Tips for Preventing Fires in the House

8/29/2022 (Permalink)

Restoring your home or business after fire damage to its pre-fire condition is our main goal.

Tips for Preventing Fires in the House

When your home and personal things are damaged or destroyed in a house fire, the experience may be painful and stressful. However, you can significantly reduce the likelihood of an uncontrollable house fire by following the most common fire safety prevention tips daily.

INSPECT SMOKE DETECTORS MONTHLY

Homeowners should check their smoke detectors every month to ensure that their batteries are in good condition and operating correctly. On the other hand, if you don't check your smoke detectors for an extended time, you might end up with malfunctioning equipment that can't detect smoke or fire.

CHECK THE OUTLETS IN YOUR HOME.

It would help if you had a licensed electrician or home inspector examine all of the outlets in your house to look for any problems with the wires. If you are unsure where the problem with your home's wiring lies, an outlet fire may occur suddenly and without warning.

AFTER EACH USE, REMOVE ALL ELECTRONICS FROM THE SOCKET.

It's best not to overload a surge protector with too many devices, particularly those you don't use very often. When you're going for the day or on vacation, unplug any devices or kitchen appliances you aren't presently using.

WHEN IN THE KITCHEN, BE CAREFUL.

When using your stove, oven, or any other kitchen device, remember to always keep an eye on yourself. When baking or cooking, never leave your oven unattended. If an unplanned grease or oven fire occurs, have a small kitchen fire extinguisher on hand.

Are you searching for a fire damage restoration service near me in San Leandro, CA? SERVPRO of San Leandro is here to assist. Give us a call today at (510) 352-2480.

Causes Of Fire Damages.

8/16/2022 (Permalink)

Our professionals are highly-trained, with the experience, tools, and knowledge to clean up fire damage and remove the smell of smoke.

Causes Of Fire Damages.

Fire is the most destructive natural catastrophe. It may disrupt daily life and cost considerable cash, accompanied by several issues. When it comes to restoring your property, it is in your best interest to get started as soon as you possibly can. Not only will this help you save money, but it will also avoid more damage to your home.

Let's take a look at some of the most common sorts of harm that fire may inflict.

Burning

Burning will cause a lot of delamination, such as a charred stairway or a hole in your wall or ceiling, and prioritize these repairs.

Disgusting smells and filth

Smoke and soot damage may permeate a room for days or weeks, and many surfaces become permanently stained. Smoke can discolor the walls and carpets of your home. Even in regions not directly damaged by the fire, it may leave a trail of ash, ash residue, and soot everywhere. So, getting rid of it will be a top priority for any fire damage repair company that comes into your house or place of business.

Water Damage

Damage from both fire and water is quite common. This is because fire damage may create a broken pipe or tank, allowing water to flood over your building, or fire damage can produce holes in your property, which can lead to leaks during poor weather. In addition, firefighters will use water to put out the fire, resulting in water damage to your property.

Hiring a team of restoration experts is the most effective action after fire damage. They know how to remove smoke and soot from your possessions and fix structural damage and restore your home to its pre-incident state. Trust SERVPRO of San Leandro to handle all fire damage effectively. Give us a call today at (510) 352-2480.

Actions to Take in the Event of Fire Damage

7/16/2022 (Permalink)

Our professionals are highly-trained, with the experience, tools, and knowledge to clean up fire and smoke damage.

Actions to Take in the Event of Fire Damage

Fire damage can be a terrifying experience. However, after a moment of disbelief, homeowners often ask how they might begin the cleaning procedure. Thus, taking the required precautions to protect yourself and your loved ones is essential.

Ask First whether You're Allowed to Enter Your Property

Make sure that the Fire Marshall has given the go-ahead for you to enter the building. In that case, you should be aware of potential hazards in your house, such as hot spots and unstable beams. Waiting until it is safe to see whether your treasured possessions have been spared the fire's ravages is preferable to dealing with an injury that might prolong the process of clearing up the fire damage.

Take Pictures of the Fire Damage.

It's also a good idea to take photographs of the damage to show them to the insurance companies and other possible service providers while you're getting bids. Some damage may not be apparent, such as removing the smoky smell from clothing and furnishings.

Call a Fire Damage Restoration Company for Help

However, there are certain things that you can handle on your own, such as removing clothes and linens that may be laundered or brought to the dry cleaners. Items that have been severely damaged by fire, smoke, or water should not be handled. A restoration firm should be contacted immediately after a fire. These businesses are dedicated to restoring and repairing damaged property.

SERVPRO of San Leandro is here to help if you require fire damage restoration services. There is no job too big or too little for us to handle. Give us a call today at (510) 352-2480.

Facts About Home Fires

4/13/2022 (Permalink)

Our main goal is to restore your home or business after fire damage to its pre-fire condition.

Facts About Home Fires

Burns and fires continue to prove a significant cause of unintentional death and injury in home settings. Those who are the most at risk include the young and the elderly. Here are some fast facts about home fires.

Facts

• Nearly 4000 people die on an annual basis in the United States, with more than 2000 severely injured due to house fires.
• The heat emanating from a house fire can reach over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit in barely 3.5 minutes.
• Approximately 80% of casualties from fires occur in homes.
• For rooms that haven't been set aflame, the temperature is still liable to reach beyond 300 degrees, a figure hot enough to kill people and melt plastic.
• Across the overall population, senior citizens aged 65 and up are more than two times as likely to die from a home fire.
• The leading cause of death from fire is related to careless smoking.
• Having a smoke detector greatly increases the probability of surviving a fire.

Factors That Contribute To Fatality

Fire inevitably produces fumes and gasses that can easily confuse, make sleepy, or weaken people. Furthermore, the carbon monoxide produced is not sensible, so if you are already sleeping, the smell will not wake you up, but an alarm will.

Unlike the flames seen in films, the smoke emanating from house fires is often so thick that the interior of a house can dark in less than 4 minutes, regardless of whether there are lights on or not.

Even if a fire is contained in one area, smoke and soot can travel throughout a structure. Our professionals at SERVPRO of San Leandro are highly-trained to clean up fire and smoke damage. Contact us at (510) 352-2480.

Fire Safety in Your Home: Highly Flammable Everyday Items

3/27/2022 (Permalink)

Fire Safety in Your Home: Highly Flammable Everyday Items

Fire Safety in Your Home: Highly Flammable Everyday Items

There are certain items that we use everyday that we don’t even think about as flammable.  Fires can happen quicker and more often than we think, and often times these fires can be avoided or prevented.  We can start by checking the following list of everyday items that are highly flammable and making sure that they are properly stored or taken care of.  

Flammable Item #1 – Rubbing Alcohol

A common item found in many medicine cabinets, this is one of the most flammable items that are found in people’s homes.  It can easily start a fire if it comes into contact with any open flames.  To prevent this from happening, make sure it isn’t being stored in a place that is next to high heat or open flames of any kind.  If your medicine cabinet is near the heater or water heater, you may want to consider moving the rubbing alcohol.

Flammable Item #2 – Aerosols

Aerosols include air fresheners, deodorants, hair spray, spray paints, sunscreens, and some cleaning products.  Keep these items away from high heat, they are especially vulnerable to combustion with pressure due to temperature.  

Flammable Item #3 – Nail Polish & Remover

Acetone is one of the main ingredients inside most nail polishes and nail polish removers.  Acetone, like rubbing alcohol, is highly flammable.  Remain cautious of your surroundings while using these products, and make sure you aren’t using them near open flames, candles, or other household items that are flammable.  

While this list is a great start, you may also want to consider your mattress, dryer lint, and cooking oils.  Make sure you are checking your home at least once a year to ensure that these products are in safe areas and well maintained.  

Our main goal at SERVPRO of San Leandro is to restore your home or business after fire damage to its pre-fire condition. Give us a call at (510) 352-2480 

Why It's Hard to Completely Get Rid of Smoke Smell in Your House

3/14/2022 (Permalink)

Smoke from a house fire

Why It's Hard to Completely Get Rid of Smoke Smell in Your House 

There are many reasons you'd need to get the smoke smell out of the house. Burnt toast, cigarette smoke, or a tragic house fire… whatever your reason, no one likes a smoky place, and we're here to help you get rid of that smoke smell that won't quit.

Although many homeowners use an ammonia mixture to remove smoke smells, there are natural alternatives to harsh chemicals that you can try first. A less intense but effective method is to mix a good Castile soap with water and essential oils of your choice and then scrub the walls with a microfiber cloth. 

You can also make a mixture using ½ cup baking soda, ¼ cup white vinegar, and hot water. This will also help remove any stains on the walls that may be contributing to foul odors. Follow these steps to clean the walls, including making sure the sponge or cloth you're using is just barely damp, not soaking wet, to reduce drips on the wall.

Get Rid of Smoke Smell by Calling SERVPRO of San Leandro

Odors can be one of the most substantial hurdles to providing a comfortable living space for occupants in a home after a fire. Our SERVPRO of San Leandro team can help. Give us a call today at  (510) 352-2480 

Why Professional Remediation is Necessary for Your San Leandro Fire Damaged Home

8/26/2021 (Permalink)

When fires happen, safety is the main concern. After your family is safe and the firefighters leave, contact SERVPRO for clean up and remediation.

Dealing with Less Obvious Aspects of Fire Damage in San Leandro

Most of the damages left by flames, smoke, or heat from a fire are evident, so it is easy to focus on them. Partially or fully burnt items and scorched or blackened surfaces receive the most attention. However, other issues like invisible residues or residues deposited on frail materials can cause problems later. Our professional restoration services cover all aspects of the job, including the less obvious ones.

Instances of invisible residues from fire damage in San Leandro are frequent when the blaze involves protein residues. These residues are not only pungent, but they also require rigorous cleaning to eliminate. Ordinarily, protein residues are yellow or amber, but they can also be virtually invisible, especially when deposited far from the original fire point. Because our SERVPRO technicians work as a team, we have a sufficient workforce to clean all surfaces in the house rigorously, eliminating the unseen residues.

House Fire Clean Up

Some of the residues produced in a fire are airborne either as part of smoke or separately through air currents. On most surfaces, it is easy to wipe off these residues. However, on porous surfaces like upholstery, fabric, concrete, marble, or brick, the residues penetrate below the surface and can remain if the cleaning applied is not vigorous enough. Since some of these materials are fragile to withstand agitation or direct application of solvents, our SERVPRO Franchise professionals use absorbent powders. The powder penetrates the surface and absorbs the soil. We then vacuum the area to remove the combined mixture of soil and powder.

Most upholstery items in the areas affected by the fire require restorative cleaning to get rid of smells and any traces of residues. However, the process is not simple, especially when doing it by hand. Our SERVPRO IICRC-certified technicians rely on Upholstery Cleaning Machines, which can apply solvents for dry cleaning or water-based solutions for wet cleaning, providing a perfect solution for any upholstery. The machines also offer better agitation than cleaning by hand. 

