Going Up in Flames

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Hundreds of thousands of homes are damaged by house fires in the United States every year. It can take as few as 30 seconds for a small blaze to get out of control and become an all-consuming inferno. Cooking, heater equipment malfunctions, and electrical wiring issues are amongst the top three causes. Sometimes something as obscure as putting a new roof on a sunroom using a heating torch to seal the seams of the roofing membrane has been known to ignite the wooden framing of a chimney has been the cause of a house fire.

In just a matter of minutes, an ordinary, mundane day can turn into a major life event where your home is either partly or totally damaged. The fire department is summoned either by you or a neighbor, and you and your family are out in the street helplessly watching the firemen go about their business trying to extinguish the flames and save your home from being destroyed. Before you know it, they are gone, and you are days away from having a contractor contacting a company that specializes in dumpster rentals Cincinnati.

After contacting your homeowner’s insurance company, one of the first things they will do is contact a specialized restoration company to remove all of your damaged belongings from the home to either be cleaned, repaired, or disposed of. All these things must be cataloged for you to file a claim for restitution. You will be asked to select enough clothes to wear for a period of time; it will be expected to repair all the damage and get you back into your home. The cleaning of these clothes will be expedited and returned to you within days.

You will be asked by your insurance company to select a general contractor, preferably from their list of approved contractors, to come out to your home to assess the extent of the damage and what must be done to return your home to at least its previous condition before the fire.

Next, your insurance company will arrange comparable living quarters for the duration of the repair or rebuilding of your home. You will be embarking on what will be a journey lasting probably six to 12 months before your life will be returned to normal. You will be quite busy as your home is being replaced or rebuilt, picking out paint colors, new faucets and hardware, and new belongings that were destroyed.