How would you feel if you bought a house, wanted to remodel it and when you start taking down the sheetrock and notice charring throughout the entire house on the structural beams? Our wonderful customers from New York called upon SERVPRO® to help with remediation and restoration in the house and bring it back to its original state. Hard to think that the structure is actually sounds, but engineers deemed it as being okay. This week we have been doing the demolition to get all the beams exposed so that we can get ready to media blast. For this job we are using Garnet Medium, that is restoration grade. Garnet Medium is used for a wide variety of blasting applications. Used in both dry and wet abrasive blasting. Garnet Grit offers high performance and recyclability. The hardness and bulk density make this media ideal for general purpose surface preparation. Follow us for the progress on this job next week. 

Today we are out at a home in Wynantskill, NY taking part in a thermal fog treatment to deduce the odors caused by burnt food, grease fires, pet odor, and much more. The way the thermal fogger works is its able to permeate even the toughest-to-reach spots. The mixture attaches to the odor particles and absorbs them, thus neutralizing any odor. 

A puff-back occurs when a furnace misfires and pushes smoke and soot throughout a home. This Rensselaer County, NY home experienced a puff-back this spring and the walls and ceilings needed to be deep cleaned. The aftermath of a malfunctioning furnace puff-back can leave walls, ceilings, carpets, furniture, drapes, and contents coated with a film of smoke and soot, sometimes throughout an entire home. SERVPRO of North Rensselaer/South Washington Counties uses similar methods and cleaning products for a puff-back used in cleaning a fire damaged home.

If your home experiences a furnace puff-back, call us today – (518)677-3444

This Rensselaer county residence suffered from soot damage to their home from a malfunction in their furnace. This is what we call a “puffback.” These webs look a lot like cobwebs or spider webs that formed in corners of the basement, but are actually not related to cobwebs at all. These webs are called soot webs and form when ionized soot particles stick together in chains.

The fire at this home was caused by an electrical fire. We removed the charred ceiling to expose the studs behind for any cleaning that may be needed, and came to find this large beehive!

Soda blasting is a process in which sodium bicarbonate is applied against a surface using compressed air. Soda blasting is a non-destructive method for many applications in cleaning, paint & varnish stripping, automotive restoration, industrial equipment maintenance, rust removal, graffiti removal, oil removal, and in this scenario soot remediation.

Have you ever wondered how we are able to remove that stubborn smoke smell out of a fire damaged home? One of the many ways we remove those smells after fully cleaning the structure is by using a hot thermal fog. This deodorization process recreates the fire in the home using a deodorizing fog using solvent cleaning agents to remove those stubborn smells in a home and get into all the pores of the materials of the home to remove the smells we cannot remove by just cleaning. Thermal fogs are pairing agents, meaning they chemically react with odors and residues and eliminate odors rather than just masking them. This process is very effective for deodorizing a fire damaged home.

Due to an electrical shortage, this family's home was damaged by a fire. We worked quickly and efficiently, and were able to salvage the home. After our cleaning was complete and rebuild was done, they were able to move back into their home.