For thorough restoration of fire damage in San Leandro, Mulford Gardens, and surrounding areas, call SERVPRO of San Leandro to help. You can reach us at (510) 352-2480 any time.

Is the Smoke Damage in Your San Leandro Home Wet or Dry?

8/15/2021 (Permalink)

Has your home been recently affected by a fire? Contact Team SERVPRO to remediate the fire damage including any lingering odors.

Knowing the Type of Smoke Residues can Allow for Efficient Cleaning of San Leandro Properties

Fire damage can be among the most destructive forces that impact your home or business. With the pace that smoke particles can spread throughout the property and coat surfaces and contents, understanding the type of smoke residues and soils can be instrumental in choosing the best mitigation and house fire clean up approach.

What Factors Determine Wet or Dry Smoke Damage?

There are multiple types of smoke damage that fire damage restoration in San Leandro homes must work to overcome. Often, among the most common and consistent of these is either dry or wet smoke. The difference between the two occurs with specific factors and variables. Protein residues and ionized furnace puffback damage can also play a role in the fire cleanup required throughout the San Leandro area, though wet and dry smoke have specific affecting conditions. Some of these include:

• The combustion rates
• Oxygen present during the fire
• The material burning

The relationship between these factors produces various levels of smoke damage and residues on affected surfaces. For example, high-heat, fast-burning, and oxygen-rich fire events are known for leaving dry smoke residues for our IICRC-certified technicians to clean up. Wet smoke often deals with the opposite of these conditions with slow-burning, oxygen-depleted, slow-moving fire events. While the affected area is not as large with smoldering wet smoke, the residues these conditions leave behind are among the most challenging for experienced technicians. 

Cleaning up after fire loss incidents requires data collection and appropriate job scoping to begin as soon as possible. This process identifies the type of fire and smoke damage that exists and the best approach for remediation and restoration. Our SERVPRO of San Leandro team is standing by at (510) 352-2480.

Restoring Fire Damage in Your San Leandro Home Returns Life to Normal

7/13/2021 (Permalink)

Do you know how to remove smoke odors? SERVPRO does! Call us today!

Returning Your Home to Normal After Fire Damage

Life goes on, no matter what kind of tragedies happen, and your responsibilities remain. While these can become harder to fulfill, SERVPRO understands the needs of our customers during the phases of regaining regular routines and patterns after a catastrophe. Fire can happen when a home is occupied by sleeping residents, during an extended vacation, or even when you are engaged in activities around the house.

Fire department regulations typically forbid residents from occupying a home in San Leandro until all fire damage is eliminated and the house has been restored to livable conditions. In addition to providing safety and security, the family home is also a focal point of everyday routines for a family. Without it, families face additional and unexpected challenges that easily make life miserable and highly stressful.

Our technicians have excellent skills in understanding the complexities involved in the restoration of homes and businesses. Cleaning and repairing surfaces to reclaim them from soot deposits, removing charred and burned materials so replacements can be brought in and installed, and eliminating all the other evidence of a fire are a few of the steps during fire damage restoration. Restoration of your home to a condition your family can safely live in can happen quickly when our experts do the work.

Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration and Cleanup

The renewal of the structural integrity of support systems from your foundation up, repairing your roofing system, and everything in between that your home needs can seem troubling and complicated. Still, SERVPRO has the experience required in such situations. Our team members have certificates from the IICRC in many areas of restorative work, including Fire and Smoke Restoration (FSRT).

Our certified Odor Control Technicians (OCT) ensure that the customer is satisfied with odor control and elimination to complete any home restoration work. We want to restore your home so that it not only looks excellent again but that it also smells “Like it never even happened.” Having any lingering odors can remind families of the tragedy and interfere with their ability to concentrate on the future. We do not want fire damage to hinder your family. We have families and know that nothing compares with the importance of keeping them safe and comfortable in a healthy environment.

We at SERVPRO of San Leandro are your neighbors. We want to ensure the stability of our neighborhoods by restoring homes made unlivable by fire damage or other types of catastrophe. You can contact us at any hour of any day of the year, including holidays and weekends, by calling (510) 352-2480.

Can Debris Removal Benefit Post-Fire Cleaning of San Leandro Homes?

3/19/2021 (Permalink)

SERVPRO is quick to get your fire damage under control. Call us for swift action recovering your property after a fire.

Emergency Services Play a Part in Lessening Loss Effects to Make Restoration Efficient.

Fires can occur from multiple sources, making restoration and recovery of these situations a broad spectrum of action. Often, the initial steps taken to reduce loss and out of pocket expense for customers can be among the most important to maximizing restoration efficiency. Emergency services can encompass multiple actions but often involve debris removal.

How Can Debris Removal Help Your Fire-Damaged Home in San Leandro? 

By removing heaps of charred remnants of the structure and particles like ash and soot, we can help the property in multiple ways after a fire in your San Leandro home. Our technicians recognize the benefits of debris removal to reduce the severity of carcinogenic particles and harsh odors in the environment. Other emergency services available with our general contracting license #937457 include:

• Controlled demolition
• Utility repair
• Board-up/tarping
• Water removal

The combination of our general contractor license and experienced fire restoration professionals on our SERVPRO of San Leandro team can make fire losses “Like it never even happened.” Call us today at (510) 352-2480.

What Can Be Done to Restore My Fire-Damaged San Leandro Home?

2/11/2021 (Permalink)

Trained professionals are hard to find. Call the pros for their IICRC certified technicians for any size job.

Trained Remediators Can Do Various Things to Restore Your Fire-Damaged Residence. 

Although a fire’s impact might initially seem insurmountable, there are things an experienced remediation service can do to effectively clean up and rehabilitate your property.

When your house burns, the combustion process affects both your home’s interior air and surfaces throughout it. Therefore, San Leandro fire damage restoration experts must take measures to address both of these issues. When cleaning interior air, technicians generally:

• Employ cutting edge air movers to remove smoke and related odors
• Filter interior air with scrubbers
• Use Ozone machines and Vaportek systems to eliminate unpleasant smells
• Work to prevent odorous particles from spreading around your residence by cleaning HVAC ducts with specialized equipment

Other innovative methods and gear are used to restore fire-damaged surfaces in your home, which include:

• Using dry cleaning sponges to wipe away non-grease residues
• Scraping away charred residues with abrasive blasting or wire brushes
• Removing thick combustion remnants from delicate surfaces with the peroxide active cleaning method
• Employing advanced foggers and injection devices to deodorize impacted surfaces/materials 

With all that said, if you ever need assistance restoring fire-related damage, call your helpful neighbors at SERVPRO of San Leandro at (510) 352-2480.

Come Have Fun with Other Students in San Leandro in Celebrating Caltopia 2020

1/18/2021 (Permalink)

If you need a company you can trust, call SERVPRO today for any of your water or fire damage remediation needs.

All San Leandro Residents Are Welcome to the Two-Day Interactive Festival

Due to the uncertain times we are living in, the Caltopia 2020 event was rescheduled from August 23rd and 24th to January 23rd and 24th, 2021. San Leandro residents can venture to nearby Berkeley to join friends in this mega event. Held at 2301 Bancroft Way at the Recreational Sports Facility, the event organizers welcome you all to celebrate Caltopia’s 18th anniversary.

Attendees should expect the two-day interactive festival to introduce more than 30,000 Cal students to brands of different sizes. The event's organizers have aligned the brands with the Cal lifestyle.

The event follows all the health department guidelines, and attendees are required to have their masks at all times during the event to stay safe.

SARVPRO of San Leandro warmly welcomes you all to Caltopia’s 18th anniversary. Even a small fire incident in your property can cause severe secondary damages. Involve a certified restorer to help with fire damage restoration. Talk to us today at (510) 352-2480. We’re Faster To Any Size Disaster.

Can a Home Be Returned to Like-New Condition After a Fire?

10/29/2020 (Permalink)

A fire can damage your home to the structure. When it does SERVPRO can help return your home to pre loss condition.

When You Have Fire Damage at Your Hayward Home, SERVPRO Has Proven Techniques for Impressive Results

The impact of a fire, large or small, can be extremely devastating for your family. It is not uncommon to feel lost while not knowing what steps to take next. The good news is that SERVPRO is available to come to your Hayward home for emergency service seven days a week, 24 hours a day. All you have to do is give us a call, and we will have a crew arrive at the front door of your property in as little as a few hours. We work hard to bring your home back to pre-fire condition so that you can enjoy your surroundings again. Even if you feel as though all is lost, we do have the restoration techniques and workforce to provide unmatched results.

What Should Happen After the Fire?

After the flames get extinguished, you must wait for approval from first responders on the scene to enter safely. Once you contact SERVPRO to clean up fire damage in Hayward, our team arrives, and the crew chief begins the assessment. During the initial inspection and walkthrough, we note the damage to formulate a plan that utilizes the best equipment and restoration techniques for the job. We must work to restore and salvage whatever possible to save your cherished belongings while also saving you money.

Will Air Quality Throughout My Interior Be an Issue?

Due to the soot and smoke particles left behind from a blaze, indoor air quality (IAQ) is always a concern. Along with smoke and soot, moisture left from water extinguishing the flames can bring the potential for mold and mildew. When left to fester, mold brings possible health effects for your family. We have skilled IAQ technicians at SERVPRO who can ensure the right equipment and products are used to restore air quality throughout the project. We can ensure your interior has breathable air between our methods and industrial-grade filtration while also battling microbial contamination and stubborn smoke odors.

Some of the tools we use to balance IAQ include:

Air Scrubbers: Air scrubber equipment reduces the debris and particulates from the surrounding air while cutting back on microorganism threats that pose a problem with moist conditions. This equipment pulls in contaminated air and traps airborne debris before putting out clean air.

Hydroxyl Generators: This is equipment with dual-action, working to deodorize your home's interior by chemically altering odor-causing compounds while working on purifying the air through filtration. Some units feature onboard activated charcoal filters that embed airborne molecules.

What About the Soot on Various Surfaces?

Charring is a typical result of a fire from the heat generated by the flames. During a standard restoration project, we work to restore, resurface, and replace materials as needed. We utilize a broad range of proven techniques and specialized equipment to handle even the most stubborn residue from soot and smoke. For example, soda blasting with a combination of sodium bicarbonate and pressurized air helps to blast away slight charring and residue carefully. The bonus is that the sodium bicarbonate is a deodorizer, so it serves a dual purpose of battling smoke odors. 

