Greater Lansing

Fire & smoke damage repair

Somebody asked this company to repair fire damage in Grand Ledge in March and there was nothing on this website to send them to. This is that page: what a fire really leaves behind, why painting over smoke never holds, and exactly where this work stops and a restoration contractor's starts.

What is actually wrong

There are two different fires on this page. The first is the small one: a pan fire that took the wall behind the range, a dryer or a receptacle that scorched the drywall around it, a space heater left against a closet, a burnt-out light fitting with a black fan of soot above it, a garage. These are a few hundred dollars to a few thousand and almost nobody will come out for them — a restoration franchise wants an insurance job and a general contractor wants a rebuild. That gap is the main reason this page exists.

The second is the rebuild after a real fire. A fire with a claim behind it goes to a restoration contractor first, and it should: board-up, pulling out the water the fire service put in, soot removal, odor work. What is often left once all that is done is a house that is clean and empty and needs putting back — drywall, ceilings, trim, doors, floors, paint. That half is ordinary construction work and it is work this company does.

The sentence that decides whether a fire repair works is that you cannot paint over smoke. Soot is not dust. It is an oily, acidic residue, it is slightly alkaline on some fuels and aggressive on finishes, and it keeps bleeding through ordinary paint for years — a wall that looked fine in May is yellow by Christmas. The surfaces that stay get cleaned down properly and then sealed with a shellac-based primer, and the surfaces that cannot be sealed get removed instead, because the smell lives inside them rather than on them.

That is the second thing worth knowing: the smell is not in the air, it is in the materials. Carpet and carpet pad, batt insulation, upholstery, particle board, ceiling texture and the inside of the ductwork are where smoke odor actually sits. Ozone, hydroxyl generators and thermal fogging have a real place in this work and they are a specialist’s equipment, but none of them is a substitute for carrying the carpet out. A house that smells of smoke after a cleaning is usually a house that still contains the thing that smells.

And the third: there is frequently more water damage than fire damage. A kitchen fire that burned one wall can leave two rooms soaked, and the two get repaired in the reverse of the order they happened — the water first, because nothing goes back over wet framing.

Where this stops

When it is not a handyman job

This is at the top of the page rather than the bottom because getting it wrong costs you a wasted visit. Insured, and no contractor license is claimed or implied — the Michigan residential builder license is not held.

This is not emergency fire restoration, and that is the most important line on the page. There is no night number, no board-up, no tarping and no extraction crew; hours are Monday to Friday. If a fire has just happened the order is the fire department, then your insurer, then a restoration contractor — and we will tell you that rather than take the booking.
No structural assessment. If the framing, the roof structure or a load-bearing wall has taken heat, that is a structural engineer’s call and a licensed builder’s work, and this company will look, say so, and stop. Charred framing that is sound gets cleaned and sealed; deciding whether it is sound is not ours to decide.
No whole-house odor remediation. Ozone and hydroxyl treatment, thermal fogging and duct cleaning are specialist equipment and get referred out by name. What is done here is removing and replacing the materials that hold the smell, and sealing the surfaces that stay — which is the part that actually settles it, but it is not the whole of it.
We are not an insurance restoration contractor, do not bill insurers and do not manage a claim. You get an itemized fixed-price quote in writing to hand to your adjuster.
Electrical work is like-for-like replacement of a burnt fitting, switch or receptacle. Establishing what caused an electrical fire, any new circuit, a heat-damaged panel and anything on the incoming service is a licensed electrician’s and is named on the quote rather than absorbed into it.
Contents are not ours. Furniture, clothing, documents, electronics and anything that needs cleaning rather than building goes to a contents restoration specialist.
A house that has been through a significant fire may need a permit and a licensed residential builder for the rebuild. Where that is the case you will be told before a quote is written, not after it is signed — this company holds no residential builder license, and that is said here rather than left to be discovered.
In a house built before about the mid-eighties, fire-damaged plaster, old texture and old floor tile get sampled before they are disturbed. The popcorn ceiling page explains what that involves and why it is done first.

