If you've recently experienced a fire in your home, you're probably working with a fire restoration specialist to address the smoke and fire damage that's been left behind. While most people think about the way that smoke will damage their furniture, carpeting, and the structural elements of their homes, they don't often think about the smoke damage that can occur to their electronics. Here's a look at what you need to know about your home's electronics and the smoke damage repair they may need.
How Smoke Damage Affects Electronics
Smoke and soot damage can be devastating to the components of electronics in your home. Smoke and soot can create a film on the circuitry of your electronics, which essentially coats the components and prevents airflow. This can lead to overheating of the electronic components, ultimately causing failure.
Additionally, soot can be highly acidic. When it settles on your electronic components, it can actually cause the metal to deteriorate. This can damage the connections on circuit boards and even cause corrosion and damage to hard drive enclosures and more.
Because of the extent of the damage that smoke and soot can cause to household electronics, it's important that you seek smoke damage repair for these items as soon as possible. The sooner you remedy the issue, the better your chances of preserving your electronics.
What You Need To Know About Evaluating Your Electronics
Before you can determine if smoke damage repair is the right solution for your electronics, you need to determine if those electronics are salvageable or not. The first thing you need to do is to consider where they were when the fire happened. If there's no heat damage in that part of the house and if the electronics don't show any signs of heat exposure, they are likely to be in good enough condition that smoke damage repair could be successful.
If, however, the electronics suffered heat damage, you'll want to talk with your smoke damage repair contractors about how extensive the damage is and whether or not the device is recoverable. It's important that you don't turn any electronics on until they've been treated by a smoke damage repair specialist. Residual smoke and soot on the surfaces, as well as the magnetic charge present in smoke, can cause the device to short out or overheat if you try to turn it on before it's been cleaned.
Your smoke damage restoration and repair contractor will know how to clean the components of your electronic devices so that they will be safe to use. Talk with a contractor today for more help with electronics smoke damage restoration.