Clothing and laundry restoration

[lmspeir]

How do you guys handle the clothing and laundry items when you do a fire mitigation? Is there preferred method? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!
Larry Speir

 

[Desk Jockey]

We sort it first and then Ozone before taking it to the drycleaners.

Ozone does not penetrate well so they need to separated not packed tight on a rack.

The laundry we have a commercial washer and dryer and will do in house unless otherwise specified.

Generally the ozone will take care of the odor, when there is a lot elastic or the smoke odor is too extreme for ozone we will use Unsmoke's Smoke Wash in the laundry.

 

[lmspeir]

How long do you keep the clothes in the ozone room? And, do you vacuum the clothes to remove soot? Do you use a local dry cleaners or do you use one of the specialty laundries?

Again, thanks for the advice.

Larry Speir

 

[Craig Lindquist]

We have a restoration dry cleaner come immediatley. They inventory everything by room, right down to what dresser drawer it came out of. They then seperate the clothes by season and discuss with the residents which clothes they would like back immediatley.

They pack it out, clean it, press it and store it. When the loss is complete, they bring it all back and put it away.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Larry if the soot residue is that bad I suppose vacuuming could help, but no we usually don't do that.

Items that are soot stained are sorted as to if salvageable. Some synthetics that receive too much heat my not be worth processing unless they have sentimental value.

You can do presoaking of laundry items in a degreaser overnight, if the items have a value that makes it cost effective to do so.

As far as an Ozone room, any room can be used as an Ozone room. The smaller the better, Ozone is heavier that oxygen so it falls to the ground until levels build up. You can place your unit on a shelf up high or you can use a ladder and secure it to the top with a bungee cord.

Spread the items out, on the floor if necessary, use a fan on low to help circulate the ozone. Ozone does not penetrate well so you may need a second application. It's better to do have two treatments than one treatment too strong.

Ozone is damage the rubber in elastic if you expose it to too high a concentration for too long of time.

We usually do a 6-8 hour time and then check it in the AM.

Local drycleaner.