The work itself

What actually gets done

Scorched and smoke-stained drywall and ceiling sections cut back to sound board, replaced, taped and finished in three coats, with the texture matched where there is one.

Soot cleaned off hard surfaces before anything is coated — dry first, because a wet cloth on soot drives it into the surface and sets it.

A shellac-based stain and odor-blocking primer on the surfaces that stay. Not a wall paint, and not an extra coat of the same thing.

Burnt and heat-warped trim, casing, baseboard, interior doors and door bottoms replaced.

Scorched cabinet doors and boxes, countertop sections, and the wall and surround behind a range.

Carpet, pad and heat-damaged or wet insulation taken out, because they are what holds the smell.

Burnt light fittings, switches and receptacles replaced like-for-like — and anything past like-for-like named as a licensed electrician’s line rather than absorbed.

The water half, where the fire service left one: ceilings, soaked insulation and subfloor, which is the water damage page applied to a fire.

Repaint, and almost always a whole room rather than a patch, for the same reason every other page here says so.

An itemized fixed price in writing, line by line, that you can hand to an adjuster.

This work sits inside General Repairs, which carries the invoiced price bands for the trade with the sample size printed beside every figure.

What it costs

There is no price list for this, and here is what actually decides the number.

The same three words describe a twenty-minute job and a two-day one. Rather than publish a figure that is wrong for one of them, here is what moves it — so you can work out roughly which end of it you are at before anybody comes out.

How far the smoke went, which is nearly always further than the fire and is the figure that decides the job. One burnt wall and four smoke-stained rooms is a four-room job.

What burned. A fast flaming fire leaves dry, powdery soot that cleans comparatively well; a slow smoldering fire, or anything involving plastics or cooking oil, leaves a greasy film that is the hardest thing on this list to get out of a surface and out of a smell.

Whether there is firefighting water in it as well, and how long that sat.

How much porous material is in the room. A tiled kitchen and a carpeted bedroom with upholstered furniture are different problems at the same square footage.

Whether the structure has already been looked at and the odor work already done, or whether we are the first trade through the door.

Ceiling or wall, height and access, and whether the room can be emptied.

How much of it is replacement and how much is cleaning and sealing, which is only properly answerable once somebody has stood in the room.

How to get a real number

Somebody comes out, looks at it properly, and you get a fixed price in writing with the work set out line by line and the exclusions written down as plainly as the inclusions. Coming out to do that is not charged for, and neither is working out what is wrong. If something is found once a wall or a floor is open, it is priced as a written change order and you decide before the work carries on rather than after it is billed. Materials are supplied at cost with the receipt attached, first-time customers get 10% off labor, and labor carries a one-year craftsmanship warranty.

If this is happening right now

What to do in the next five minutes, and what happens when you ring.

Before anybody arrives

Photograph everything before anybody cleans or throws anything out, including the ceilings and the rooms the fire never reached. Smoke evidence is the first thing to disappear and the thing an adjuster asks about last.
Ventilate the house, but do not run the furnace or the central air. Running the system after a fire pulls soot into every duct and turns a one-room job into a whole-house one. This is the single most expensive mistake available in the first hour.
Do not wipe soot with a wet cloth or a household spray. Wet smears it in and sets it, and a surface that could have been cleaned and sealed then has to be replaced.
Do not paint anything, and do not let anybody paint anything. Smoke comes back through paint and the only thing that gets covered up is the evidence of how far it went.
Get the porous things out of the house now — carpet, pad, curtains, bedding, upholstered furniture. Air will not clear a room that still contains what is producing the smell.
Change the furnace filter, and then change it again a week later.
Do not throw out anything you want paid for until it has been photographed and written on a list.

Call the business line

(517) 505-7135

Answered Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 18:00. There is no out-of-hours line and this page is not going to invent one — outside those hours, leave a message with the address and what is happening, and it is picked up in the morning.

On the call you get asked what is happening, what else in the building is affected, and whether it is still getting worse. That is how it gets decided whether this is our job at all — and if it is not, you get told that on the phone rather than after somebody has driven out.

