After a tragic house fire or a relatively small kitchen fire, you may be left wondering how to pick up the pieces and whether hiring a remediation team is your best bet. Should you stretch your budget to accommodate the expense of hiring professionals or save all the money to do the restoration in your own way? If it was an especially small fire, you may feel able to handle the situation alone. To help you make the most informed decision, here are some pros and cons of hiring a professional fire damage remediation team in this situation.

Pros:

Professional equipment/supplies

A remediation team is well-equipped for any type of fire or smoke damage that they may find on your belongings. Some of this equipment is very expensive and specialized, and can chemically clean and restore objects that you would be unable to restore yourself. This means that hiring a professional team may save some of your belongings from being trashed.

Professional training

The professional remediation specialists know how to remove not only visible soot stains and fire damage, but also how to remove smoke smell from your house and residual smoke or soot that may bot be visible but can still damage the inside of your house over time if not removed.

Professional speed

Many damage remediation specialists are on call 24/7 so that you can have them start at any time of day or night and thus minimize the potential for continued damage from soot and smoke. In addition, the team will often contain several people, all of which are professionally trained to work effectively and quickly. This means the work will get done much faster than if you were to tackle it on your own.

Insurance

Many insurance companies not only allow but encourage you to use a professional remediation team for cleanup. They'll reimburse you for the cost and ensure things are restored to the pre-fire condition. This means it's often worth it to hire in a team even for a small kitchen fire.

Well-rounded services

You may not realize it, but a fire damage remediation team isn't just good at removing smoke; they can also repair structural damage to your home, clean up and remediate water damage from any water used to put out the fire, and restore valuable items that are damaged.

Cons:

Although it's usually the best option to hire a remediation team when you've suffered a fire, there are also cons in certain unusual situations. These may include things like:

• If you somehow have insurance that doesn't cover fire damage, you will have to front the cost of the remediation yourself.
• If you suffer anxiety about allowing strangers to handle your belongings, having a remediation team may be difficult for you. Discuss this with the company and ask if they'll allow you to oversee the operations.

As you can see from these pros and cons, a specialized fire damage remediation is almost universally the best choice for a situation involving fire damage. Certain circumstances may give you pause, but even if you have to foot the bill yourself, the professional services a team can provide are worth stretching your budget a bit to ensure your home and life get back to normal as quickly and effectively as possible.