Fire & smoke damage restoration in Hertfordshire & Essex

A fire does not have to be large to cause a lot of damage. A pan left on the hob, a tumble dryer, a candle, an electrical fault: the flames may be out in minutes, but smoke travels through the whole building, soot settles on every surface, and the water used to put the fire out soaks into floors and walls.

What fire and smoke do to a building

• Heat and flame damage – charred timber, failed plaster, damaged electrics and melted fittings in the room where the fire started.
• Smoke and soot – through the rest of the property, on every surface it reaches.
• Water damage – from the fire brigade. Hoses put a lot of water into a building quickly, and it needs extracting and drying like any other flood. See
  flood and water damage restoration
  .

What to do after a fire, before we arrive

• Do not re-enter the property until the fire service has said it is safe.
• Do not switch electrics back on until they have been checked.
• Do not try to wash soot off walls or wipe ceilings – water and the wrong cleaner smear soot into the surface and make it permanent.
• Do not run the heating or air conditioning; it circulates soot.
• Keep windows open if the property is secure, to start ventilating.
• Photograph the damage and keep anything the insurer may want to see, including the appliance that caused the fire if there is one.
• Report the claim to your insurer.

Make safe. We check the structure, the electrics and anything that needs securing, and confirm with you and the fire service that the building is safe to work in.

Survey and record. We photograph every room, note how far soot and smoke have travelled, test surfaces to establish what can be cleaned and what has to be replaced, and take moisture readings where fire-fighting water has gone.

Different fires leave different residues, and the type decides the cleaning method, so we identify it before we start.

Dry sponging, chemical cleaning and washing, depending on the surface and the residue. Ceilings, walls, woodwork, kitchens, bathrooms, glass, tiles and hard flooring are cleaned in sequence from top to bottom so that soot is not spread back onto finished surfaces. Soft furnishings and contents are assessed individually: some can be cleaned, some cannot, and we tell you which.

Speed matters here. Left for days, soot residue becomes acidic and starts etching metal, glass and paintwork, and the smell gets into fabrics, plaster and timber.

Odour. Smoke odour cannot be covered up; it has to be removed from the materials holding it. Once residue is cleaned, we treat the affected areas to neutralise the odour at source and ventilate the property. Where plaster or timber has absorbed smoke deeply, sealing or removal is the only lasting answer, and we will tell you which applies.

Strip-out. Charred and smoke-saturated materials – plasterboard, insulation, kitchen units, flooring, fitted furniture – are removed, bagged and disposed of, and the removal is recorded so the reinstatement scope is clear. See strip-out and reinstatement.

Drying. Fire-fighting water is extracted and the building dried with monitored readings, the same way we dry after a flood. See structural drying and moisture monitoring.

Fire claims involve more parties than most: the insurer, a loss adjuster, sometimes a fire investigator, sometimes a surveyor. We keep it simple from your side with one named contact, and one set of evidence that every party can work from.

Once the property is clean, odour-free and dry, the reinstatement scope is agreed and the work is carried out. See strip-out and reinstatement. Insurers and loss adjusters: see how we work with insurers.