Fire Damage and Soot

5/3/2022 (Permalink)

Soot is no joke.

If your home or business experiences a fire, there will likely be soot after it is extinguished. Soot can be a flakey, powdery, or oily substance which forms from incomplete combustion. Fine carbonized compounds cling to surfaces in your home like ceilings and walls, as well as your belongings. While soot can be tough to remove for someone who has never dealt with it before, the experts at SERVPRO of Walnut know exactly what to do.

Typically, there are two different types of soot that occur after a fire - dry and oily. Running your finger over the surface is a quick way to figure out what type you have. Oily residue smears, whereas dry residue acts more like a powder. Both are difficult to clean, which is where SERVPRO comes in. If the soot is allowed to sit undisturbed, it will cause more and more damage over time.

Heat from the fire pushes soot and can cover everything in its path. Smoke looks for a kind of equilibrium and travels until its energy is used before making its way to cooler areas. Soot is acidic, and acidic materials are destructive to a majority of elements found in nature. Over time, they continue to oxidize materials, which leads to discoloration, etching, corrosion or pitting. Stains over metals can yellow and soften. These reactions will continue to happen until the soot is removed.

SERVPRO of Walnut specializes in fire damage remediation. We use an array of special proprietary chemicals designed to clean and deodorize fire damage. We are here to help 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.