NYS and NYC M/WBE Certified Contractor
A fire doesn’t just burn what you can see. In Hollis’s 1930s-era brick homes, smoke works its way into mortar joints, wall cavities, subflooring, and ductwork places that a surface cleaning will never reach. When the job is done right, there’s no lingering odor, no visible soot staining, and no hidden damage waiting to become a bigger problem six months from now.
For homeowners in Hollis, the stakes are real. Median property values in the neighborhood have crossed $1 million this is likely your most significant financial asset, and in many cases, it’s a home your family has owned for decades. Cutting corners on restoration doesn’t just affect how the house looks. It affects its structural integrity, its air quality, and its long-term value.
Because most Hollis homes predate 1978, fire restoration here also comes with a regulatory layer that a lot of companies aren’t prepared for. Asbestos surveys, lead paint protocols, and NYC Department of Buildings permits are required before structural work can begin and navigating that process correctly keeps your project moving instead of sitting in limbo. When you work with a company that already knows these requirements, you skip the delays and get back into your home faster.
We’ve been serving southeastern Queens for years, and Hollis is not new territory for us. We already work in Hollis Hills, directly across Francis Lewis Boulevard which means we know the housing stock, the neighborhood character, and the specific restoration challenges that come with this part of Queens. When you call us, we’re not figuring out your area as we go.
What sets us apart isn’t a tagline. It’s the fact that we handle everything emergency securing, smoke and soot removal, structural repairs, permits, and final restoration under one roof. You don’t have to coordinate five different contractors while you’re displaced from your home and dealing with an insurance adjuster. One call covers it.
We work directly with insurance carriers, document everything thoroughly, and keep you informed throughout the process. Hollis homeowners have enough to manage after a fire. The restoration side of it shouldn’t add to that burden.
The moment you call, we dispatch. Emergency response means we’re securing your property boarding windows, tarping the roof if needed, stabilizing any compromised structure before anything else. This step protects your home from weather exposure and prevents secondary damage from compounding while the rest of the process gets organized.
Once the property is secured, we conduct a full damage assessment. In Hollis, this means going beyond the visible burn damage. We check for smoke penetration in wall cavities and HVAC systems, assess water damage left behind by firefighting efforts, and because virtually every home in this neighborhood was built before 1978 we initiate the required asbestos and lead surveys before any demolition work begins. This isn’t optional in New York City, and a company that skips it creates serious problems for you down the line.
From there, we pull the necessary NYC Department of Buildings permits, begin structural and systems work, and run industrial-grade air scrubbers and odor elimination equipment throughout the affected areas. Smoke odor in an older masonry home doesn’t respond to basic cleaning it requires thermal fogging and hydroxyl treatment to neutralize at the source. Once structural repairs are complete and all finishes are restored, we do a final walkthrough with you before we consider the job done.
Ready to get started?
Fire damage restoration in Hollis covers more ground than most homeowners expect when they first make the call. The visible burn damage is just the starting point. What follows is smoke and soot removal from surfaces, materials, and air systems; water extraction and drying from firefighting efforts; odor elimination using equipment that goes beyond surface-level deodorizers; contents documentation and where possible, contents restoration; and full structural repair from framing through finished surfaces.
Because Hollis homes are predominantly older brick construction many of them semi-detached, sharing walls with neighboring properties fire and smoke damage here can affect more than just the unit where the fire started. We assess adjacent spaces and shared wall cavities as part of every job, not as an add-on.
For Queens homeowners specifically, the permit and compliance process is a real part of what you’re paying for. NYC DOB permits for structural, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC work don’t file themselves, and the asbestos and lead survey requirements that apply to pre-1978 buildings add a step that has to be handled correctly. We manage that entire regulatory process in-house so you’re not chasing paperwork while also trying to find temporary housing near Jamaica Avenue or figure out your insurance claim. The goal is simple: get you back into your home, fully restored, as efficiently as the job allows.
In most cases, yes standard homeowner’s insurance policies cover fire damage restoration, including structural repairs, smoke and soot cleanup, and loss of use if you’re displaced during the process. That said, what actually gets covered depends on how the damage is documented and how the claim is submitted. Insurance adjusters work from the documentation they receive, and if the scope of damage isn’t captured thoroughly, you may end up with a settlement that doesn’t fully cover what the job actually requires.
