On Apr 1, 6:15*am, mm wrote:
On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:21:07 -0700 (PDT), Evan



wrote:
On Mar 30, 11:24 pm, bob haller wrote:
On Mar 30, 10:32 pm, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:

"ransley" wrote in message

....

I had an apartment building fire with extensive smoke damage
affecting many apartments with smoke damage only. I have been told by
many contractors that when it is near 90f outside and humid the smoke
smell will re occur if it is not removed now.

My question is does smoke that travels through the walls come back
into the next apartments through the openings, and outlets , walls?
Do any of you have direct fire , smoke damage experiance, and have
any ideas on to how far a rebuild has to go? Are there any Fire Pro
guys out there? . The job keeps looking worse!

I dont want the insurance co to cut me short!!

I had some personal experience, but that was over 50 years ago. Yes, the
smell can come back. Cleaning technology has improved though, and they
should be able to make it undetectable.

You also need a good insurance adjuster. They get 5% of your total claim,
but can get you a lot more money that you can negotiate yourself. I know of
two examples where the insurance company offered little, but the adjuster
got lots for detail work, such as the cleaning you will need.
Restaurant fi offer $24,000 adjuster settlement $120,000
Industrial fi Ins Co offer $1.2 million adjuster settlement $3
million+

Helped gut a friends fire damaged home. Its really impossible to scrub
out the smell of smoke, tobacco smoke or urine it aalways comes back
in moist weather.

All you can do is seal it in!

In the fire damaged areas gut and clean seal EVERYTHING with bin or
kilz primer sealer. Studs, framing the works. New insulation.

Then do the drywall work etc. Prime walls with that same bin or kilz.

Sand and refinish floors use OUTDOOR POLYURETHANE, seal odors in, cant
scrub out odors.

You basicaly do the kilz bin thing thru entire building.

Insurance should pay for bring fire damaged areas up to code, GFCIs,
insulation etc, you can make out on these.

The fire restoration companies are a rip off, they charge unreal
prices for nothing.

Toss all clothe covered furnishings they arent worth the effort! The
smell will never leave, unless you get them totally reupholstered. For
most modern sofas etc its cheaper to buy new

As ransley is the LANDLORD he and his insurance coverage is only
concerned with rebuilding and restoring the structure to its legally
required condition to be used as rental property...

Tenants are responsible for insuring the contents of their units
(their furniture, clothing, small appliances, etc.) which are not
provided by the landlord...

It depends on whose fault the fire was. *I doubt it was the fault of
all the tenants or a group of them. *More likely one of them, or
lightning, or much to the disgrace of this newsgroup, possibly Mr.
ransley.



The tenant's claims to their insurers for any damages to their
property is totally separate from ransley's loss and damage
claims for the building itself...

If they have insurance but the insurance company may well go after
whoever is at fault, especially if it is the owner of the building.



~~ Evan


Nope... Landlord is NEVER responsible for damages to tenant's
contents unless some sort of intentional action took place --
i.e. arson, vandalism, etc. AND the tenant has absolute proof
that the landlord or landlord's agent is responsible... Just having
a suspicion or "feeling" that the landlord is at fault is not
enough...
Learn how civil liability works... Most nuisance claims are low
balled and closed with $10k-$20k for "personal injury" along with
a gag order for accepting the money to make things go away
and keep businesses from having their reputations damaged
by having records of many lawsuits being filed against them...

As far as finding someone for the various insurance companies
to blame and attempt to reclaim their collective losses from
(all of the tenants will not be covered by the same insurer unless
it is _THAT_ small of a town), well they can try, but that sort of
thing happens in a glacial scale of time, maybe in three to five
years will a civil case like that see the inside of a court room...

At any rate, the FIRE insurance coverage that a commercial
property owner carries is for the structure ONLY... Tenant's
furnishings are their own responsibility to insure... If some
sort of negligence is suspected there is general liability
coverage that any prudent business owner/operator would
carry to cover those types of losses... Common coverage
numbers I heard tossed out there for a property the size of
the one being discussed in this topic would be around
$2 million of coverage...

As far as "going after the owner of the building" and your
sentiments of "especially if it is this [their] fault" ROFL...
A landlord can not be omniscient, as long as malfeasence
or gross negligence can not be proven, good luck at pinning
it on any one person... Things fall apart and fail suddenly,
accidents happen, the world is random -- something installed
30 years ago before ransley every owned the building might
have been at fault, so should be be held accountable for
not stripping everything down and rebuilding when he bought
the place ? NO... That is why insurance exists...

~~ Evan