Project case study

Residential Insurance Provider

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Project Overview

Project title:

Residential Insurance Provider

Project date:

2023

Project type:

Fire Damage Remediation

Summary:

To restore and remediate fire, smoke, soot and water damage caused to a private domicile

The brief

CIRTS were engaged by a national insurer to complete a scope of works for the remediation and restoration of a fire damaged building and its contents. A fire had caused structural and extensive smoke damage to the building and contents. There was also secondary damage caused by water, steam and smoke particulate that was spread through the building by the fire crews extinguishing the fire.

The challenges

Forensic Investigation – A Forensic Investigator was engaged to determine the cause of the fire. This meant certain affected areas had to remain untouched for the duration of the investigation, potentially extending the timeframe needed to complete the required works.
Removal Of Damaged Fireplace – During the completion of the works and following the finalisation of the forensic investigation, the fireplace was removed by a third-party contractor and the chimney space left uncovered. This resulted in water ingress into the building structure due to rain.

The project

CIRTS attended the site along with the Insurance technical assessor and the insurance allocated building estimator. CIRTS completed risk assessments, the inspection and documentation of all safely accessible areas, completed a moisture and psychometric survey and developed an applicable protocol, scope of works and quote which was provided to the client within 72hrs.

CIRTS then contained off the area of the building that needed further forensic investigations. This made it possible for CIRTS to keep restoring the contents of the building in other areas/rooms to meet our timeframe requirements.

The restoration began with completing an inventory of all household contents marking them as restorable or non-restorable. All electrical goods and appliances were tested to make sure they were not damaged by a power surge during the fire, water/steam from fire extinguishing or smoke particulate. Once this was completed all restorable contents are cleaned with the appropriate fire cleaning chemicals and packed up and stored off site until the building restoration and rebuild had been completed.

The thermal impact of the fire was contained to the lounge room. However, the fire had also entered the roof cavity and caused the surrounding ceilings to be damaged. These ceilings had to be removed and the roof cavity, including the roof trusses were removed of all smoke particulates and then aggressively cleaned with an alkaline based cleaning product.

The next step in the process was to remove any smoke particulate throughout the building. Once this has been completed the entire building was cleaned with an alkaline based cleaning product which was then neutralised for safety protocols. The final clean of the building was to make sure all smoke particulates had been removed. During this process Air Filtration Devices with specialised filters to aid in the removal of the odour from the fire were used.

Drying equipment was installed to return the building to the required dry standard. An ozone generator was then used throughout the building, including the roof cavity, to aid in the final stages of deodorisation.

The outcome

The client was impressed with CIRTS ability to change strategy to mitigate the potential delay caused by the fire forensic investigation. CIRTS were able to meet the budget and timeframe requirements, while returning the building to the required habitable state.

The homeowner was also extremely happy with the frequency of communication and with CIRTS’ ability to answer questions they had throughout the process. They were also grateful that CIRTS were able to attend after-hours to mitigate further damage caused my water ingress from the open chimney space. This was achieved by the timely installation of drying equipment.

Before

After

Before

After