Not Commonly Known Facts About Repairing a Home Damaged by Fire or Water.

Drywall is a fairly resilient product it can get wet and dry out without damaging the material to the point of needing to be replaced. The rule of thumb is if you can rap on it with your knuckles and it still feels solid it is dry-able. If there is smoke on it can be cleaned and then repainted. It can be patched and it can be scraped.

But there has to be a distinction between drywall (which is the 4’ x 8’ sheets) and the texture. The texture is what you see it is the product that pulls all of the drywall sheets together and makes them look like one product.

Texture very rarely can be matched, you can come close but matching it is not an option. So the contractor with the property owner has to make the decision as to what the repair will actually take to do. How do you get a hole in a wall to disappear? After all that is what you had to begin with. You didn’t have a wall where you could see it had been repaired previously. In most cases the drywall can be patched but the texture will need to be redone at least on that one wall.

The big problem with drywall is when it comes to smoke there is no way to clean the back side of the drywall, if smoke got behind it, and get rid the smoke. This problem is exasperated by the fact that you can not take it down to look behind the walls to see if smoke got behind the wall without destroying the drywall.

Particle Board

The glues in particle board are water soluble. This means that in most cases the particle board will need to be replaced especially if it became saturated. Further particle board does not work like other wood products. You can’t glue it back together it has no resiliency and is more likely to break then cut. Once it is damaged, especially by water it will need to be replaced.

Particle board is being used and has been being used in many areas for a long time. It is being used as the underlayment for vinyl floors, cabinet boxes (kitchen and bathroom), and in mobile homes the sub floor. It is in the center of some plywood’s among other things.

MDF

MDF stands for Medium Density Fiberboard, it is particle boards little brother and is used in casings, crown moldings and baseboard and doors. Even siding is made out of this product, which is probably the all time worst application for that product. It is extremely susceptible to water damage. Even high humidity can damage it and cause doors to warp and casing to buckle.

All in all this leads to one conclusion, you need someone who is professionally trained to help you evaluate what actually needs to be done to your home in order to bring it back to its original condition. No adjuster whether working for the insurance company or public adjuster has the expertise and the hands on experience of Sterling General Construction in evaluating what was damaged and what it will take to repair it or if it needs to be replaced. We are the only ones with the hands on experience.