Homewood Fire Damage Restoration

After the fire trucks leave a Homewood home, what remains is a structure that is wet from suppression water, coated in acidic soot and saturated with smoke odor, often with openings to the weather. Water Restoration connects you with local fire damage restoration crews that secure the property, remove the water, clean the soot, eliminate the odor and rebuild.

Properties in Homewood (Cook County) range over a mix of historic homes, post-war neighborhoods and newer construction, with farms and acreage properties nearby. Home fires peak in winter, when space heaters, fireplaces and furnaces are running and holiday cooking and decorating add risk.

Types of fire losses in Homewood, IL

Homewood shares the weather and building patterns of the rest of the state. Illinois homes are mostly built over basements, and sump pump failures, sewer backups during heavy rain, and burst pipes during polar cold snaps are the state's most common water losses. Older Chicago-area housing stock and river flooding along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers add to the exposure. Problems tend to peak during spring rains and mid-winter cold, but plumbing failures and appliance leaks happen in every month of the year.

• Kitchen and cooking fires, the leading cause of home fires
• Small fires that were extinguished quickly but filled the house with smoke
• Lightning-caused attic and roof fires
• Oil furnace puff-backs that coat every room in soot
• Electrical fires from aging wiring, overloaded circuits and outdated panels
• Space heater, fireplace and chimney fires during cold weather
• Lightning strikes and downed power lines during severe storms
• Grill and outdoor cooking fires that spread to siding and decks

Soot, odor and water: three clocks running at once

Three forms of damage continue after the flames are out. Soot residue corrodes and stains surfaces progressively. Odor molecules migrate deeper into porous materials. And suppression water, often hundreds of gallons, swells, delaminates and eventually grows mold in everything it touched. Early stabilization changes what can be saved.

That is why restoration companies in Homewood aim to be on site within a day or two of the fire even when reconstruction will take months. Board-up protects the property; extraction and drying stop the water damage; and the first cleaning pass removes the most corrosive residue.

Our fire damage restoration process in Homewood

1. Dispatch and assessment. A local crew confirms the property is safe to enter and plans the stabilization.
2. Securing the structure. Broken openings are boarded, damaged roofing tarped and the site secured.
3. Suppression water cleanup. Extraction and drying equipment address the water left by firefighting.
4. Soot and smoke removal. Surfaces are cleaned with dry sponges, HEPA vacuuming and the chemistry matched to the type of residue; ductwork is cleaned.
5. Contents processing. Furniture, clothing, electronics and documents are inventoried, cleaned where possible and stored until the home is ready.
6. Odor removal with thermal fogging, hydroxyl or ozone and sealing of structural surfaces, followed by full reconstruction.

What can be saved after a fire in Homewood

More than most people expect. Glass, ceramics, metal and sealed wood clean well. Many textiles are restorable with specialty laundering and ozone. Electronics that were not exposed to heat can often be cleaned and tested, and documents and photos can be freeze-dried. Items generally not salvageable include food and medicine exposed to heat or smoke, melted plastics, mattresses, particleboard furniture and heavily sooted drywall and insulation.

Cost and insurance considerations

The cost of fire damage restoration depends on the size of the fire, the type of smoke residue, how far it traveled through the building and how much of the structure and contents can be cleaned rather than replaced.

Fire and smoke are covered perils in essentially every homeowners and commercial property policy, and most policies include additional living expenses if the property cannot be occupied during repairs.

Ask the crew to walk you through the estimate and the claim process; good documentation from day one is the best way to get a claim paid.

Service area: Homewood and Cook County

Coverage in Homewood includes ZIP code 60430, along with the rest of Cook County.

The same crews also serve nearby communities including Flossmoor (2 mi), Hazel Crest (2 mi), Glenwood (3 mi), Olympia Fields (3 mi), Thornton (3 mi), Country Club Hills (3 mi), Markham (3 mi), Harvey (4 mi), Chicago Heights (4 mi) and South Holland (5 mi). If you are just outside Homewood, call anyway; coverage areas overlap.

What to expect when you call about fire damage restoration in Homewood

• Calls are answered 24 hours a day, including nights, weekends and holidays
• One number covers water, fire, smoke, mold, sewage and biohazard emergencies
• You can ask about licensing, insurance and IICRC certification before any work begins, and you should
• You are connected with a restoration company that actually serves Homewood, not a national call center that will call you back tomorrow
• The companies we work with deal with insurance adjusters daily and can bill covered mitigation directly to your carrier