Colleyville fire & water damage restoration — garage fires, attic soot, rebuild

Fire damage restoration in Colleyville

Colleyville mixes 1980s houses with custom infill, and the fire losses we see there include garage fires and kitchen fires. After either one, the fire department's job ends and the building's problems begin: open walls and roofs, soot in places nobody can see, and a house full of hose water. The Public Restoration Company handles the building side: board-up, smoke and soot cleanup, drying, and the rebuild, as part of our wider fire damage restoration work. If the house is open, call us.

The first day after a fire in Colleyville

Wait for the fire crew to clear the scene before you go back in. If the power is off, leave it off until a qualified electrician has checked it. Then secure the building: broken windows and burned openings get boarded or tarped the same day so rain and theft do not add a second loss. Photographs come before cleanup, not after. Our first-night guide lists the order.

Garage and kitchen fires: where the fire goes

A garage fire does not always stay in the garage. The attic and wall cavities above and beside it can connect to the rest of the house, so we open and check those spaces instead of treating the garage alone. A kitchen fire sends smoke through the cabinets, the ceiling and the return air. In both cases we map where the smoke and heat went and write the scope from the map, not from the room that burned.

Soot in the attic and blown insulation

Soot in an attic with blown insulation is easy to miss from below, and it is one reason odor can come back after a visible cleanup. We open what has to be opened, remove what soot has loaded, and do not paint over it in a cavity. See smoke and soot restoration.

Older panels and wiring

Older electrical panels show up in Colleyville fire losses. Wiring in the fire path can be damaged without looking burned, so treat panels and circuits near the fire as unsafe until a qualified electrician says otherwise. Where framing or wiring was charred, that is a rebuild decision, not a paint decision. Compare the fire project with floor and roof damage and read about electrical fire damage in Texas.

Firefighting water, brick and the slab edge

Hose water enters through windows, doors and open ceilings, and brick on clay can make a wet slab edge look like foundation trouble when it is still a water path. We extract, map moisture first, and dry to readings. If the readings point to something that needs engineering evaluation, the notes say so. Read about structural drying.

Fire investigation: what to leave alone

The City of Colleyville lists fire investigations, which determine a fire's cause and origin, among the services of its Fire Marshal's Office. Whether they investigate a particular fire is their decision. If the Colleyville Fire Department has looked at your fire, ask before anything in the area of origin is cleaned, moved or discarded. We will wait.

What to document before cleanup

• The attic: photographs of insulation and framing before any of it is removed.
• The garage: shelves, stored items and the vehicle area, before anything is thrown out.
• Panels, outlets and any wiring that was near the fire.
• Brick, windows and exterior openings.
• Contents you plan to discard, before they leave the property.

Who handles what in Colleyville

• Colleyville Fire Department and Fire Marshal's Office: emergency response and fire investigation.
• City of Colleyville building inspections: permits and inspections for repair work.
• Your insurer: coverage and temporary housing. Ask in writing. We do not decide coverage.
• PRC: board-up, documenting the building, soot cleanup, drying, and the rebuild scope and work.

Rebuild handoff and permits

When soot is cleaned and the structure is dry, demolition shows what the fire did, and we write the rebuild scope from that. Colleyville's residential permit schedule lists remodel and alteration permits, plus stand-alone electrical, mechanical and plumbing permits for repair or replacement work that a main building permit does not cover. Which ones apply depends on the scope, and the city confirms that. The city also runs a virtual photo-inspection program for certain jobs, including HVAC replacement and roof replacement. Start with our reconstruction page.