Protecting Precious Memories From A Fire in your Downtown Chicago Homes

8/17/2022 (Permalink)

Preserving Cherished Memories

Most people do not like to think about the possibility of their home catching on fire, but, what if it did? Assuming your family and pets all get out safely, what would be the things you are most upset about losing? You may have little to nothing left that is salvageable after a fire. Even if you have a good homeowner’s policy, it cannot bring back your treasured items such as photographs, personal papers, relevant documents, children’s artwork and your computer files. While all these things would be a great loss, sentimental belongings like your family photographs are at the top of most people's lists.

A good place to start, a fire safe can prevent fire damage to your precious memories. Most residential safes in Downtown Chicago carry a two or three-hour rating, however, which means they protect the contents for just a few hours in case of a fire. An even better way of protecting your personal and legal documents and family memories is to store copies of them somewhere other than your home. Then, when you have a professional remediation company such as SERVPRO come to restore and repair your home, this is one less worry.

Scanning Your Documents
Begin scanning each item by taking a digital picture, using your home scanner, or, for high quality or fine art scanning, use a scanning service. After you have digital copies of your documents, you must determine how to store them.

Make CDs
Upload your digital image files to an online service, which lets you create shareable online photo albums or get CDs burned. Think about having CDs sent to friends and family as a backup copy. Many people enjoy storing images on the hard drive of their computer and backing the images up on a flash drive, the problem here is most people forget to back up their pictures and documents, risking their loss, even from general computer issues. If you remember to back up your computer regularly, a flash drive is an excellent way to save precious memories. However, this is only if you keep it in your possession or give it to a family member for safekeeping. In the case of a fire, the flash drive and computer are lost. Remember that after a fire, SERVPRO needs to be called right away so they can come and restore everything possible in your home, and repair any damage.

Go To The Cloud
You can upload images to Yahoo or Google, however, for the most secure storage off-site of your important photos you are better off using a backup service like Cloud. Using Cloud storage puts your images on a remote service, and the packages include backups for your computer. The services use the same technology for encryption that banks use, so your images are protected.

Protecting your family memories from fire is something important to consider. If your family does experience loss from fire, be sure to reach SERVPRO of Evergreen Park / South Chicago City immediately. We can help you to get your home back to normal as soon as possible when you call us at (773) 337-3900.