Fire Damage.....again!

AAPaint

So, I'm back on another fire damage job...oh joy! Was in there cleaning today using TSP with a sponge mop and big sponges. There has to be a better way. First swipe on the wall dirties the whole bucket of water, so I started rinsing the sponges in the sink and then dipping back in my TSP/water mix to avoid blackening my clean water.

Anyway...all the carpet is going out, and the floors are no worry. What I was planning for tommorow was to use my garden sprayers (of which I have about 10) one full of TSP/water, and one a rinser. I guess I'm gonna go in and hose a wall with tsp, scrub her down, and rinse like heck with the other sprayer.

How does everyone else do it? How do you go about making sure you get most, if not all of the loose soot off the wall. BIN will not cover if the soot is still on there because it just sucks it up into the primer.

This is far from my first fire job, I'm just looking for better methods of cleaning. I'm no master cleaner, I'm a painter!!

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

painterofeveryt

have you used the soot sponges yet? seen em on alot of smoke damaged jobs,work really well, have seen them at at a few paint supply stores.....good luck !

Flawless Finish

What a mess. Thankfully I've never had to clean up from a fire. What is the sheen on the walls right now? Is there a lot of water damage?

AAPaint

Sheen is semi-gloss on plaster....Fire was contained to just one bedroom. It's getting gutted, but not by me, lol. Rest of the house is just soot, no water damage, and being semi-gloss, I won't do any damage with my water either. I'll have to look for soot sponges....they may help some.

__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

Brushslingers

I always cleaned up fire damage with a light wipedown and a good coat of Shellac primer.. covers the smell and sticks to anything. Never had any complaints but hey.

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Benn

mdshunk

I do a fair amount of electrical work on fire damage jobs. I notice around here lately that they are starting to use low pressure sandblasting with baking soda to remove the soot before painting.

AAPaint

That's what I do as well....just looking for something a little better. Wiping down a whole house is a lot of work!

__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

Humble Abode

I'm going to a Fire Restoration and Mold Remediation seminar on October 3rd so I'll let you know when I get back.

__________________
Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe. Kurt Vonnegut, (1922 - 2007) from the Novel 'Hocus Pocus'
The NAPP
Milwaukee Painting Contractor

AAPaint

That will help considering this place will look like new by the end of next week, lol! Be nice to hear if they have any tricks up their sleeve for the cleaning part for sure though.

__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

Humble Abode

It's being thrown by Zinsser. I would imagine they are doing it in other parts of the country as well...

Not that it would help for this particular job.

__________________
Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe. Kurt Vonnegut, (1922 - 2007) from the Novel 'Hocus Pocus'
The NAPP
Milwaukee Painting Contractor

Double-A

AA, I watched a 2 person crew use sprayers, scrub brushes on handles (big acid or concrete type brush, 12" wide) and a wet/dry vac to clean up.

They would spray the walls and agitate with the brushes, Wet/dry vac the bottom section to get drips and runs (they had big towels along baseboard too). They would just dunk in clean water to rinse the brushes, and Vac down the wall. For the second pass, it was clean water in another sprayer for rinse and vac it up. Went quite fast. They could do an 8x12 wall in about 5 mins tops, from start of set up to finished.



This is the brush they used. Palmyra or some such natural bristle.

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"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

AAPaint

I have such brushes already. Thanks Double-A, that's the info I was looking for....an easy way. BTW, my initials are "double A" and I hear people say that a lot to me. It's also how I answer the phone.....oh well, just funny coincedence.

Hey Humble, thanks for the info man. I'm gonna look into that for my area.

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

AAPaint

So, I thought I'd throw up an after shot of the smoke damage. Cleaned with TSP, one coat of BIN, and although slickshift hates it, two coats of SW Master Hide....I would say this is proof it covers very well, even though it's the BIN that plays the biggest part, the master hide locks out any grey areas the BIN didn't fully cover. See......

BTW, it wasn't my job to clean the light fixture, lol!!

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__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

AAPaint

I'm replying to myself again....

Did I forget to mention that the master hide is extremely economical at a contractor's price and that gives me another reason to like it. It also makes it perfect for rental properties like this one.

__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

Double-A

How did the clean up go? What method did you use?

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"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

AAPaint

Clean up went pretty easy. I used the garden sprayers and scrub brush. I would hose a wall down with tsp, scrub the dickens out of it, and rinse it all down to the floor with another sprayer full of water. Took about 2 gallons of water per wall to rinse, and about one gallon of tsp per wall, which is a lot of water, but you really have to rinse the soot off good. For ceilings, I would just use a sponge mop soaking wet, wipe down one swipe, rinse mop, and wipe again.

__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

Brushslingers

Nice, i'll have to try the sprayer next one I get, sounds a little messy but faster.

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Benn

Teetorbilt

We just tear it all out. The smell eventually comes back out through the paint.

Your firefighters are much more careful (or not) than ours. Ours seem to partially demo the house and spray so much water that there is no recourse other than to replace all of the drywall.

God bless them but if they've got nothing else to do.................

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You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

747

AAPaint I think it looks excellent. Clean and crisp.

AAPaint

Well, with this house, only one room was torched and it was gutted completely. FD busted windows in that room and punched out the ceiling as they usually do. Other than that, the rest of the house was nothing but smoke damage, and it's plaster walls at that. I don't think there will be any problem with smoke smell coming back through my paint though. It smelled like a brand new house when I was done.

747, thanks for the compliments. I was wondering when someone would say "nice job", but I guess around here, they just expect that of me.

BTW, that before photo was taken in the daylight WITH a flash bulb. If that gives you any idea how bad it was.

__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.