NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
Smoke damage cleanup in Norfolk
Soot, staining and smoke odor removed from Norfolk homes, apartments and storefronts — including damage from a fire in the unit next door. Crews dispatch 24 hours a day, minutes from Downtown over the Berkley and Campostella bridges.
Norfolk's housing stock changes the job. Ghent, Larchmont, Colonial Place and Park Place are full of century-old plaster, balloon framing and original woodwork, so smoke travels up wall cavities into rooms the fire never reached. Downtown and Ocean View bring shared-wall buildings where one kitchen fire affects several units. And a large share of our Norfolk calls are not fires at all — they're oil furnace puff-backs that coat a whole house in seconds.
Smoke damage we see across Norfolk
Soot in plaster and lath
Ghent, Colonial Place and Park Place homes are plaster over lath. Residue works into hairline cracks, so surface wiping alone leaves the odor behind the wall.
Oil furnace puff-back
Older Norfolk boilers and oil burners backfire and blast greasy black soot through every register at once — often with no fire damage anywhere in the house.
Shared-wall apartment smoke
Downtown and Ocean View rowhouses and multifamily buildings share attics and chases. Smoke from one unit routinely settles in three others.
Kitchen and protein soot
A thin amber film you can barely see but can smell everywhere. It must be chemically dissolved; scrubbing burnishes it into cabinet finishes and trim.
Each residue type needs its own cleaning agent. The wrong one drives soot deeper into old paint and plaster — the usual reason a smoke cleanup has to be done twice.
What our cleanup looks like
- STEP 1
Contain before we touch anything
Affected rooms are sealed, negative air with HEPA filtration goes in, and the HVAC is shut down so soot stops moving through the building.
- STEP 2
Test each surface
Chem-sponge testing on plaster, original woodwork and painted trim tells us what cleans, what gets sealed and what must be removed — in writing, before demo.
- STEP 3
Clean structure and contents
Walls, ceilings, historic millwork, cabinet interiors and framing cleaned to substrate. Contents inventoried, photographed and cleaned on site or at our facility.
- STEP 4
Deodorize, seal, rebuild
Hydroxyl or fogging treatment, duct cleaning, stain-blocking sealer, then reconstruction — plaster repair and trim matching included, so it's one contractor.
Do this before you clean anything
- Photograph every room and item before anything is moved or bagged.
- Leave the HVAC and furnace off so soot stops circulating.
- Don't wet-wipe plaster or old paint — it sets oily soot permanently.
- If you rent, notify your landlord and your renters' insurer the same day.
- In a multi-unit building, ask the property manager for the fire report number.
- Keep receipts for lodging, meals and anything you buy while displaced.
Credentials you can check
365 Restoration is a licensed and insured Virginia restoration contractor. Ask us for our license and certificate of insurance before work starts — we send them on request.
- Virginia licensed contractor
- License #2705138091 — verifiable with Virginia DPOR
- IICRC certified firm — water and fire & smoke
- IICRC certified firm #70269754 — water damage restoration (WRT) and fire & smoke restoration (FSRT), with technicians trained to IICRC S500 water, S700 fire and smoke, and S520 mold remediation standards
- EPA Lead-Safe certified firm
- National certification #NAT-F107699-1 for lead paint work and lead remediation
- EPA Lead-Safe certified firm
- National certification #NAT-F348269-1 for lead paint work and lead remediation
- Asbestos awareness certified
- Certificate #NOF178813531-47384-167569
- Bloodborne pathogens certified
- Certificate #NOF-178818052-352-167569
- GoldMorr licensed
- GoldMorr mold and mildew restoration license #20266926479
- GoldMorr Certified Master Technician — mold treatment
- Greg Starling — GoldMorr Certified Master Technician, mold treatment certificate #2026137769
- BOI Environmental ozone & hydroxyl remediation
- Certificate #BOIE-OHR0000051788
- Professional Mold Inspection Institute
- Certified mold remediator #CMR0000051782
- Xactimate certified estimating
- Scopes and estimates written in Xactimate — the platform insurance carriers use
- Fully insured
- General liability and workers' compensation — certificate of insurance on request
- Serving Hampton Roads since 1995
- 31 years restoring homes and businesses in Virginia
Related pages: smoke smell removal in Norfolk, fire damage restoration in Norfolk, indoor air quality testing, smoke damage cleanup in Chesapeake and our insurance & adjuster guide.
Free Norfolk smoke cleanup & odor removal checklist
A printable PDF with the first 24 hours, what never to do, the professional deodorization sequence and the documentation your insurer will ask for.
Nearby service areas
Our crews dispatch across Hampton Roads and Central Virginia 24/7. Pick the closest city for local response times, neighborhoods and project photos.
Working a claim? Read our insurance & adjuster guide and the IICRC S500/S520/S700 mitigation standards we document every job against.
See the full service-area mapFree Norfolk estimate
Send photos of the soot and tell us where the smoke came from — we'll call you back with next steps. For an active emergency, call (757) 403-9958 so we can dispatch now.
Insurance & claims
We handle the claim like we handle the job — in plain English
Most people have never filed a fire, water or mold claim before in Norfolk. Here is exactly how it runs, what you do, and what we do. No insurance-speak, no surprises at the end.
Preview opens the PDF right here — from there you can open it in a new tab to print or save it to Files.
We are a licensed Virginia restoration contractor (VA 2705138091), not a public adjuster. We document your loss and write the repair scope — your carrier decides coverage under your policy.
365 Restoration · 1720 Lambert Court, Unit I, Chesapeake, Virginia 23320 · Serving Norfolk and Hampton Roads since 1995.