The nature of particles from soot and smoke is that they settle on ceilings, walls, and various flat surfaces quickly after a fire. DIY methods alone are often very time-consuming and may be extremely counterproductive. Our skilled technicians on the job bring best practices for each unique situation as we use dusting, vacuums, pressure washers, and dry or wet methods for handling the soot throughout your Hayward home. During this cleanup, our previously mentioned HEPA filtration also ensures that any particles that we loosen do not become airborne for redistribution throughout the interior.

For any areas that call for further intervention, we put controlled demolition practices into place to ensure restoration to like-new condition. General contractor license #: 937457.

Will All Smoke Odors Be Gone?

With the methods we use, removal of smoke odors is something we excel with at SERVPRO. Every step breaks down residue, and we also have measures that help locate any areas where odorous particles may be hiding.

• Pack-out services for cleaning contents off-site may help prevent smoke odor transfer into your home's unaffected areas.
• We carefully clean all soot-covered surfaces, leaving no area without treatment. 
• Technicians have access to a range of EPA-approved antimicrobials and cleaning agents to facilitate cleanup faster.
• We may use thermal fogging machinery for pungent odors to recreate the situation that brought on the odor penetration.
• We can also seal off some areas to keep odors from popping up, including walls and the ductwork for your HVAC system.

Regardless of the overall size or scope of the incident that took place at your home, SERVPRO of San Leandro is there for your fire damage repair needs. Call us at (510) 352-2480 to have a crew dispatched to your home when you need us.

What are My Options in Restoring Heirloom Collectibles Salvaged after a House Fire?

10/22/2020 (Permalink)

Our SERVPRO technicians have the experience and equipment to save and restore your possessions from fire damage.

Collectors in Alameda have Several Options when Restoring Fire Damaged Items.

Restoring items for collectors in Alameda can keep fire damage, including smoke deposits, from decreasing the value of the affected items. We choose restoration methods based on the type of object showing damage, its age, and its current condition. 

How Valuable Are Personal Possessions and Collectables?

After finding your collectibles covered with soot, you might wonder if it is possible to reclaim them. SERVPRO uses specialized techniques to handle such badly affected items post-fire and smoke damage for Alameda individuals. These methods often require formulated cleansers and unique tools. Soot is acidic and can severely mar and pit surfaces. The pressurized water from fire extinguishing efforts can saturate objects. Testing of materials to determine a safe manner for cleaning is part of our SERVPRO protocol.

• We use specialized cleaners to remove
• Any caked-on soot
• Oily residues
• Rust and other corrosion, and
• Other residues that coat the surface

Acting quickly can prevent damage from penetrating more deeply into surfaces. The heat from the fire can make the soot seem like a glaze on many items. Cleaning hardened soot can require additional time. For expensive heirlooms and art, we can suggest a professional curator for overseeing the rescue.

We can keep items organized, reducing re-soiling and breakage. An airtight chamber can also minimize surface contaminants from entering clean areas of your residence during cleaning. Brushes and other tools sometimes lift soot particles into the air, but a chamber’s walls prevent this from leaving the immediate area.

Many times, customers ask SERVPRO to restore items that show scorching or other signs of heat damage. This can range from tiny cracks to charred materials. Sanding materials or using an ultrasonic immersion bath at our facility can safely clean objects without breakage.

Making a quick call to the restoration experts at SERVPRO of San Leandro can be your first step to restoring valuable collectibles. Call (510) 352-2480 for questions regarding caring for delicate fire-damaged items.

What Happens to Contents in an Oakland Property Undergoing Fire Restoration?

9/12/2020 (Permalink)

Fire damage on your property can be a traumatic experience. Contact SERVPRO 24/7 for professional remediation and mitigation services.

Property Contents with Fire Damage Can Be Stored On or Off-site. SERVPRO Has External Storage in Oakland for Residents Undergoing Fire Restoration.

What is content management during Oakland fire restoration?

An Oakland home is made up of both structural items and unique contents. A house fire affects both at the same time. However, the restoration of these two aspects of your home is separate. The efficiency of a fire restoration in Oakland often relies upon how contents are managed. In some situations, the overall timespan of repair may be reduced by keeping contents on-site. These options are usually employed in minor to moderate conditions where the fire is contained to one or two rooms of the property, and the structure is sound. When there is significant structural damage, requiring reconstruction, SERVPRO technicians may opt to remove contents to allow better access to the parts of the structure in need of restoration. Content management is a priority during the scoping and assessment phase.

How are the pack-out procedures completed?

When a property suffers significant fire damage in Oakland, it is usually necessary to pack up the contents. It may seem overwhelming to relocate a home's worth of contents, but SERVPRO can enlist professional movers to transport items from home to a safe storage facility. Usually, a crew chief accompanied by two fire and smoke damage restoration technicians (FSRT) conducts a pack-out procedure. The crew chief is responsible for inventorying, documenting, and ensuring quality controls during a pack out. One technician sorts through salvageable and non-salvageable contents while the remaining technician packs up contents to move out. Your contents are insured during the move-out and storage procedure of fire restoration.

What are other factors essential to good content management?

- Ensuring a clear and clean workspace free from debris

-Identify non-salvageable items to remain on-site

- Use a packing and inventory station to maintain efficiency

Pack-out procedures can be traumatic. Contact SERVPRO of San Leandro at (510) 352-2480 for professional efficiency.

Click here for more information about Oakland.

My San Leandro Home Has Fire Damage and I Need Help, Where Can I Get It?

5/31/2020 (Permalink)

Regardless of what room the fire started in, team SERVPRO can help. Contact us immediately after an incident.

Call SERVPRO to Handle the Fire Damage in Your San Leandro Home

It is upsetting and stressful to deal with fire damage, and at SERVPRO, we understand the problems homeowners go through. Handing fire damage is a difficult task, but no matter how far the destruction has spread, we can restore your San Leandro home to its preloss state. Our technicians respond to the damaging effects of fire and smoke using advanced processes and equipment to restore building materials and items safely.

What can I expect from your restoration company?

You can expect our fire restoration team to arrive at your property within a few hours after our call. Our team can then perform an initial inspection to assess the extent of the fire damage in your San Leandro home. We also consider lingering dangers like electrical hazards, air quality, and the habitability of the house. Our technicians also evaluate ruined appliances for safe usage. We can also turn off the electricity and wait until a licensed electrician examines the electrical system.

Our team also develops an effective restoration plan. This plan can provide you with an accurate estimate of restoration, and the time it can take to restore the building thoroughly. We can remove the damaged items, extract any water that could be present as a result of firefighting efforts, and clean the affected surfaces to eliminate smoke residues.

Do I have to leave my house?

A homeowner doesn't need to leave the house unless the fire damage is severe. If you remain in your home as we restore it, we can provide emergency cleaning services. Our emergency cleaning service makes the house livable and saves an insurance adjuster the expense of placing the occupants in temporary accommodation. Some of the emergency procedures we perform include:

• Deodorization if your home has strong smells like those from a protein fire.
• Cleaning the areas that you and your family need to use immediately. These areas could be a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. 
• Taking smoke-damaged garments to a laundry or dry cleaner who is qualified to clean them. 
• Containment if only a part of your home has sustained damage. Our team can seal off the ruined areas and advise you to limit movement in them. 

Do I have to move possessions out of my home?

At SERVPRO, we offer pack-out services that address ruined belongings that require cleaning off-site. When your home undergoes restoration, some of your possessions may also require thorough cleaning. Our technicians can move such items to our facilities so they can undergo further cleaning. After we restore a property fully, we return the cleaned items.

When your home has fire damage, you need the assistance of experienced professionals to restore it. Call SERVPRO of San Leandro any time at (510) 352-2480 for effective restoration.

Click here to learn more about San Leandro.

How Soon Should Fire Restoration Start on My Home?

5/7/2020 (Permalink)

SERVPRO at its finest when it comes to your San Leandro fire damaged home.

With Our Central Location, Our SERVPRO Team Can Reach San Leandro Area Homes Fast in An Emergency. 

Because of how destructive fires can be even after they get extinguished, it is vital to secure professional restoration as soon as possible. Our professionals have multiple strategies to reach your damaged San Leandro home quickly after a loss like this, and this fast response can make a difference in the contents and structural areas that can get restored.

With our central location to those in the city and its surrounding areas, there are no delays in addressing fire damage in San Leandro homes and apartments. From the emergency services and fire debris removal to the various stages of mitigation and reconstruction, we have a team of qualified professionals to help make fire losses “Like it never even happened.”

What Are the First Steps After a Fire Loss? 

Knowing what to do after a fire takes place is not always clear. While the emergency aspects of extinguishment can begin immediately, there are many different avenues that you can take to secure a damage claim from your insurance provider or to have the house professionally restored by qualified technicians like ours. Here are some of the things you should prioritize after a loss:

• Contacting Professional Restoration

One of the first steps that you can take is to reach out to our professionals to get personnel mobilizing to help. With our prompt response 24/7, we can arrive and begin the assessment and estimation that your insurance provider requires to approve damage claims.

• Contacting Your Insurance Provider
  

Informing your insurance company about a disaster as it happens can help them to begin working towards helping you and your property in every way that they can. As a preferred vendor with local insurance outfits, our SERVPRO team can help to meet their demands and expectations for your home beginning as soon as we arrive.

• Keeping Your Family Safe
  

One of the most effective ways for you to help in the restoration process is to ensure that you and your family are safe. We can recover and repair many areas of your home, but only after the all-clear from first responders and firefighters.

How Fast Can Professionals Arrive After I Call? 

Saying that We’re Faster To Any Size Disaster is one thing, but showing it is another. We strive to provide the most efficient response during a disaster so that your home and its contents can be better protected from spreading fire and loss effects. In many situations, our SERVPRO team can arrive within hours of your first notice of loss (FNOL) with the equipment and skilled personnel to make a difference. We can ensure a faster response to your damaged home because we have:

• Stocked READY Trailers
• 24/7 Staffed Emergency Lines
• Skilled Roster of Restoration Specialists

These three areas can help to decrease the time between our team getting notified of a disaster and rolling out to help. Our Fire & Smoke Restoration Technicians (FSRT) have dozens of tools and products that can help in several ways to manage destructive lingering loss effects like soot, smoke, and odors.

What Mitigation Tasks Should Happen Right After a Fire? 

Because we can reach your property quickly after a loss incident, we can often begin several of the mitigation steps vital to protecting your home and its contents right away. While there are multiple approaches to restore and repair your fire-damaged home, specific mitigation tasks can be the most effective when applied as soon as possible. These include:

• Controlled Demolition 
  

Removing damaged portions of structural materials like drywall and flooring can make the restoration area safer for technicians and reduce areas where odors and soot particles might be more concentrated.

• Debris Removal 
  

By shoveling up debris, ash, and remnants of burned contents and materials, our professionals can better prepare your home for vacuuming and wipe cleaning necessary.

