House fires are a lot more common than you might think, affecting over 350,000 people every year in the US alone. Even those that don’t cause any fatalities or direct injuries can have long-term effects on your health and your home. This is even true if you manage to put it out relatively quickly. If you’ve been through a house fire and your home is still standing, with localized damage, and the emergency has passed, it’s important to take the right actions next to help heal the home and get the financial assistance that you might need. Here, we’ll look at how you can start that path back to normal daily life.
Document And Inventorize
When it’s safe to enter your home, it’s wise to start by documenting all of the visible damage. Taking photos and videos that clearly outline affected rooms, structural damage, and personal belongings helps provide evidence of the damage. You should also create a detailed inventory, listing all of the damaged or destroyed items, with photographic evidence for each item when possible. An inventory also requires approximate values and purchase dates with receipts, if you can provide them. Be sure not to throw anything away before you’re given the go-ahead by the insurer, as well, unless it poses a safety risk.
Contact Your Insurance Provider Early
If you haven’t been in touch with your insurance provider yet, now is the time to make that call. They can start helping guide you through your claim, going over your coverage, and help you begin the process of accessing temporary housing options, if they provide them. The documentation and inventory mentioned above help you provide proof of loss, but be sure to ask if they need any other documentation or if there’s a specific timeline they recommend for cleanup and repairs. Acting too hastily, before your insurance provider is able to quantify your loss and ensure you qualify for loss could potentially see you getting less of a payout than you deserve. Avoid miscommunications down the line by reaching out to them earlier, where possible.
Start The Repair Process
Once you have the go-ahead from your insurer, you should get in touch with the right teams to help repair any damage. Fire restoration specialists can play a huge role in this, making sure that they look beyond the visible fire damage into the lingering dangers in the home, such as soot building up and weakened structural materials. Restoration companies can clean what’s cleanable, repair what’s fixable, and safely remove anything that cannot be saved. The right clean-up and fix can drastically reduce the chances of secondary damage, such as corrosion or lingering odors, and ensure that hazardous materials are no longer a threat to your home or family.
Be Mindful Of Some Residue
One of the biggest lingering dangers to be mindful of is the smoke residue and soot that can travel throughout the home. This can settle on your walls, your furniture, clothes, and even inside your HVAC systems. Even if there’s no fire and smoke isn’t actively travelling through the air, the residues can affect the air quality, and their often acidic nature can be a real threat to your health and home materials. You should avoid touching or cleaning anything directly, and wear a mask when you’re entering rooms that are visibly affected by soot, spending only as much time as you need to document the damage. Restoration specialists can take care of the cleanup of these areas, too, but you should be mindful if you intend to set foot in them.
Restoring Your Air Quality
After the cleanup is complete and the repairs are done, with soot and smoke out of the way, there might still be some particles present that could affect your home in the long term. The best way to deal with this is to improve your air quality through proper filtration and ventilation. Ensure that your HVAC appliances get a full service if you haven’t already. In some cases, soot buildup inside them might be so dense that you need to replace entire appliances. Using air purifiers and professionally cleaning soft items, including carpets and curtains, can help get your air feeling clean and fresh again, giving you peace of mind.
Lastly, fire can be a traumatic event, even if you and your loved ones came out of it safe. It’s important to check with yourself and make sure you’re doing okay, emotionally. However, the practical steps listed above should come first.