What Are the First Steps of Disaster Restoration in Santa Barbara?

Disaster has struck, and it’s affected your home. It could be water, fire, storm, or some other type of damage. You know you need disaster restoration in Santa Barbara.

When disaster initially strikes, you could find yourself in a freeze mode. There’s so much to do and you don’t know where to start. There are some first steps that you need to take while you’re calling around the disaster restoration companies to get the work done for you.

Mitigate Any Other Disasters from Happening

If it’s storm damage, there’s little you can do. We can’t control Mother Nature. However, the majority of disasters are things in the home that we can prevent from getting worse. Let’s look at water damage. Turn off the water at the mains and you’ll be able to reduce the level of damage to the home.

It’s a little harder with fire damage, but you’ll want to act as fast as you can to put the fire out. If it’s small enough and you have a fire extinguisher at home, you’ll be able to use it. You will need to call the fire department, though. Get them to put the fires out as they are trained to do so.

Remove the items that you can from the home. With flooding, you need to get items dry within 48 hours or there is a risk of mold. Get items outside to dry if you can, or make sure you have big fans and dehumidifiers to help with the drying process. This is where professionals will come into play.

Call Your Insurance Company

One of the first calls you’ll make will be to your insurance company. You need to find out what in the disaster restoration in Santa Barbara will be covered under your policy. It’s also important to find out if there is a list of approved companies to work with when getting the restoration work done.

Your insurance company will be able to take you through the steps for claims. They’ll also be able to go through co-pays and any limitations on the work that the company will pay for.

Get Professionals to Inspect the Damage

Now that you mitigated further disaster, it’s time to get the professionals in. You’ll need them to do a walk-through of the house to see where all the damage is. They can then assess that damage for disaster restoration in Santa Barbara.

They won’t just look at the surface-level damage. This work is about getting into walls and crawl spaces. They want to see just how deep that water damage has gone. They’ll look at how deep the smoke damage is, and they’ll be able to assess the type of water that flooded the home. All of this will affect the length of time it takes to restore and the cost to you and your insurance company.

Mitigation is the first step before you carry out work for disaster restoration in Santa Barbara. Once you’ve done that, you can call your insurance company and get someone in to help with the next part of the process.