• Content Management
  

This part of the restoration process involves protecting your possessions and belongings. In many cases, on-site relocation and cleaning can be all that is necessary. With soot and odor damages, however, pack-out to our nearby warehouse for concentrated cleaning might be the only suitable solution.

Is Restoration Fast? 

While we strive to provide an efficient and cost-effective series of restoration tasks when we first arrive, the final time that recovery takes varies from one residence to the next. Fast restoration solutions depend on the severity of fire loss effects throughout the house and all of the necessary steps in returning the house to its original condition.

Fires can be a traumatic situation for homes and businesses in the area, but our SERVPRO of San Leandro team can help. With experienced professionals and cutting-edge equipment, we can gain control of a fire loss emergency in your house. Give us a call today at (510) 352-2480.

SERVPRO Talks Fire Damage Restoration in Oakland

3/17/2020 (Permalink)

Should your home be affected by SERVPRO? Call SERVPRO for fast, effective remediation.

Fire Damage Restoration in Oakland Can Include Wet and Dry-Cleaning Methods

If an inferno ever ignites inside your home in Oakland, the problems created can be more than just dealing with the items that got burnt. A professional restoration company like SERVPRO knows that after an inferno ignites, a large portion of the fire damage caused can be the result of soils and soot residues left behind by the smoke generated during the blaze. Soot can coat several of your contents and building materials.

When deciding how to clean soot residues after you suffer from fire damage in Oakland, our SERVPRO technicians figure out if the negatively affected surfaces are porous or non-porous. Porous surfaces can retain moisture, which can create more issues if the water causes the soot to soak more in-depth into the materials. Therefore, we clean surfaces made from materials like drywall or fabric using dry techniques such as sponge cleaning. Our technicians' clean non-porous surfaces like glossy painted drywall or hardwood floors using water-based detergents.

When cleaning non-porous surfaces, our SERVPRO crew has a variety of options. Wet cleaning can be accomplished by using foam, abrasive, or spray and wipe cleaning methods.

Spray and Wipe

This method allows the restorer to control the amount of chemical being applied by putting on affected surfaces as a mist. Once we spray your soot-coated surfaces, we then wiper them with a clean towel to remove the soils from your affected items.

Foam Cleaning

These types of products use the foam of the chemical to clean. Foam cleaning works well when cleaning upholstery because the substances do not soak into the material. We can apply foam detergents to surfaces using a brush.

Abrasive Cleaning

Abrasive methods involve using agitation to remove soot from your affected building materials or contents. One type of abrasive cleaning is when a chemical contains particles like sand that create an agitation process. Another method is using a rough application tool such as steel wool to apply the detergent to the affected surfaces.

Soot residues coating the surfaces of your possessions and structural components can be challenging to remove. Therefore, if a fire ever devastates your home, call SERVPRO of San Leandro at (510) 352-2480 24/7. We're Faster To Any Size Disaster.

More about Oakland.

Our Technicians Have The Proper Cleaning Supplies To Handle Your Oakland Fire Damage

1/9/2020 (Permalink)

We use specific treatments made for cleaning fire and smoke damaged structures and affected contents. Call our experts 24/7, we respond right away.

Deodorizing Fire Damage Odors in Loft Spaces of Oakland Residents

Fire Damage Oakland

Fires in the upper levels of your home can occur as a result of candles, cigarettes, or other naked flames. These situations can escalate when flames latch onto to dry fabrics or natural materials like paper. While often low pressure, these fires can produce significant amounts of smoke, which rise upwards into empty air pockets. On reaching the loft, a fire can start to cause severe damage as it ignites materials like cellulose insulation.

You may find significant smoke residues and soots in your loft, becoming an odor issue that spreads the scent of fire damage throughout your Oakland home. These are challenging to remove because there is naturally restrictive access in your loft space, which rules out equipment SERVPRO would traditionally use. Any possessions in your attic may suffer contamination from falling soots, and ventilation systems may also suffer.

Loft inspection is a standard part of fire damage restoration. SERVPRO technicians can enter through the hatch and perform pre-testing on the various materials inside. Depending on the size of your loft space, we may be able to set-up air-scrubbers or other filtration devices to remove malodors entirely from the area. However, providing these devices with sufficient power and room to work may be difficult.

When there are access limitations, SERVPRO technicians can utilize specialist devices. In an odorous loft space, water-based ultra-low volume misters may be a solution. Misters differ from fogging equipment because they release vapor at a slower, more maneuverable rate. They can disperse either deodorant solutions or sealants, which can be particularly useful in small spaces, structural components, ventilation ducts, and crawlspaces.

A ULV Mister works by releasing deodorant or sealant particles. These particles are as small as 40 to 60 microns- about half the size of a human hair. Their small size means they can penetrate even the tightest of spaces to neutralize odors. By combining misters with air-movers, SERVPRO can increase the amount of time deodorant particles are suspended, thus making them more efficient and effective. By placing covering and mats, we can mitigate against potential water staining.

Removing stubborn odors in tight spaces is a challenge that does not disappear by itself. Contact SERVPRO of San Leandro at (510) 352-2480.

See more about Oakland.

Why Fast Fire Damage Remediation Prevents Secondary Issues in Oakland

12/16/2019 (Permalink)

No matter the damage, SERVPRO is ready to tackle the fire damage cleanup and restoration.

Address Fire Damage Immediately in Your Oakland Home 

Once you have a fire in your home, you should never try performing a self-assessment to try and determine the cleanup necessary to get everything back to normal. Working with the professionals to address your fire restoration needs helps you to make sure that the restoration process runs as safely and efficiently as possible. You can count on our team of trained restoration professionals to come up with the best course of action for your post-fire cleanup. 

It is best to remember that the fire damage in Oakland that your home suffers may not be visible to the naked eye. A fire can leave behind potential risks or hazards to your health along with safety issues that the expertise that our team at SERVPRO possesses for restoration. We are happy to come out to your home and perform a full assessment to determine any hidden dangers and to put together a solid plan of action for cleanup and repair. 

After extinguishing the flames of a house fire, there is secondary damage that comes from water during the firefighting efforts. We can employ thermal imaging technology to find hidden moisture so that we catch mold and mildew before it has the chance to grow and fester. Our trained SERVPRO estimator helps to determine the full scope of the damage, take photographic evidence for your insurance provider, and work on estimating restoration costs – all while keeping safety in mind. 

Once extinguishing the fire, dry smoke can be easier to clean off because it does not stick to surfaces as wet smoke does. Wet smoke adheres to many surfaces and makes it difficult to clean with traditional methods. In cases where items are laden with wet smoke damage, we will make suggestions on what is salvageable and what needs disposing. 

For the walls in your home, they could look clean yet hold foul odors after a fire. Hot air expands during a fire, and it forces smoke residue into the paint. SERVPRO technicians can try to use solvent-based cleaning products to remove the residue. However, if these products do not work, we can then suggest a sealant to help restore the wall to smell and looking like new again. 

SERVPRO of San Leandro is here to help when you require fire restoration services. Give us a call at (510) 352-2480, and we can send out a team as soon as possible. 

More about Oakland.

A Primer on Kitchen Fires in Oakland

11/18/2019 (Permalink)

Kitchen fires are frequent. Don't go it alone. Call SERVPRO to restore your home to its preloss condition.

The Facts About Kitchen Fire Damage in Oakland 

House fires can happen at any time. Still, according to the American Red Cross, statistics show they increase during the fall and winter months. That is because we are in the peak months of holiday celebrations. Whether small or large, a kitchen is where most house fires are likely to start because it is the one place where heat, electricity, water, grease, and people come together. 

What Causes Kitchen Fires?

The most common cause of fire damage in Oakland is grease. Two-thirds (66%) of home cooking fires start with a spark from a frying pan overheating or when someone leaves a pot or pan unattended. Other causes of kitchen fires come from the oven and appliances. Research about home cooking fires from the National Fire Incident Reporting System indicates that grease fires, though, can cause severe injury and extensive property damage. Flames quickly get out of control and spread from the stove, oven, and even microwave to your kitchen decor, cabinets, floor, and walls. SERVPRO highly recommends keeping a small extinguisher handy, preferably one graded for Class A, B, and C fires, located under the kitchen sink to quickly stifle a grease fire. 

What are the After-Effects of a Fire?

The combined impact from a kitchen fire comes from intense heat, smoke residue, and moisture from firefighting efforts. Since damage is most severe near the source, emergency services may require tenting off rooms to mitigate the damaging fire effects from spreading, stabilizing electricity or gas, and removing debris. 

What Can Be Done?

Depending on the level of damage, contents may be cleaned onsite or packed and moved to a separate location for cleaning and storage. Charred finishes may require structural repairs, and painting is usually a must. Fine soot particles can cling to surfaces, and smoke can infiltrate everything. We use multiple methods of deodorization to remove unwanted scents. SERVPRO has an array of equipment designed to neutralize odors onsite. If needed, we transport contents to our external cleaning facility equipped with an ozone chamber, a drying chamber, and a large, ultrasonic, submersion cleaning tank. This device can safely remove residual caked soot, grease, and grime from knick-knacks to porcelain vases.

SERVPRO of San Leandro restores fire damage faster to your kitchen so you can get back to entertaining and celebrating. Have questions about kitchen damage from fire, smoke, or soot? Call us 24/7/365, including holidays, at (510) 352-2480. 

Click here for more information about the City of Oakland.

What to Consider When Choosing a Full Service Fire Damage Restoration Company in Oakland

7/9/2019 (Permalink)

Fires are devastating. SERVPRO of San Leandro is always on call to handle your fire damage restoration needs.

Full-Service Fire Damage Restoration For Oakland Residents

Scoping fire damage on your Oakland area property takes a few tools and supplies. We supply each certified estimator with a kit that helps provide damage estimates during your homes initial inspection. This kit, helps test fire and smoke residues on your home’s structure and contents, to determine whether restoration through cleaning remains possible.

The last thing any fire damage restoration company in Oakland should do is to charge customers to clean contents that ultimately require replacement. Remember, cleaning household contents after a fire costs far less than resurfacing, reupholstering, refinishing, repainting, or replacing them. An estimator can help provide you with accurate, professional recommendations that help you make informed, quality decisions about your home restoration.

If you agree to allow SERVPRO to handle the fire restoration in your home, we work with your insurance adjuster to stay within your policy limits and keep you informed throughout the process. We can provide you with quality cleaning and restoration services that help limit any losses you might experience. If you have concerns about specific areas of your home or want special attention given to family heirlooms, make sure to let your on-site restoration supervisor know.

SERVPRO technicians handle a variety of specialty fire restoration services that focus on electronics, art, collectibles, books, and other personal belongings. Even if we do not offer these services directly, we have a relationship with a sub-contractor who does. We schedule and manage any sub-contractors used to provide services, repairs, or replacements during your restoration. Full-service solutions you can count on while you direct your attention to keeping your family safe.

