Dry Ice Blasting Fire & Smoke Damage

Last week, we completed a dry ice blasting job along the coast of Maine. This summer we have seen an influx of dry ice blast cleaning jobs from home owners rather than industrial customers. This job involved cleaning an apartment that had recently experienced fire and soot damage. The small stove in this converted apartment had caught fire causing damage to the vaulted ceiling. For the most part, the rafters and ceiling were salvageable. It was our job to go to the site and dry ice blast clean the ceiling and rafters. In only one day we took the trip to Maine, completed the job, and came home.

Fire restoration jobs reveal how effective dry ice blasting is in cleaning wood surfaces. The black soot and char marks for the most part will be removed. This saves homeowners and insurance companies thousands on fire restoration considering the alternative option is to disassemble the structure and rebuild it with all new materials. Regardless, there are typically some parts that will need to be replaced as they will still not be up to code. However, this is for home / building inspector to decide.

Dry ice blast cleaning uses dry ice as a media to sand down the surface of the wood to be cleaned. As the dry ice hits the facade to be cleaned it begins to remove the surface finish. At the same time, the dry ice evaporates as it hits the surface to be cleaned. This reduces the amount of cleanup that is required after dry ice blasting has been completed. If we were sand blasting, we would need to clean up all the sand as well as the char and smoke particulate after cleaning. By using dry ice blasting there is far less residue that needs to be cleaned up. The picture below shows dry ice blast cleaning in action. The blasting gun is aimed at the surface to be cleaned and moved back and forth about two to four inches away in a sweeping motion. This cleans the surface and attains the desired clean that the customer requires.



At the job site we setup scaffolding so that we could reach the highest peak of the ceiling. Throughout the day we moved the scaffolding around in circles to clean all levels of the ceiling. After hours of blasting we went back over the surfaces to make sure that there were no spots that had not been cleaned. Any spots that were missed were taken care of. Below, are some before and after pictures of different sections of the ceiling. Dry ice blasting was extremely effective in cleaning the ceiling.




For more information about dry ice blast cleaning, take a look at Nitrofreeze: Dry Ice Blasting Disaster Remediation.

We have been dry ice blast cleaning since 2006 and have significant experience in fire restoration work. If you live in New England and need to clean smoke and fire damage, give us a call at 800-739-7949. We would be more than happy in assessing your fire damage cleaning needs.