Hear from Our Customers
The smoke smell is gone. Not masked—gone. Your insurance claim is filed with photos, moisture maps, and line-item documentation they actually accept. The soot is off your walls, your HVAC isn’t spreading contamination, and you’re not wondering if hidden damage is going to surprise you in six months.
That’s what fire and smoke restoration should deliver. Most companies show up, run equipment, and disappear. You’re left guessing whether the job was done right or if you’ll be dealing with odors and air quality issues down the road.
We stay until the work is verifiable. Every surface tested. Every affected area documented. A walkthrough where you see the results, and a 14-day follow-up to make sure nothing was missed. If you’re in Hawthorn Hills and dealing with fire damage, you need more than fast equipment—you need a process that actually closes the loop.
We’ve been handling fire damage restoration in Hawthorn Hills since 2016. IICRC-certified in water damage, applied structural drying, and mold remediation—credentials that matter when your insurance adjuster asks who did the work.
We’re not a franchise. We’re a local team that answers our own phone, shows up in 60 to 90 minutes, and knows that older homes in this area come with quirks—tight crawl spaces, plaster walls, HVAC systems that spread smoke faster than you’d expect. We’ve seen what happens when fire restoration gets rushed, and we’ve cleaned up after companies that didn’t contain the damage properly.
You’ll work with the same crew from start to finish. No handoffs, no confusion about who’s responsible. Just clear communication, transparent pricing aligned with Xactimate, and a process designed around what actually works in Hawthorn Hills.
You call. We answer—no voicemail, no callback queue. Within 60 to 90 minutes, our team is on-site with containment barriers, HEPA filtration, and moisture meters to assess both fire and water damage from firefighting efforts.
First, we stop the damage from spreading. Containment goes up to protect unaffected rooms. Air scrubbers start pulling smoke particles out of the air. We document everything with photos and moisture mapping—your insurance company will ask for this, and we hand it over within 24 hours.
Then we remove what’s damaged and dry what’s salvageable. Soot comes off walls using commercial-grade cleaners, not household products that smear it deeper. If your contents need to go into storage while we work, we pack and inventory every item. HVAC ducts get cleaned so you’re not recirculating smoke residue every time the heat kicks on.
Every 48 hours, you get an update. When we’re done, you get a walkthrough and a follow-up call two weeks later to confirm everything still looks, smells, and feels right. That’s the process. No shortcuts, no surprises.
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Fire restoration isn’t just about cleaning up what you can see. Smoke travels through your HVAC system, into wall cavities, under flooring. Water from fire hoses soaks into subfloors and insulation. If those areas don’t get addressed, you’re looking at mold growth, lingering odors, and structural issues that show up months later.
We handle the full scope. Smoke damage cleanup using HEPA vacuums and professional-grade deodorizers—not air fresheners. Water extraction and drying in areas the fire department soaked. Contents pack-out if you need your belongings stored while we rebuild. A dedicated insurance liaison who speaks the language adjusters use, so your claim doesn’t get hung up on terminology or missing documentation.
Hawthorn Hills has a mix of older homes and newer construction. Older properties often have plaster walls that absorb smoke differently than drywall, and HVAC systems that weren’t designed with filtration in mind. We adjust our approach based on what your property actually needs, not a one-size-fits-all checklist. You also get our military, senior, and first responder discounts on non-insurance work—because not every job is covered, and you shouldn’t be penalized for that.
We’re on-site in 60 to 90 minutes. That’s not an estimate—it’s our standard. When you call, you reach a live person who dispatches our crew immediately, not a call center that routes you to the next available contractor.
Speed matters because fire and smoke damage gets worse by the hour. Soot becomes harder to remove. Smoke odor sets deeper into porous materials. Water from firefighting efforts starts feeding mold growth within 24 to 48 hours.
Our trucks are stocked with containment materials, air scrubbers, moisture meters, and cleaning agents. We don’t need to go back to the shop for equipment. We start working the moment we arrive, and you’ll have initial documentation in your inbox within 24 hours—photos, moisture readings, and a scope of work your insurance company can review right away.
