers are often in no position to take all of their items back immediately. They also understand their need for clothing and work items. As part of the pack-out process, laundry, dry-cleaning and expediting services are often included.

In your service,

Rene Vargas
Super Restoration
1 800 516 8059

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Fire. What is Smoke and Soot Removal

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Fire is one of the most devastating calamities for a private home, office building, theater or any structure used and valued. Sometimes the smoke and soot cause much more damage than the actual fire, but this can be mitigated by the right professionals. Super Restoration has the trained professional staff that can save property that has been smoke or soot damaged and also reconstructs part of the damaged building. They are ready 24 hours for emergency service fire damage clean-up for the smallest to the largest fire damage. They have the best cleaning supplies in the industry and the technicians with the most experience in every kind of soot and smoke removal, so each unique job is done right.

Soot and smoke removal is done by many companies but Super Restoration knows the right way to remove it from drywall, wiring or steel supports so that the terrible and toxic odor and floating particles that make it dangerous to breathe are removed and the house becomes safe for children, pets and you. It is important to call Super Restoration as soon as possible after the fire because they need to assess the extent of the damage and see the exact process needed to clean it and how long it will take. Another aspect of smoke removal is the odor. It gets imbedded in fabrics and other porous materials and shampoo and deodorizer is not the answer. Each surface needs a different process. Super Restoration has several techniques including hot and wet fogging smoke-damaged areas, ozone treatment and High Efficiency Particulate Air scrubbing.

Super Restoration has specialized technicians that use vacuums especially designed for this purpose. They have been in the business for 25 years and have restored and cleaned thousands of offices and residents creating a clean and safe environment again. Super Restoration has licensed and bonded contractors who will make necessary repairs as they clean the soot and smoke damage. The fire may be out but there is still burned material in the structure and many people don’t realize that one of the most critical steps to mitigate the damage is to remove any remaining burned material. This will prevent soot production later when it may break off or start to float into the air again. This type of work needs a professional contractor because it involves restoration of the structure. Smoke and soot mitigation needs to be done right the first time.

In your service,

Rene Vargas
SuperRestoration
1 800 516 8059

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Document Restoration by Super Restoration

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Super Restoration is a company that provides many services that can help residences and businesses in the event of water or fire damage. One of the services that most people will want to highly consider in the occurrence of one of these unfortunate events is document restoration.

Documents that Super Restoration are experts in restoring include books, micrographic and magnetic media, and personal and business documents. They achieve exceptional results in document restoration by the use of the latest technology, equipment, and methods available. Super Restoration has an On-Site Disaster Recovery team at the ready, as well as their own advanced facilities, whenever fire or water damage plagues your home or business.

Super Restoration offers the most advanced techniques in document restoration following water damage, which includes freeze-drying, desiccant drying under refrigeration, and traditional desiccant drying. Their consultants will work with you to come up with the most cost effective approach for your situation. Their goal is to recover the original document as well as all the information contained on it and return it to a stable condition, as well as make the document safe for handling whenever possible.

The document restoration services supplied by Super Restoration are especially important for businesses, as much of the company’s hard copy information is required by law to be retained for a specific period of time. In the case of signed documents or other cases where duplicates or copies are not adequate, document restoration may be the only solution. Statistics show that businesses that lose 60 percent or more of their information go out of business within six months.

In the event that documents have been damaged by water, any untreated documents could end up sticking together, and information on the documents can be destroyed by the presence of mold. The presence of mold could also lead to health risks due to the release of mold spores. In the event that black or gray water is involved, this could also lead to viral or bacterial infection.

Documents that have been affected by fire that are left untreated may become brittle from the effects of acidic residues in the smoke. These untreated documents will then continue to contaminate the area they are kept in with odor and smoke, which will also affect the person handling the documents.

To avoid these problems and get the documents you need restored to the best possible condition, contacting Super Restoration may be the most sensible solution.

In your service,

Rene Vargas
SuperRestoration
1 800 516 8059

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Fire Damage call

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Recently we were able to help a local condominium association with these very problems. Perhaps taking a look at the situation we were presented with and how we handled it can better describe the services we perform and how well we know their job, and what needs to be done in these types of situations.