SERVPRO is a locally owned and operated restoration company, often run by certified professionals with years of restoration experience. We provide fast emergency response, 24/7, and train 365-days a year to ensure you receive the results you deserve. You want access to someone who can help protect your investment, and we enjoy helping members of our local community avoid tragic situations.

SERVPRO of San Leandro provides quality fire damage solutions to customers throughout Hayward, Alameda, and Danville. Call today to gain access to cleaning and restoration services from a company you can trust to deliver quality results. (510) 352-2480.

More about Oakland.

Tired of Eating Fast Food after an Oakland Kitchen Fire? Call SERVPRO for Restoring and Rebuilding

6/19/2019 (Permalink)

SERVPRO Training and Advanced Equipment Restore First, Repair Second Fire Damaged Properties in Oakland

Fire Damage Out of the Frying Pan into the Oakland Home

Cooking is the root cause of most fire damage to residential properties. Protein fires are also among the most pungent after the fact and often require multiple methods of odor-control applications.

SERVPRO worked on fire damage in an Oakland home where one evening a homeowner made dinner on the stove, and a pan of grease caught fire. Not knowing to starve the fire of oxygen by covering the pan with a lid, the homeowner moved the flaming pan to the kitchen sink and attempted to put it out with water. This mistake ignited a violent flash fire that caught the curtains over the kitchen sink on fire and quickly engulfed a section of the kitchen and spread smoke throughout the house.

In a case of significant grease fire damage, the best outcome for the kitchen is to get it ready for reconstruction. That means we need to remove all charred sheetrock and room elements too destroyed for restoration. Because soot particles exist that are smaller than the human eye can see they easily find their way into airtight jars resulting in the need for most consumable items to be discarded for health and safety reasons.

To avoid further contamination in other areas of the home, we packed out the contents of the house for sanitation and deodorization at our local facility. Our pack out procedures are organized and include an itemized list, photos, and location the item came from so it can be put back exactly as it was. We can utilize the CCIS Contents Claim Inventory Service that we offer and even scan tag items for cataloging.

We then deployed air scrubbers with HEPA filtration and hydroxyl generators throughout the house to thoroughly neutralize remaining smoke odors.  Our SERVPRO location holds a General Contractor License #937457, and we performed the reconstruction services on the kitchen to bring it back to preloss condition and get it ready for preparing meals again. Then we moved the restored home furnishings back into the home.

SERVPRO of San Leandro is part of the local community and stands ready to help property owners mitigate fire damage 24/7. Call us at (510) 352-2480 and our trained, and certified technicians can make the fire loss in your home "Like it never even happened."

Oakland on the map.            

Do You Know How to Remediate House Fire Damage in Oakland?

5/21/2019 (Permalink)

Smoke and soot damage are hard to clean. You can trust the SERVPRO Brand to restore your home.

Fire Damage in an Oakland Home Calls for Cleaning and Restoration Services

The National Fire Prevention Association states that fire departments in the U.S.A. respond to more than a thousand fires every day. A fire can start in your home unexpectedly and proliferate. It can cause structural damage in your home and leave residues like smoke, soot, and ash.  

If your Oakland home has fire damage, it’s advisable to turn to a fire restoration company for help. No matter how large or little the extent of the destruction is, a restoration company like SERVPRO is equipped to handle fire cleanup and ensure that your home is safe to live in again. Fire and the residues left behind after extinguishing it impact certain areas of a home differently. Therefore, each affected area may need a unique strategy for restoring, cleaning, or rebuilding.  

The extent of the fire damage may not be clear because it often occurs in areas that aren’t visible like the attic and behind walls, or may affect the plumbing or electrical systems. Fires can even ruin the surfaces or walls in different rooms from where they originated. Surfaces with soot and smoke damage require unique cleaning agents because typical household cleaning products may not be adequate or can cause extra damage. Our fire restoration professionals can address the damaged area and determine which contents and areas to restore and which ones to replace.  

Here at SERVPRO, we offer cleaning and restoration services that help minimize fire damage claims. Replacing items is expensive for insurance companies. Another expensive option is resurfacing. Our technicians can repaint structural surfaces, recover upholstered contents, and refinish wooden contents. We seek to restore smoke-damaged materials to their preloss condition.  

A significant part of the fire cleanup process concentrates on neutralizing smoke odors and purifying contaminated air. Our technicians use various types of equipment to clean and sanitize the air, making it safe to breathe in again. We can use a High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) vacuum to remove small particles like soot from surfaces like floors, walls, and ceilings. We also use air scrubbers to eliminate odors and clean the air.  

If there is fire damage in your home, contact SERVPRO of San Leandro at (510) 352-2480 for restoration services. You can benefit from our compassionate approach to customer service and industry experience.

Take a walking tour of Oakland. Read more here.

San Leandro Post House Fire Odor Removal--The Answer is SERVPRO

2/13/2019 (Permalink)

Smoke and Soot San Leandro Ductwork Needs Professional Cleaning and Odor Removal--SERVPRO Can Help

Restoring Smoke-Damaged HVAC Systems in San Leandro Homes

When fires occur in your San Leandro home, smoke and soot can travel far beyond the combustion site to affect many areas and structural elements of the property. One method of travel for these particulates is the HVAC system, which is often on and operating when fires begin and during most of the extinguishing process. With this influx of air intake and ventilation, smoke particles can find their way throughout the property, although a large portion of these particles does not make it farther than the ducts.

As damaging as soot and smoke residue can be for your San Leandro home, another potential problem with widespread smoke damage and an affected HVAC system is the need for fire odor removal. Wet smoke can often spread a noxious odor throughout the entire house, and a damaged HVAC system could continually house this wet smoke residue to keep the foul scent present in connected rooms throughout the early stages of restoration.

Our SERVPRO professionals work to eliminate the harsh and abrasive effects of smoke damage to your home, and this can include an accurate inspection and assessment of the air ducts and HVAC system. While other mitigation work often occurs before effects like lingering odors get addressed, these air ducts might require cleaning to remove the odor permanently from the property. Indoor air quality IAQ is of paramount concern to enjoy a clean and healthy home environment. The team arrives with the tools and advanced equipment to perform this inspection and begin a thorough cleaning of this duct network.

Hard bristled, drill-powered brushes can help to loosen matted debris, dust, smoke particulates, dander, and other threats and contaminants from the sheet metal. Once these collections have broken free, we can seal over vents with our high-powered vacuums to effectively remove loosened debris and sediment. To entirely deodorize the home, we implement our thermal fogger machines which can break apart odor molecules and neutralize them on contact both in open areas of your home and throughout this air circulation system. We can also place deodorizing gels and pellets to provide a pleasant aroma.

While fire damage can present many effects to overcome in your home, a lingering foul odor can make a recovery from the disaster difficult. Let our experienced SERVPRO of San Leandro professionals help you to recover your home entirely after a house fire. Give us a call anytime at (510) 352-2480.

Here is the Alameda County Fire Department.

San Leandro Property Owners Benefit from SERVPRO's Methods for Salvaging Smoke & Fire Damaged Contents

1/28/2019 (Permalink)

SERVPRO 's Fire & Smoke Cleanup and Restoration Keeps Your San Leandro Home from Going Up in Smoke

The Right Skills and Tools Help with Faster Restoration of Fire Damage in San Leandro

Fire incidents can cause varying degrees of damage depending on the intensity of the blaze and the materials burned. Damage can be from the flames or the heat scorching materials, as well as deposits of soot and other smoke residues. Fire incidents also involve some degree of water damage since it is the most commonly used medium for extinguishing blazes. Involving a professional FSRT, Fire & Smoke Restoration Technician ensures the use of the right tools and skills, which can lead to a better outcome and faster turnaround.
 
It is vital to separate items affected by fire damage in San Leandro varies in different parts of the structure and contents. Separating the items also helps improve the chances of saving more. For severe blazes, our SERVPRO technicians separate items into groups of salvageable, unsalvageable and questionable items. We prepared the unsalvageable ones for disposal and set the others aside for cleaning. Since items categorized as questionable may require additional cleaning and inspection efforts, we might transport them offsite for cleaning.
 
Restorative cleaning helps save more items thus reducing the cost involved unlike replacing damaged materials. Cleaning is possible if flames only char the surfaces slightly or in case of smoke residue damage. Different cleaning actions like agitation with brushes and cleaning with detergents can help restore the surfaces to preloss state. Our SERVPRO crew also uses specialized cleaning techniques such as soda blasting which removed embedded carbonized debris from surfaces such as wood. Since it utilizes sodium bicarbonate, it also acts as a deodorizer. For contents and possessions like dishes, vases, glassware, toys, and such we can emerse them into an ultrasonic bath at our facility for a gentle cleaning and rinsing.
 
The water from firefighting efforts can cause problems if left unaddressed. Once cleanup and debris removal steps are complete, it is necessary to dry off excess moisture. It is possible to dry the area by opening doors and windows, but the effectiveness of such action might not be sufficient. Our SERVPRO technicians use a closed drying system, relying on air movers to evaporate moisture from materials and dehumidifiers to extract the moisture from the air. Using our ASD, Applied Structural Drying, skills it is easy to calculate the right combination of air movers and dehumidifiers for expedited drying.
 
For faster recovery after a fire incident, call SERVPRO of San Leandro at (510) 352-2480. We're Faster To Any Size Disaster.

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Fire Damage Clean Up

10/3/2018 (Permalink)

After the fire is out, the cleanup begins.

Call SERVPRO of San Leandro for Residential Fire Damage 

Fires can break out in your home for a number of reasons, including common causes such as a lightning strike, an electrical issue or a mishap with cigarettes. Some fires are extinguished quickly, creating only a small amount of Oakland fire damage for you to contend with. Other fires may rage for a longer period of time, and the result may be that an extensive portion of your property is damaged. Regardless of the size of the burned area, fire damage requires a fast, professional response from a remediation and repair company. 

The Damage from a Fire 
When you assess the damage from a fire n your home, you may be taken aback at the extent of damage from even a small fire. The charred area from the flames may be rather localized to a specific room or area of the home in many cases, and this is particularly true if the fire was extinguished quickly. However, the fire damage can extend far beyond the section that was burned. Consider, for example, that the smoke from fires may have filled several rooms or even the entire home. This smoke can cling to walls, carpeting, furniture and more, and it can also cause staining. In addition to the smoke and soot the water and flame-retardant material from the firefighters' efforts may be scattered throughout the area, creating an additional mess. 

The Steps for Fire Damage Restoration
With such a situation on your hands, you may be wondering how you can repair the damage that has affected your home. The Oakland fire damage repair process involves an initial assessment of the damage, and this ideally will be completed as soon as possible once the fire event has been completed. The water will need to be dried out of the home before the restoration process can begin. Once the restoration work begins, soot, smoke damage, and fire damage will be remedied with professional results. 

