How to Restore Fire Damaged Wooden Surfaces in Your Middletown Home

7/13/2022 (Permalink)

When fire damages your home, SERVPRO is always on call to restore your home. Call us today!

Restoring Wooden Finishes and Furniture after Fire Damage in Middleton 

Contents cleaning can become an arduous task after a fire in your home. Since you are dealing with many different types of material, your choice of cleaning method and the product is correctly is essential. Many wood surfaces in your home, such as tabletops, cabinets, bookshelves, or chests, may have a finish of lacquer, varnish paint, or wax. These finishes can make woods more resistant to heat or smoke, and odor. However, the type of finish can have a limiting effect on the cleaning products we can use to remove soots or other types of damage. 

When wooden furnishings are affected by fire damage in your Middleton home, there are many different considerations for a restorer. While some areas of the furniture may have to finish, others may not. Unfinished wood, likely to be in the interior of cabinets, absorbs smoke and odor more quickly because it is naturally porous. However, finishes themselves may wear away in the presence of a fire, which leads to spotting staining or discoloration. 

SERVPRO technicians can inspect furnishings on-site to understand the breadth of the fire damage. When inspecting a piece of wood, we are looking for both the extent of blistering- which can occur when exposed to high heat levels- and staining. Blistering may present itself as a scorch mark on the surface of the wood, wear away the finish and allow particles to enter the wood pores. Staining may be when the finish remains intact, but wet particles from synthetic smokes could permanently stain the surface. 

When there is significant blistering or staining, SERVPRO may need to refinish the furniture to provide an even color balance across the furniture and return it to a pre-damaged condition. Refinishing involves removing soot, soiling, and finish from the furniture altogether. Dry smokes can often need vacuuming. However, wet-smoke damages may need dissolving in a solvent to remove them effectively. Once the surface is clean, we sand it down using either hand-held sandpaper or through soda and sandblasting machines. The sanded surface often needs refinishing to provide an even coloring and finish similar to how the furnishing was before the fire. 

Managing and restoring furniture requires expertise; contact SERVPRO of Middletown / New Britain at (860) 826-5169.