3 Steps To Follow After a Fire Affects Your Home

10/7/2019 (Permalink)

Fire damage in a Cary,NC home

3 Steps To Follow After a Fire Affects Your Home

After a fire has damaged a home in Cary, NC, homeowners can begin to feel overwhelmed with worry and uncertainty about the fire restoration process. Many don't know what they should do in order to begin the path toward restoration. If a fire has damaged your home, however, there are several useful steps you can take to make restoration easier.

1. Begin the Claims Process

It's often important for homeowners to make a claim with their insurance company to move the restoration process forward. The majority of home insurance policies include fire insurance, so long as the cause of the fire wasn't arson. After making an insurance claim, your insurance provider will send out an adjuster to assess the damage. After the assessment, your insurance company can compensate you for your losses.

2. Avoid Touching Your Belongings or Going Into Your Home

After the blaze has been extinguished, you may be tempted to enter your home. While it's understandable that you want to look around and assess the damage yourself, entering your home and touching belongings affected by the fire can have a negative impact on the fire restoration process. Only if firefighters or a fire marshall has said it is safe to go into your home should you go inside your house after a fire is extinguished, and even then you should generally avoid touching any damaged items.

3. Contact Restoration Services

Though you shouldn't enter your home in order to gather your damaged items, it's often wise to contact emergency restoration services. Professionals know how to safely enter homes and can help to mitigate the damage that has already occurred. After damaged items are removed from the home, experts can also help with smoke cleaning and odor removal before rebuilding begins.

As terrible as a home fire can be, there are several key steps homeowners can follow in order to improve the fire restoration process. Filing a claim soon after a fire, not entering your home without clearance from firefighters and contacting restoration services can often make restoration a quicker, less stressful ordeal.