Why You Need a Professional Response.  Some homeowners may think about completing this process on their own, but it's best left to professionals. This is because some of the work, such as water remediation, should be completed as soon as possible and with thorough results to avoid mold damage. In addition, the restoration process for smoke damage can be more difficult than you may think, requiring cleaning throughout much of the home. SERVPRO of San Leandro is the trusted and dependable restoration company that many others have already used for their fire damage restoration services, and we're ready to help you. As a locally owned and operated business, SERVPRO of San Leandro is strategically located to respond quickly to your fire, flood or water emergency event. When a major or damaging event occurs in your Oakland or Alameda area home, we have the resources and personnel to help. Call us at (510) 352-2480.

Fire Damage In San Leandro caused by Candlelight

10/3/2018 (Permalink)

Fire Damage in San Leandro Has Met Its Match with SERVPRO

Rely on SERVPRO for Restoration After Water and Fire & Smoke Damaging Events

Romantic and calming, turning the lights down and lighting a few candles is a technique many use to relax and let the stress of the day or the week go. If the candles not well-tended, however, relaxation can turn into panic as a guttering candle starts a house fire. After a fire, homeowners need an experienced restoration company to lead the way back to normal. 
 
The candles you lit for a quiet evening at home had a different agenda. After one set a tablecloth and napkins on fire, the night became quite a bit more frantic. Your dining room is awash in water from the firefighters’ hoses and soiled with smoke and soot. An acrid smell makes it clear fire damage is the problem at your home in San Leandro, and you doubt you have the skills to clean up and deodorize. Fortunately, when you call your insurance, they recommend you take no steps until you talk with us. 
 
Our SERVPRO offers round the clock response and a full-service menu of tasks our technicians hold certification in to ensure our work reflects the industry’s best practices. After a thorough assessment, our project manager determines and orders the work necessary to return your house to preloss condition. First, on the list is responding to the water damage caused by the fire fighting efforts. 
 
Although the actual fire damage is devastating, the water damage has a higher likelihood of causing permanent or secondary damage if not remediated first. Removing water and drying out the structure and belongings avoids the growth of mold and the deterioration water saturation can cause. Since our technicians are trained and are IICRC certified in a range of restoration techniques they can move to the cleanup and repair needed after the water is managed. 
 
The table linens may be burned beyond repair, but SERVPRO takes on the work required with a restoration focus. We use appropriate techniques to clear away soot from the walls, furnishings, and floors. Because the area was wet, spray and wipe methods work better than vacuuming and dry sponging. If a surface is charred, we clean it well and then determine whether an abrasive tool can remove the burnt material, revealing undamaged layers below. Speed is necessary because soot and smoke are acidic, and begin to etch and pit surfaces quickly. 
 
Deodorization is the final step, accomplished through the disposal of burned material and sealing of surfaces to prevent odors from escaping and becoming airborne. If a smell lingers, professional sprays or, in more persistent cases, thermal fogging is used to neutralize the particles floating and contributing to the odor. 
 
A call to (510) 352-2480 gets an experienced fire damage crew from SERVPRO of San Leandro to your home. Our staff schedules appointments within hours of the first contact, ensuring we provide needed services before additional damage occurs.

Fire Department Protection here.

Cleaning Up Fire Damage

10/3/2018 (Permalink)

Repairs... the final step after a fire.

Call SERVPRO for Fire Damage Repairs

If your home has recently been damaged by fire, you understandably are eager to get started improving the property so that life can resume as soon as possible. A fire may make certain areas of your home unusable until the fire damage has been repaired, or it may make the entire home unsafe to be in until the cleanup and repair work is completed. Regardless of how significant or minor the work is, you may want to know how long it will take. The timeline is dependent on not only, the restorative process, but also if any remodeling is included in the final product.

Getting the Repair Work Started
It can be difficult to determine how and where to get started with fire damage repair work for Alameda residents The first step in the repair process is to remove water from the home if firefighters used water during the extinguishing process. Perhaps, a kitchen fire left chemical residue for cleanup. Water extraction can be completed by the professionals from SERVPRO with minimal time and effort. We arrive with our green vehicles stocked with equipment, and supplies to surmount any cleaning and restoration need. Then, you can begin the repair process and decide which items need to be replaced and which ones need to be repaired. We can suggest to you and your adjuster what items and materials are salvageable. Keep in mind that smoke damage can also be a problem, and some items, such as carpeting, and the HVAC system may need to be professionally cleaned to remove the smoke odor from the home. 

Repairing your home after you have suffered fire damage is not something that you want to attempt on your own. A fire damage restoration project requires a considerable amount of time and energy to complete. Bu, SERVPRO of San Leandro can help you restore your property in minimal time with minimal costs. Our IICRC certified technicians have the skills and assets to do a full restoration. We are a locally owned and operated fire damage repair franchise that is ready to begin working for you. We can also help with mold, storm, or water damaging events to your property. Call us today for 24/7 emergency assistance at (510) 352-2480.

Oakland’s Fire Damage Team Describes What Goes In An Estimator’s Testing Kit

7/31/2018 (Permalink)

When a fire burns, it can cause multiple types of damage to your Oakland home.

What Goes In An Estimator’s Testing Kit

When a fire burns, it can cause multiple types of damage to your Oakland home. The several types of materials inside your house burn differently under the various conditions that took place. Fires burn at a variety of temperatures until they get put out. The fuel burned and conditions such as heat and oxygen change the types of damage created as a result of the blaze. Some types of soot residues can be easily cleaned whereas others stick to items so bad that they need to be replaced.

The main goal of any restoration project is to return things to preloss conditions by replacing as little things as possible. During the initial scope of a fire damage project in Oakland, our SERVPRO estimators test different substances to determine whether they can be saved by cleaning or not. This step in the overall process is vital so that we do not say we can clean something we cannot or replace an object that could have been treated and saved.

Testing every affected material that exists in a building can be strenuous, and it requires special tools and chemicals. All of our estimators at SERVPRO carry a testing kit with them to every job. The testing kit contains all of the necessary items we need to accurately test the cleanability of smoke residues.

Every estimator test kit comes with personal protection equipment and a respirator for entering hazardous areas. They also are equipped with cleaning tools such as steel wool that can test the amount of agitation required on an item. Scrapers get used to test whether plastic melted onto appliances can be scraped off or not. Dry cleaning sponges are on hand to see how well porous surfaces can be dry cleaned.

The next array of equipment our SERVPRO crew possesses when completing the initial project scope is a variety of chemicals and detergents. Our estimator stocks a large number of products in his kit so that he can test the effectiveness of different chemicals on the various affected surfaces. To make sure all damage caused by fire gets found and dealt with contact SERVPRO of San Leandro at (510) 352-2480.

Click here for more about Oakland.

Fire Damage Experts In Oakland Describe Mitigating Structural Problems

7/3/2018 (Permalink)

If a fire ever burns somewhere on your property in Oakland, it can torch just about everything in its path.

Fire Damage Experts Describe Mitigating Structural Problems

If a fire ever burns somewhere on your property in Oakland, it can torch just about everything in its path. If a blaze gets hot enough, it can use just about anything as fuel. The longer a fire burns, the more of your building's structure and contents it can engulf. The hotter flames get, the more items they can consume in a smaller area. Homes are built with layers of materials, and it is possible that one or more of these structural layers get ruined.

In most cases, when building materials or your possessions get severely charred, they get removed and replaced. When mitigating fire damage in Oakland, removing burnt items is the first step in every restoration project. When most things inside a home burn, they get ruined and must be replaced before reconstruction and the final cleaning process take place. Heat can partially combust building materials and cause them to lose their structural integrity. In some cases, our SERVPRO technicians can treat and refinish objects that get charred, reducing the overall cost of the job.

For example, if a fire burns inside your kitchen, several materials can receive different levels of damage. In places where the heat is the most extreme, flames can burn through the drywall and burn the wooden studs inside the wall cavity. If this scenario ever takes place, our SERVPRO restoration crew cuts the drywall and removes as far out to where it is no longer affected, and the charred wood studs get pulled from their positions. In other places of the kitchen, the drywall might just have to be sealed and repainted. Some parts of the studs might not have got badly charred and can be sanded down and treated instead of replaced.

If heat severely affected the kitchen cabinets, they too must get disposed of and reinstalled. If the charred region of the cabinets is not deep and large, then the cabinets can get sanded down and repainted or refinished. When working with most types of wooden materials, items can be saved if the charred region is less than a quarter inch deep. If you ever need help restoring severe burn damage at your place of residence, call SERVPRO of San Leandro at (510) 352-2480 24 hours a day.

Click here for more about Oakland.

Choosing Professional Fire Restoration For Your Oakland Home

6/19/2018 (Permalink)

Finding your home at the mercy of fire is nothing that any homeowner wants to experience.

Professional Fire Restoration For Your Home

As an Oakland homeowner, you come to appreciate all of the various disasters and natural events that could adversely affect your residence. While you work hard to prevent these things from having a dramatic toll on the structural integrity of your property or ruining your possessions, it is not effective for all of the potential threats that you face. Fire, for example, can spark up from any number of circumstances and within a short period, can cause untold damage to your home.

Finding your home at the mercy of fire is nothing that any homeowner wants to experience. With the wide array of fire damage that could result from the unfortunate circumstance, your Oakland home might seem unsalvageable once the blaze gets extinguished. Fortunately, these effects are not something that you have to face alone. Our SERVPRO professionals can help you to overcome this widespread damage and reclaim your home's original condition quickly.

When our team arrives at your house following the initial call, our estimator is one of the first to get a good look at the damage that you face. Their job here is to assess the full scope of the damage, what contents of your home require further concentrated cleaning and restoration, what services are necessary for restoration, the personnel required, and finally, what areas and items are unsalvageable.

Our SERVPRO professionals often have to overcome secondary damages before the restoration can officially begin. Instances like water damage left behind from the extinguishment provide a hurdle to get past before work can begin on the rest of the affected areas. Through soot/smoke cleaning, deodorization, material removal and more, our certified restoration technicians work systematically to deal with every lingering effect directly.

Finding yourself staring at the effects of a recent fire in your home can leave you stressed and overwhelmed about what it takes to get your home back to preloss conditions. If you put your trust in our SERVPRO of San Leandro fire restoration technicians, this often massive project does not have to rest on your shoulders alone. Give us a call anytime that you need us at (510) 352-2480.

Click here for more about Oakland.

Removing Smoke And Soot Damages From Your Oakland Home

5/16/2018 (Permalink)

Often these symptoms from the recent small fire show up as soot and smoke damages, or a persistent smell that you cannot get rid of easily.

