Apart from deciding whether to rebuild or sell a fire-damaged house, one of the biggest decisions you’ll face after a house fire is choosing which cleaning company to hire. It’s crucial to select the right cleaning company for your fire-damaged house to ensure that your home is carefully restored to its pre-fire condition, mitigating any further stress and loss.
The truth is your choice of a cleaning company can go a long way toward ensuring the safety of yourself and your family.
That’s because house fires create lots of toxic chemicals and if these materials are left to linger in a house they can be breathed in or otherwise absorbed by family members.
Once inside the body, the chemicals can have numerous negative effects, including:
- Breathing difficulties
- Allergies
- Headaches
- And even more serious conditions like cancer
It’s important you hire the right cleaning company
Whether you are rebuilding or selling a fire-damaged house, you should look for a cleaning company that is highly trained and experienced when it comes to cleaning up after a house fire.
These companies and their employees will know what areas need to be cleaned and the best way to clean them. They’ll also know what mistakes to avoid to ensure you and your family are protected.
This is especially important for those with:
Heart/vascular disease
Heart disease stops the heart from pumping blood as well as it should and stops it from picking up oxygen from the lungs. This means that these individuals may have less oxygen available, making it difficult to remove fire-related toxins from the body.
Compromised immune systems
For people with impaired immune systems toxins can be fatal. Because they have a reduced ability to recover from repeated infections, they may lack the ability to build up immunity.
Diabetes
Some severe toxins may cause loss of control of diabetes and lead to severe complications. Diabetes alters blood sugar levels and affects the person’s ability to fight disease. Bacteria can also grow in the blood (septicemia) and affect other organs.
Chronic liver failure
Toxins can pose a special risk for those with damaged livers or who recently received a liver transplant. The liver is responsible for ridding the body of toxins, and if it is not doing that job properly, the toxins can remain inside you and cause more damage.
Those over 65
Another group who could especially be at risk from toxins from a fire are those over the age of 65.
The immune system in the elderly is not as effective as in younger patients, which means that older people have a much harder time getting rid of toxins.
How to select the right cleaning company for your fire-damaged house
Tip #1 – Check to see if the cleaning company understands the risk posed by fire damage.
Providing effective cleaning after a fire requires extra effort and attention to detail that many companies are simply incapable of providing.
Cleaners must use the right solutions and must have staff who refuse to cut corners or take shortcuts when applying those solutions to surfaces. Be sure to talk to each company and get a feel for their experience and knowledge level.
Tip #2 – Determine whether a cleaning company is more interested in providing top-notch service or in cutting costs.
For example, we all purchase many items in their generic form. It’s a lot less expensive and many times the quality is just as good. It makes sense to buy items like baby wipes and lotions in the generic form if you know they are the same high-quality and work just as well.
However, when it comes to cleaning a fire-damaged house, the key factor should be health preserving cleaning not cost. This means that sometimes cleaners may need to use more expensive, more effective products instead of generic cleansers.
Tip #3 – Good cleaning companies remove soot.
This is actually very important. Here’s why: soot contains a variety of dangerous toxins that can cause many types of bad health effects. So the company needs to be able to find soot and get rid of it.
Tip #4 – Good cleaning companies provide the best possible cleaning for the least possible price.
Too many customers are being ripped off by unscrupulous cleaning providers today.
One way that this often happens is a customer chooses the cleaning company solely on the basis of their having the lowest bid for the project.
What you should do instead is select the company that offers the best possible cleaning for the least possible price.
The last thing you want to do is to choose the cheapest price because what normally happens in such scenarios is the cleaning company cuts corners or does just the minimum required work to make their low bid cost-effective for them.
Tip #5 – Good cleaning companies offer a money-back guarantee!
Few things are worse than a cleaning company that makes claims and fails to deliver. Here’s a trick you can use to avoid becoming the victim in this type of scenario and instead take control of the situation.
Make it clear in the beginning by putting it into your contract with the cleaning company that you will only pay for cleaning that is done properly according to the agreement.
This is what is known as a true quality guarantee. It shifts the risk from you to the service provider and ensures that the cleaning service will be provided as agreed upon.
Remember without this guarantee, you may find yourself being charged for cleaning services that were not delivered according to your agreement.
Never forget the importance of value over price!
As we said previously, all cleaning companies are not the same and when selecting a company you must be sure to not just compare price but also compare what you actually get with each company.
Want to sell a fire-damaged house?
We Buy Fire-Damaged Houses pays all cash and buys fire-damaged houses in “as is” condition. When you sell your fire-damaged you won’t have to worry about breathing in toxins from smoke damage and soot. You’ll be able to use your insurance settlement and sales funds to buy a new house that is safe.
Fill out the form below to see if your fire-damaged house qualifies for a free quote.
Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash