After a House Fire: Restoring the Contents & Memories

Did you know after a fire, you might not need to replace everything inside your home? Many restoration companies, including Champion Cleaning Systems in Sharpsburg, offer what’s called full contents restoration. That means while our crews work to restore the actual structure of your home after a fire, we can also clean may of the items inside your home to pre-loss condition.

To get this started, a content cleaning professional will do a walkthrough of your home to determine what items can be saved, and what can’t, based on their replacement value. In some cases, it could be more cost-effective for the insurance company to pay for a replacement. However, in cases of nice clothing, furniture, window treatments, electronics, etc., it is actually much more beneficial to everyone if your items can be cleaned and restored for you.

Here’s a look at the process of cleaning your contents.

• 1. The Packout: A crew will come in and methodically box up your home, room by room, using a careful labeling and organization system.
• 2. Cleaning: Restoration companies will full contents restoration capabilities have a large assembly line process for cleaning. It also means your items will all be inventoried and carefully kept track of during each step of the cleaning process.

While the cleaning process varies depending on the item, you can rest assured that only proven effective techniques are used that won’t do further damage to your items. For hard goods like dishes, they will be thoroughly washed and dried. If there is a noticeable odor, they will be placed in a special room with equipment that has the ability to remove that odor. For textiles like clothing, they will be carefully washed using unique odor and stain removal solutions, dried, and pressed, then carefully boxed back up.

There are also proven processes in place to restore expensive electronics like computers and even restore meaningful items full of sentimental value like photos or books.

• 3. Stored during restoration: Depending on the severity of the fire, your contents may need to be stored at our facility while your property is restored. Again, rest assured your items have been carefully inventoried and will be stored in a climate-controlled environment until your home is livable again.
• 4. Items returned: This has to be the most exciting part of the process, right? Just as crews carefully boxed up items by room, the boxes will be strategically returned to those rooms for you, rugs placed back in their original places, and window treatments rehung.

We understand having a fire in your home can not only be a hassle, it can also be very traumatic! If your child has a special stuffed animal that could comfort them after the loss, we will happily have that item cleaned first and return it to you as quickly as possible.

In the end, the goal is to return your property, and your items, to the condition they were in before the fire disrupted your life.