Most homeowner policies cover fire damage restoration, including smoke cleanup and water damage from firefighting. But coverage depends on your specific policy, your deductible, and how the claim is documented.
That’s where our insurance liaison comes in. We work directly with your adjuster, provide Xactimate-aligned estimates, and submit the documentation they need to approve your claim—photos, moisture maps, line-item costs. We’ve done this enough times to know what gets approved and what gets kicked back for revisions.
If your policy doesn’t cover everything, we’ll walk you through what’s out-of-pocket before we start that work. No surprise bills. And if the job isn’t insurance-backed at all, we offer discounts for military members, seniors, first responders, and teachers. You’ll know exactly what you’re paying and why.
Smoke odor doesn’t come out with candles or surface cleaning. It’s embedded in walls, carpets, upholstery, and ductwork. If your HVAC system ran during or after the fire, it pulled smoke particles into every room in your house.
We use a combination of HEPA air scrubbers, thermal fogging, and hydroxyl generators to neutralize odor at the molecular level. Surface cleaning comes first—soot and residue have to be physically removed before deodorization works. Then we treat porous materials like drywall and insulation that absorbed the smoke.
Your HVAC system gets cleaned separately. If the ducts aren’t addressed, you’ll smell smoke every time the furnace or AC kicks on. We also check less obvious areas—crawl spaces, attics, wall cavities—because smoke travels through gaps you wouldn’t expect. The goal is complete odor removal, not temporary masking, and we don’t consider the job done until you confirm the smell is gone.
Fire damage refers to what flames physically destroyed—burned materials, charred structures, melted belongings. Smoke damage is everything the fire touched without burning it—soot on walls, odor in fabrics, discoloration on ceilings, residue inside your HVAC system.
Smoke damage often covers a larger area than fire damage. A kitchen fire might be contained to one room, but smoke spreads through the entire house in minutes. It leaves acidic residue that keeps corroding surfaces even after the fire is out. If it’s not cleaned quickly, that residue etches into paint, tarnishes metal, and yellows plastics.
We handle both. Fire damage restoration includes demolition, structural drying, and rebuilding. Smoke damage cleanup focuses on surface treatment, deodorization, and air quality. Most fire events involve both types of damage, plus water damage from fire hoses. Our team is IICRC-certified in all three areas, so you’re not coordinating between multiple contractors to get your property back to normal.
Yes. Water damage from fire hoses is almost guaranteed, and it needs immediate attention. Firefighters use thousands of gallons to knock down flames—that water soaks into flooring, drywall, insulation, and subflooring. If it sits for more than 24 to 48 hours, mold starts growing.
We bring water extraction equipment, industrial dehumidifiers, and air movers to every fire restoration job. Moisture meters tell us exactly where water migrated, including areas you wouldn’t see—inside wall cavities, under cabinets, beneath flooring. We pull that water out, dry the structure, and monitor moisture levels until they’re back to normal.
This is especially important in Hawthorn Hills, where older homes may have wood subfloors, plaster walls, and less ventilation than newer construction. Those materials hold moisture longer and are more vulnerable to secondary damage. We treat fire and water damage as one job because that’s the reality of what you’re dealing with—and splitting it between contractors just slows everything down.
It depends on the extent of the damage. A small kitchen fire with localized smoke damage might take three to five days. A whole-home fire with structural damage, water extraction, and contents pack-out can take several weeks.
What slows most jobs down is waiting—waiting for insurance approval, waiting for contractors to show up, waiting for equipment to arrive. We eliminate those delays. Our crew responds in 60 to 90 minutes with everything we need to start. Documentation goes to your insurance company within 24 hours. Progress updates happen every 48 hours so you’re never guessing where things stand.
We also coordinate all the trades. If you need electrical work, plumbing, or HVAC repairs, we bring in licensed professionals and manage the schedule. You’re not juggling five different companies. One call, one team, one timeline. And when we say we’ll be done by a certain date, that’s the date we hit—not an estimate that slides every time you check in.
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