Removing Smoke And Soot Damage

While not all of the fires to affect Oakland homes are out of control and cause catastrophic damages, any incident (regardless of its severity) in your home can leave you unsure of how to remedy the mess left behind. Often these symptoms from the recent small fire show up as soot and smoke damages, or a persistent smell that you cannot get rid of easily.

While the fire damages to your Oakland home might be more or less widespread depending on your situation, restoring this damage can all get achieved by professionals like our SERVPRO team. We have unique training in fire damage restoration, including what to expect from certain types of fires and what modern practices are most effective for cleaning and restoring your home following its unfortunate blaze.

Overcoming soot damages to your home is a process that our fire restoration technicians get accustomed to contending with for many house fires that we get tasked with restoring. There are multiple approaches that we use to remove the soot present on surfaces, carpets, and contents of your home. Surfaces can usually get cleaned with sponges or vacuums. For carpets and contents, our move out process can give the contents of your home focused attention while simultaneously freeing up space for thorough carpet cleaning by our SERVPRO technicians.

Smoke damage often presents itself as a lingering odor that makes living in your home challenging for quite a while after a fire has gotten extinguished. While there are sometimes issues of debris and particles in the environment, these can get removed with the use of our air scrubbers. Thermal fogging can neutralize these noxious odor molecules on contact, and leave no scent behind.

Recovering from fire and its subsequent damages are nothing that any homeowner should have to contend with alone. You can trust in the experience of our SERVPRO of San Leandro fire restoration specialists to help you through every lingering effect of a recent fire in your home. Give SERVPRO a call anytime that you need us at (510) 352-2480.

Click here for more about Oakland.

Fire Damage Restoration Projects in Oakland

4/10/2018 (Permalink)

When you experience fire damage in your home, call the professionals at SERVPRO for thorough restoration services.

SERVPRO Offers IICRC Certified Fire Damage Restoration Services

After a fire starts inside your Oakland home, mitigation requires quite a few steps. When things inside a home get burned there are many other problems the initial blaze likely cause. The flames and heat created by a fire ruin items and smoke spreads throughout the house leaving behind soot residues and pungent odors.

Various types of damage get caused when different kinds of materials get burned. SERVPRO's fire damage technicians in Oakland utilize different restoration methods when dealing with many kinds of fuels burned in the blaze. Every step of the process takes a combination of the many mitigation chemicals, techniques, and equipment.

The first step to any restoration project is to make sure the area is safe for workers and occupants. Fires often create unsafe areas when parts of the building's structure get burned. Any potential hazards immediately get repaired, or if the area is still not safe, then it gets blocked off, and warning signs get posted in the region.

Next, our SERVPRO emergency restoration team inspects your entire building to see exactly where damage occurred. After we find all of the areas in the house that got affected by the burn, we look and see how severe the damage is in each area. Based on the severity of the burn problems we decide to either remove, resurface, or clean the building materials and contents affected.

Removing and replacing items is the most expensive of the three processes and only gets used in cases of extreme damage. If the item appears to be burnt too badly to clean, then sometimes the materials get sanded down so that the charred part gets removed. We then coat the burned material with a specialized sealant paint to seal in any remaining foul odors.

In many cases, even sometimes if the soot residue is really thick, cleaning restores smoke damage issues. When cleaning walls and ceilings, we usually use different methods to ensure the job gets completed efficiently. When using dry sponges to clean off soot residues from surfaces, we start from the top and work down to prevent soils from dropping onto a clean area and creating secondary damage. When wet cleaning surfaces we do the opposite and work from the bottom up so that the chemicals do not create extra damage from streaking.

When completing any restoration project, we use a combination of the IICRC certified techniques and processes so that we complete the job as efficiently as possible. For professional help cleaning soils created by fire and smoke, call SERVPRO of San Leandro at (510) 352-2480 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Click here for information on the city of Oakland.

Cleaning Fire Damage in San Leandro

11/12/2017 (Permalink)

Smoke damage can be just as damaging as damage from the fire itself. Stay safe and when the fire fighters leave, contact SERVPRO for remediation.

SERVPRO Technicians Understand Fires and the Residues that They Leave Behind in Order to Provide a More Effective Level of Cleaning

Even a small fire in a San Leandro home can cause a remarkable amount of damage. If it burns slowly at a cooler temperature, there may even be more damage than one that burned fast and hot.
 
Knowing what burned and how fast helps SERVPRO determine the equipment and methods we need to deal with fire damage in a San Leandro home. The process of burning material is called combustion, and it has three requirements: Heat, oxygen, and fuel.
 
When these requirements burn in the perfect mix, the fire is hot, bright, and leaves little ash or another residue. When the mix is poor, the amount of residue increases accordingly. A poor mix means that either the heat or oxygen are too low to burn cleanly. This poor mix is the source of smoke and soot residues. The lower the heat or oxygen means more smoke is generated and travels farther through the home.
 
As smoke cools; the residue particles which did not burn in the poor mix fall out of the air and onto the surfaces below. These residue particles are solid bits of carbon and small amounts of liquids called aerosols. They are what makes smoke visible when trapped in the gases generated by the burned organic material.
 
Understanding this is what helps SERVPRO technicians can determine which cleaners and methods to use in a home. The farther away it is from the fire origin means that the smoke is lighter and contains fewer particles. The farthest point usually contains fewer aerosols, so we start at that point using dry cleaning methods.
 
Dry cleaning simply means that we wipe down surfaces with a dry cloth or sponge. In a large room, we may use a vacuum cleaner to remove the bulk of it before using a cloth or sponge to remove residue particles from in corners or other spots difficult to reach with the vacuum.
 
Closer to the fire, we use wet cleaning methods. In this situation, we try to use only water first to break up the thicker residues and then wipe them off surfaces with a cloth or sponge. If the residue is on a surface for an extended amount of time, then we use a cleaning agent to break it up for easier removal. If neither method is effective, then we remove the item for additional cleaning either on-site or at our facility.
 
Remediating the effects of fire damage requires not just equipment, chemicals, and personnel. The task also needs the knowledge to understand what and how to clean. SERVPRO of San Leandro has built up that knowledge over two decades helping our neighbors and community. If you need our services, call us today at (510) 352-2480.

For more information about the City of San Leandro, California visit:  https://www.sanleandro.org/

Six Classifications of Fire Damage

9/5/2017 (Permalink)

This fire was Class 5... what does that mean?

Alameda Fire Damage Classifications 

The Six Classes of Fire Damage: Your Quick Reference Guide

Although no one wants to experience a fire in their office or home, you never know when this unwanted disaster could transpire. Whether the disaster transpires because of a brush fire or bad electrical wiring, your property could suffer a wide range of adverse, inconveniencing outcomes. There are six classes of fire damage that your property can be subjected to. Learn more about these classes by reviewing the quick reference guide that appears below:

 Six Classes of Fire Damage

1. Class A

This type of fire damage results from combustible items in your household such as rubber, plastics, paper, and wood.

 2. Class B

Class B damages pertain to damage that results from liquids. It can also include solid items that became liquefied. Examples include paints, waxes, petrol, and gasoline. This class of fire damage does not include deterioration resulting from cooking liquids such as corn oil.

3. Class C

This type of fire damage results from flammable gasses. Some flammable gasses include hydrogen, methane, acetylene, and propane.

4. Class D

This kind of fire damage results from combustible metals. Some of them include magnesium, potassium, and titanium. This class is not common given that metals typically direct heat away from the fire.

5. Class E

Class E is a fire damage category that includes electrical equipment while also incorporating the materials from categories A and B. In addition to generating distinct types of damage, this class of fire damage makes it much more challenging to fight the fire.

6. Class F

Class F fire damage results from unsaturated cooking materials such as fats and oils.

Finding The Right Fire Damage Restoration Company

Irrespective of the category of fire damage that surfaces on your property, it is important for you to attain high-quality restoration services as soon as possible. To ensure that you attain the cutting edge, customized fire damage restoration services that you need and deserve, make sure the company you select possesses all of the following attributes:

• A good Better Business Bureau (BBB) rating

• IICRC-certified technicians

• Excellent customer service

• Good online reviews

When you find that your company has been impacted by fire, don't wait. Instead, accelerate and optimize the recovery process by attaining the best restoration services on the block. As a company with more than 60 years of industry experience and 1,650 franchises, the professionals of SERVPRO have built a strong reputation for consistently offering clients the excellent, expedient fire damage restoration services they deserve.

 Locally Owned Company with National Resources

As a locally owned and operated business, SERVPRO of San Leandro is strategically located to respond quickly to your flood and water emergency event. When fire damage occurs in Alameda, San Lorenzo, or Union City, we have the resources and personnel to help. Call us today! (510) 352-2480

House Fire Cleanup

8/25/2017 (Permalink)

What happens in the aftermath of a house fire?

How To Handle The Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration Process 

Once fire damage has hit your home, it's important to know which course of action to take so your property can be restored as quickly and efficiently as possible. To ensure that the restoration process is as smooth and seamless as possible, consider implementing the helpful strategies found below:

Hire A Smoke Damage Restoration Company
When a fire wreaks havoc on your property, it's prudent to contact SERVPRO. These individuals possess the experience and knowledge necessary to expedite and optimize the fire restoration process. Additionally, professionals possess the specialized equipment required to restore your home to its original condition. There are several tasks that remediation specialists will handle for you. Some of them include removing the smell of smoke, cleaning up soot, and rebuilding areas that have been affected by fire damage

Although you may be inclined to put off calling a fire damage company to handle other matters, this is not the thing to do. In fact, it's imperative that you contact the contractors immediately. Soot is quite damaging to glass, countertops, metal, and furniture. The longer it remains on your furniture and valuables, the harder it will be to remove. Additionally, fire can generate odors that permeate the entire home and penetrate your valuables. These are just two of many reasons that you should contact SERVPRO as soon as you can. Also be sure that you contact your insurance company. In some cases, they may recommend a contractor.

Things You Can Do To Facilitate Restoration
Although a professional restoration company will handle the majority of the cleanup, there are several cleanup tasks you can complete to facilitate the remediation process. Here are some tips and tricks to help complete the cleanup: 

• Limit movement through your home to prevent soot particles from spreading.
• Be sure that your hands are clean at all times. 
• Cover regions of the house where you sit and walk with old towels or linens. 
• Change the filters of your air conditioning and heating systems.
• Trap residual soot by covering your air vents with two layers of cheesecloth.
• Use petroleum jelly or oil to cover Chrome.

What Will The Professionals Do?
When the restoration company arrives to assist you, there are several things that they will do. Generally, they will begin with testing that helps determine what type of smoke residue is in your home. They will then use advanced tools and techniques to remove the soot. In addition to removing soot, the contractors will use special equipment to eradicate unpleasant odors from your living space. They will also remove any excess water that may be lingering in your home. This step is important because it prevents the growth of mold.

