A couple of weeks ago, my sister had a pretty bad house fire. Everyone got out just fine and the actual fire damage wasn’t all that bad. The smoke and soot is EVERYWHERE though. She’s already decided to sell the house as is so we’re not too worried about it. At this point, we’re considering all of her upholstered furniture and the mattresses to be total losses and the insurance company has paid off on them so they’re not an issue. She’s washing through all of her clothes and discarding about half of them due to smoke/water damage and mildew. Most of her other assorted possessions survived but with an acceptable smoky smell.
What remains to be dealt with are the following:
a) wood and metal furniture
b) major appliances
c) her computer
The furniture should just be able to be wiped down with a clean rag and a bit of Murphy’s oil for the wood but any hints are welcomed.
I’m going to pull out the clothes washer, dryer and refrigerator tomorrow and blow them out with compressed air before wiping them down. I’m assuming the soot probably took some of the life out of the various motors but I don’t know what else to do.
Her computer is a three year old Dell and she’s not interested in spending much time or money to get it running although there is some desirable data on it. There’s no apparent heat damage to it but it was less than twelve feet from the fire at one point. I opened the case and everything is covered in soot. My first instinct is to hit it with the compressed air, wipe it down, try to start it up and see what happens. Second choice would be to remove the hard drive and slip it into an external enclosure, recycle the rest of the computer and try to recover her data this way.
Any words or experience/wisdom/comfort are welcomed.
There are cleaning companies, such as Serv Pro or Servicemaster, that specialize in cleaning up after fires. Also, her insurance company should pick up the tab for that.
I asked my sister about this. According to her, the insurance agent claimed that the cost to get a Servicemaster team to clean her stuff out to her small town, rural location would exceed the pre-fire, depreciated value of her furniture and appliances. She could appeal and try to force the issue if she wanted or she could take the settlement he offered and fend for herself on salvage and restoration. She took the check.
The computer will be hit or miss because soot is mainly carbon and plays havoc with circuit boards and most electric components. During a fire, soot will get anywhere air will get. If I were going to attempt to clean the electronics within a computer, I’d start by using a vacuum and soft brush attachment and thoroughly vacuum the unit inside/out. I’d then use alcohol dipped cotton balls and cotton swabs to surgically clean the internal components/contacts/switches and as you can imagine, this is labor intensive because many parts will have to be removed in order to clean them.
Most experienced electronic repair stores are reluctant to attempt this procedure as they are usually only willing to guarantee the item until you walk out the door with it. After that, you’re on your own.
i agree … new desktops are fairly cheap at this point in time, and sucking data off a damaged HDD is fairly easy and fast compared to renovating an entire computer.