At 11AM we received an emergency call from the property manager of the condo association advising they had just been the victims of a fire. The fire had spread to the ball room, hallways, and kitchen. An emergency service crew was disbursed to the scene, and by the time they arrived the local fire department was able to take control of the fire and put it out before it could spread any further.

With the knowledge that the damage a fire causes is threefold, which includes burn, smoke and soot damage, as well as knowing that the odor caused by this damage is a problem as well, our crew went right to work. The first step was for them to remove all burnt content and structural materials, documenting the materials that were discarded as well. We then moved on to cleaning and salvaging whatever walls, ceilings, cabinets, floors, and other contents remained. Although smoke and soot removal is a tedious task, the professionals at Super Restoration have the knowledge required to know what cleaning techniques to use for various surfaces and materials, as well as how to handle delicate items and what chemicals to use.

firedamage-blogMitigation efforts take a few days, and as part of these duties we installed ozone generators which help remove odors caused by the fire, and also used what is called thermo-fog techniques, in conjunction with odor killing chemicals, to combat odor from any non-accessible areas.

This is only one example of how Super Restoration has the knowledge and personnel to deal with an emergency situation. To others, it may just be a job. To the people at Super Restoration, it’s more like a way of life.

Super Restoration provides many services. We provide water damage services, such as water extraction, structural drying, and storm response services. We also deal with mold, providing mold remediation as well as mold inspection services. Other services offered by Super Restoration include document restoration, carpet and upholstery cleaning, reconstruction, portable air conditioning, infrared thermal imaging, emergency power, and pack outs, which can move your possessions to our warehouse for storage and restoration.

Rene Vargas
www.SuperRestoration.com
1 800 516 8059
rene@superrestoration.com

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FIRE DAMAGE – THE IMPORTANCE OF SMOKE AND SOOT REMOVAL

Friday, November 27th, 2009

The devastating affects of a fire can linger on as residual smoke and soot continue to damage a home or business. Even if the physical damage is minor, smoke and soot damage can render the property uninhabitable. Smoke and soot not only cause odor, but they can fill the air with small particles making it difficult and dangerous to breathe. They will also travel and penetrate other rooms affecting paint, drywall, carpet, upholstery, clothing and any other personal belongings. They may even react with metal components of the house such as wiring or steel supports causing damage requiring extensive repair for many years after the fire.

It is critical to have professionally trained technicians at the location of the fire as soon as possible for several reasons. Initially, the technicians will assess the damage. Understanding the type of smoke and how it travels is an important step in the restoration process. Knowing the type of fire also helps determine the best process to restore your home or business. Determining the extent of the damage as well as the best methods for restoration is a careful process. Improper clean up can cause permanent staining and greater damage to the property. Carefully trained technicians will also consider all options for physical repair of the property when choosing the most ideal restoration method.

Two Types of Fire:

Simple – fueled by pure fuels, generally result in complete combustion.
Complex – most common in house fires, fueled by synthetic materials in carpets, furniture, wiring, etc. generally resulting in incomplete combustion and the cause of soot.

How Smoke Travels:

Smoke will move to cooler areas and rises to the upper levels of a structure.
Smoke will flow through plumbing systems, using holes around the pipes to move from one floor to another.

Types of Smoke and Soot:

Dry – burns quickly and at high temperatures.
Wet – smolders and burns at low temperatures, pungent odor, sticky.
Protein – practically invisible, will discolor paint and varnish, has a very pungent odor.
Fuel Oil Soot – caused by furnace puff backs.
Other – tear gas, fingerprint powder, and fire extinguisher residue.

Super Restoration has served the South Florida area for 25 years using specialized techniques and equipment for smoke and soot mitigation. We pride ourselves in our unique ability to act quickly and thoroughly to restore your home or business to a clean and safe environment. Super Restoration is licensed and bonded and equipped to make necessary repairs, using the best methods available for emergency smoke and soot removal. We provide the best service available in the South Florida area and are available to help you with your emergency restoration needs. Call us today!

Rene Vargas
www.SuperRestoration.com
1 800 516 8059
rene@superrestoration.com

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