Conclusion 
Although dealing with the aftermath of a fire in your home can be challenging, there are several strategies you can implement to simplify the process. In addition to handling some of the cleanup yourself, you can expedite the restoration process by hiring a team of trained professionals. If you're searching for the best that the remediation industry has to offer, the search stops with SERVPRO. Our team of restoration specialists work with unprecedented determination to renew your home so that you can resume living a peaceful, stress-free life. Contact us today to obtain a consultation and estimate!

Locally Owned Company with National Resources

We live and work in this community too; we might even be neighbors. As a locally owned and operated business, SERVPRO of San Leandro is close by and ready to respond to your smoke or fire damage emergency. We are proud to be an active member of the San Leandro community and want to do our part to make our community the best it can be. 

Our expertise in fire damage restoration is extensive. SERVPRO utilizes IICRC training as part of our on-going education to stay ahead of the curve. Call us for help. (510) 352-2480

Why Fire Damage Keeps Your Family Out In San Leandro

7/22/2017 (Permalink)

Fire causes many different problems in a home, including areas that never saw any actual fire or flames.

Fire Damage

House fires have many different causes, and one of these causes includes children sneaking off to play with matches or lighters out of curiosity.

Children playing with fire-causing materials in San Leandro are not the only source of fire damage of course. However, keeping lighters, matches, and other items in safe locations is one way to prevent some fires. Children who visit your home can be a source of these items, so keeping an eye on children playing with your own son or daughter can also decrease any risk. After a fire starts in a home, the cause is often determined by the fire department simply as a matter of their standard operations.

Once a house fire has been put out, SERVPRO can begin the restoration work needed to get the displaced family back home and able to renew their regular routines. Without this work, families are often not allowed to live in the home, and even obtaining basic items from the house can be cautioned against attempting. Structural damage, air quality, and other possible risks can pose ongoing hazards to those who are inside.

Fire causes many different problems in a home, including areas that never saw any actual fire or flames.
- Smoke travels steadily but quickly, and can completely fill a house entirely, leaving behind ashes, soot, and odors everywhere. Stirring up these remnants of the fire can aggravate breathing problems in some individuals, inducing asthma attacks.
- Charring and partial burning can leave structures looking as if there was little damage to them when the opposite is true, leaving them ready to topple over or crash down with only a little bit of additional weight.
- Electrical power is often disconnected to a home, and with boarded-up windows, even daytime ventures inside can be dark and hazardous.
- Water is to be expected after a fire has been extinguished, but it is often present in the form of higher humidity and moisture-laden materials and possessions. This can add to any structural damage of floors already sustained.

SERVPRO technicians make assessments of the entire home based on their IICRC training and extensive experience. These evaluations give them the information to not only protect themselves from existing hazards but also help determine the quickest way to restore your home to livable standards again.

SERVPRO of San Leandro can restore your home from all of these problems that come with fire damage. We are local and can be reached at (510) 352-2480 at any hour, day or night, every day of the year.

Fire at a Commercial Property

6/25/2017 (Permalink)

Fire can destroy a building and a business.

How to Deal with Fire Damage at Your Commercial Property 

A recent fire at a San Lorenzo commercial fire and smoke damage caused damage to the warehoues structure and part of the office building. A loss like this can be overwhelming, it can also be mentally traumatic to employees. It prompted us to share information with other locl business owners:

The American Red Cross provides grief service to help victims  (including employees) cope with the mental after effects caused by fire damage.

Restoring your property to its previous condition may seem like an impossible feat to tackle as you look at the disaster. However, with a fire restoration company such as SERVPRO of San Leandro helping you, our knowledge and experience can help get your building looking its best and back into operational condition... "Like it Never Even Happened."

Fire and smoke damage can be caused by a number of reasons. One of the most prominent causes of fire begins with faulty electrical wiring. Since people can forget to turn off an electric appliance, or create sparks when using electrical powered tools, human error is also high on the list as a common factor in fires. The damage caused by smoke and soot can lead to significant loss (sometimes greater damage than was caused by the fire flames). That’s why it’s critical to find a trusted restoration company such as SERVPRO of San Leandro. From immediately after the fire through the recovery process, you’ll feel comforted knowing that they’ll work diligently to clean and restore your property to its pre-fire state.

Your One-Stop Shop for Smoke and Fire Restoration
We recognize the physical and emotional stress that comes with commercial fire restoration. Our team of experts empathizes with the property owners, company owners and employees who are in the midst of a crisis, and we will guide you every step of the way. From structural repairs and content restoration to soot cleaning and odor control, you can count on our services. We are a licensed contractor with a host of licensed sub-contractors who help us solve fire damage problems.

One of our sub-contractor specialists can help repair and restoration office equipment and even heavy manufacturing equipment.

We are one of the leading fire restoration cleaning facilities in this area. We have a large in-house smoke cleaning and de-ordorizing facility based in Hayward. We take pride in our work. We serve San Leandro, Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Hayward, San Lorenzo and Castro Valley.

We're SERVPRO of San Leandro and are ready to help you where ever you need us. Just call: (510) 352-2480

The Furry of Fire

6/12/2017 (Permalink)

Fire is a powerful force.

How to Deal with Fire Damage at Your Commercial Property 

A recent fire caused damage to a warehouse structure and part of the office building in San Lorenzo. A loss like this can be overwhelming, it can also be mentally traumatic to employees. It prompted us to share information with other local business owners:

The American Red Cross provides grief service to help victims (including employees) cope with the mental after effects caused by fire damage.

Restoring your property to its previous condition may seem like an impossible feat to tackle as you look at the disaster. However, with a fire restoration company such as SERVPRO of San Leandro helping you, our knowledge and experience can help get your building looking its best and back into operational condition... "Like it Never Even Happened."

Fire and smoke damage can be caused by a number of reasons. One of the most prominent smoke and fire source begins with faulty electrical wiring. Since people can forget to turn off an electric appliance, or create sparks when using electrical powered tools, human error is also high on the list as a common factor in fires. The damage caused by smoke and soot can lead to significant loss (sometimes greater damage than was caused by the fire flames). That’s why it’s critical to find a trusted restoration company such as SERVPRO of San Leandro. From immediately after the fire through the recovery process, you’ll feel comforted knowing that they’ll work diligently to clean and restore your property to its pre-fire state.

Your One-Stop Shop for Smoke and Fire Restoration
We recognize the physical and emotional stress that comes with commercial fire damage.  Our team of experts empathizes with the property owners, company owners and employees who are in the midst of a crisis, and we will guide you every step of the way. From structural repairs and content restoration to soot cleaning and odor control, you can count on our services. We are a licensed contractor with a host of licensed sub-contractors who help us solve fire damage problems.

One of our sub-contractor specialists can help repair and restoration office equipment and even heavy manufacturing equipment.

We are one of the leading fire damage restoration cleaning facilities in this area. We have a large in-house smoke cleaning and deodorizing facility based in Hayward. We take pride in our work. 

We SERVPRO of San Leandro and are ready to help you where ever you need us. Just call: (510) 352-2480

Using "smoke" to fight smoke odor?

6/9/2017 (Permalink)

Thermal fogging can kill smoke odor.

Thermal fogging is a method of applying deodorants that can be especially effective in treating strong odors caused by fire in a structure. As items are heated or burn, they may give off odors. Think about frying chicken or making French fries. The air is filled with cooking odors. Now, think about the smell of wood smoke at a campfire.

Campfire smoke can be very strong as the fire burns. After fire is out, the leftover ashes will have a lingering odor. However, the ashes usually won’t smell as bad as the larger leftover charred chunks of wood. That’s because the source wasn’t completely consumed and tiny odor particles are continuing to gas off.

When SERVPRO of San Leandro cleans a structure following a fire we have to remove the ashes and the sections of charred wood. That is a given. Our next concern in restoring a fire-damaged property is in addressing the smoke/soot contamination and the odor problem it creates. Soot with tiny odor particles can go everywhere. Because the hire of the fire is able to make the grains in wood and other surfaces such as paint to expand, the tiny odor particles can get trapped into the surface of these materials as they cool and shrink to normal size. This is where thermal fogging technology is useful.

A thermal fogging machine heats “oil that has been treated with odor counteractant ingredients.” The odor counteractant is transformed into a smoke that is laden with tiny odor killing particles. Because it’s “smoke” it will go into all of the same cracks and crevices the smoke from the fire went.  

An important principle of odor cleanup is to match the sources of the odor. For example if the odor-causing source was wet, then a wet cleaning agent should be applied. When the odor-causing source was smoke, then a “smoke” treatment with matching additives can be applied. Allow us to explain. Smoke from a fire may contain specific additives. For example, it may be a grease fire, or a plastic fire. Whatever burned will have an effect on the lingering odor. There are specific cleaning treatments to match the fire source. There are special additives to attack each type of smoke that can be used in the canister of the thermal fogger.

Fire restoration work is technical, it’s complex and at SERVPRO of San Leandro we believe we are good at it… 510-352-2480.

What business is most prone to fires?

6/4/2017 (Permalink)

Restaurants are the mostly likely industry to experience a fire. Once, log ago the motion picture theaters were the mot likely businesses to have fire. When safety film was invented and safer projectors were manufactured, theaters  had less fires. Today with video projection fires are ere more rare.

Restaurants have taken over because they use open flame for cooking and some use table candles for mood lighting. Fires happen during operating hours while kitchen staff are working and after hours when cleaning crews are working. Dirt grease traps can become raging fires. Gas lines can leak and pilot lights can cause explosions. While most commercial kitchens are equipped with extinguisher systems, even a short lived fire can cause a great deal of of damage. SERVPRO has plenty of experience working in restaurant fire cleanup.

Burger Restaurant Fire

5/21/2017 (Permalink)

Fire can be deadly. Fire can cause a great deal of structural damage. It’s not just the flames… it’s the smoke, the fumes and the soot that are of concern.

An automobile was stopped at a drive through window at a national burger restaurant in Hayward California. The engine compartment of the car burst into flames. The driver got out without injury, the drive through window clerk got safely out of the way. The fire totaled the auto and burnt a huge hole in the building’s roof. The most damage was caused by the smoke and soot that billowed into the kitchen and spread into the dinning room. Once again, no body was hurt. That’s the good news. Everyone got out in quick order and the fire department arrived promptly to extinguish the fire.

The restaurant is literally about one mile from our SERVPRO cleaning facility. We were invited to provide cleanup services. We had a crew there with two hours to present a cleanup scope. The next day we were providing soot and debris cleanup to get the place ready for reconstruction….SERVPRO of San Leandro to the rescue.

After the reconstruction was completed we returned to provide post construction cleanup and prepare the place for it’s reopening. By the way, they specialize in flame-broiled burgers. How ironic.