No trip charge
No call-out fee or minimum
No diagnostic fee
No charge for a return visit

True across all 84 written quotes this company has issued. Most contractors in this market charge to turn up.

Or send the details

When the right answer is not this company

You can smell gas: Leave the building and call the utility from outside. Not us, and not later.
Water you cannot stop: Your main shut-off first, then a licensed plumber. Every minute of this one costs money.
Sewage backing up, or several fixtures at once: A licensed plumber with a camera. That is the shared line, not a fixture, and a cable down one sink will not touch it.
Sparking, scorching or a burning smell at an outlet or a panel: Breaker off, and a licensed electrician. Electrical work here is repair and like-for-like replacement, and this is neither.
No heat, or heating and cooling equipment that has failed: A licensed mechanical contractor. That trade is not offered here at all, and knowing that in one phone call is worth more than a visit.

Questions people actually ask

Can you just paint over smoke damage?

No, and anybody who says yes is selling you a repeat of the job. Soot is an oily, acidic residue rather than dust, and it bleeds through ordinary wall paint within months — a wall that looks clean in spring is yellow by the end of the year, and the smell comes with it. The surfaces that stay are cleaned down dry first, then sealed with a shellac-based primer, and only then painted. Surfaces that cannot be sealed, which is most porous things, are removed instead.

My fire was small. Will you actually come out?

Yes, and it is most of why this page exists. A scorched wall behind a range, a burnt receptacle, a soot fan above a failed light fitting, a space heater against a closet, a garage — these fall between a restoration franchise that wants an insurance job and a contractor that wants a rebuild, so people ring six numbers and get nowhere. Send a photograph; somebody comes and looks, and you get a fixed price in writing.

How do you get the smoke smell out?

Mostly by carrying it out of the house. Smoke odor lives in porous material — carpet and pad, batt insulation, upholstery, particle board, ceiling texture and the inside of the ductwork — so the work is removing what holds it, cleaning what is hard and washable, and sealing what stays with a shellac-based primer. Ozone, hydroxyl generators, fogging and duct cleaning all have a real place and all of them are specialist equipment we refer out. What none of them does is replace taking the carpet up.

Do you do emergency fire restoration?

No. There is no night number here, no board-up, no tarping and no water extraction crew, and the hours are Monday to Friday. Immediately after a fire the order is the fire department, then your insurer, then a restoration contractor who is set up for that first week. What this company does is the repair and the rebuild — the small fire that nobody else will come out for, and the putting-back once the mitigation work is finished.

Is there water damage as well as fire damage?

Usually, and it is often the bigger half. A kitchen fire that burned one wall can leave two rooms soaked by the time the fire service has finished, and water goes where fire does not. They get repaired in the opposite order to the way they happened — the water first, because nothing goes back over wet framing or wet insulation, and a moisture reading decides when that is rather than a hand on the wall.

Will you work with my insurance?

Alongside it rather than through it. This company does not bill insurers and does not negotiate with adjusters, so what you get is an itemized fixed-price quote in writing with the exclusions listed, which you hand to yours. Homeowners tend to find that an easier document to get agreed than a restoration estimate, because every line on it is a specific thing somebody is going to do for a stated price.

What does fire damage repair cost?

There is no rate card, and on this job in particular a number quoted without seeing the room would be a guess. What sets it is how far the smoke went rather than how far the fire went, what burned — a greasy smoldering fire is far harder than a fast clean one — whether firefighting water is in it too, how much porous material is in the room, and whether the odor and structural work has already been done by somebody else. Send photographs, somebody comes out and looks, and you get a fixed price in writing. Coming out is free.

Do you work in Lansing, Haslett, East Lansing, Okemos and Holt?

Yes — Greater Lansing and the towns around it, which is where almost all of this company’s work is.

Book your fire damage repair

Send photographs of the damage and of the rooms the fire did not reach — the smoke usually went further than the fire, and that is what decides the job. Somebody comes out, looks properly, and you get an itemized fixed price in writing you can hand to an adjuster. Coming out is free, and there is no trip charge.

Get a Free Quote Call (517) 505-7135