We work directly with insurance carriers on your behalf. We document all damage structural, smoke, water, and contents with the level of detail that adjusters need to process a complete claim. For Hollis homeowners dealing with older homes where the restoration scope can be broader than it first appears, this documentation step is one of the most important parts of the process. We’ve seen claims get significantly underpaid simply because the initial assessment didn’t go deep enough. We make sure that doesn’t happen.
The honest answer is that it depends on the extent of the damage and how quickly the permitting process moves. For a fire that affected one room with limited structural damage, you might be looking at two to four weeks. For a more significant fire involving multiple rooms, structural repairs, and systems work, the timeline can stretch to two to three months or longer.
In Hollis specifically, the timeline is also shaped by NYC Department of Buildings requirements. Permits for structural, electrical, and plumbing work have to be filed and approved before that work can begin and for pre-1978 homes, asbestos and lead surveys add a step that has to happen before demolition. These aren’t delays we create; they’re requirements we manage. A company that knows how to file correctly the first time moves faster through this process than one that’s learning it on your job. We know what the NYC DOB requires for Queens County residential work, and we build that into the project timeline from the start.
Smoke odor persists because smoke particles don’t just sit on surfaces they penetrate into porous materials. In Hollis’s older brick and masonry homes, that means mortar joints, original plaster walls, hardwood subfloors, and HVAC ductwork can all hold smoke long after the visible soot has been wiped away. If the ductwork isn’t treated, the smell comes back every time the heat or air conditioning runs.
Eliminating smoke odor at this level requires more than cleaning products. We use thermal fogging and hydroxyl generators, which neutralize odor molecules rather than masking them. This is the same approach used in professional fire restoration work not an air freshener, not an ozone machine left running for a day. The process takes time to do correctly, but when it’s done, the smell is gone. If you’ve had another company come through and the odor is still there, that’s typically why the treatment didn’t go deep enough for the type of construction in your home.
Yes and this is one of the most important things to understand before any restoration work begins. In New York City, permits from the NYC Department of Buildings are required for structural repairs, electrical work, plumbing, and HVAC modifications. These aren’t optional, and work done without the proper permits can create serious problems when you go to sell the home or file a future insurance claim.
For Hollis homeowners specifically, there’s an additional layer: virtually every home in the neighborhood was built before 1978, which means asbestos and lead paint surveys are legally required before any demolition work can start. This applies even to relatively minor structural repairs that involve opening walls or removing damaged materials. We handle the entire permitting and compliance process survey coordination, DOB filings, inspections as part of the restoration scope. You don’t need to become an expert in NYC building code to get your home restored correctly. That’s our job.
The most important thing is to stay out of the structure until the FDNY has cleared it as safe to enter. Even after the fire is out, structural instability, compromised electrical systems, and air quality from smoke and combustion byproducts make re-entry dangerous without clearance. Once you have that clearance, document everything you can with photos before anything is moved or cleaned this documentation matters for your insurance claim.
Don’t throw anything away, even items that look unsalvageable. Contents restoration is part of what we do, and some items that appear destroyed can be cleaned and recovered. Avoid running HVAC systems, which can spread soot and smoke particles further through the home. And call your insurance company to report the claim as soon as possible the sooner that process starts, the sooner your adjuster can be assigned. When you call us, we can be on-site quickly given our presence in southeastern Queens, and we’ll handle securing the property and beginning the formal assessment right away.
It comes down to the age of the housing stock and how people heat their homes. Most Hollis homes were built in the 1930s, and while many have had heating systems updated over the decades, older boilers, radiators, and electrical panels are still common throughout the neighborhood. When central heating struggles to keep up during a cold Queens winter, residents supplement with space heaters and space heaters are one of the leading causes of residential heating fires, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
Older electrical systems in these homes also carry more risk. Knob-and-tube wiring and early-generation panels weren’t designed for the electrical load of a modern household, and the stress of winter heating demand can push them past their limits. Chimneys and flues in homes that don’t see regular maintenance are another factor creosote buildup in an infrequently cleaned chimney is a real fire risk. None of this is unique to Hollis, but the concentration of older 1930s-era brick homes in the neighborhood means the risk profile here is different from newer construction areas in Queens. If your home has sustained fire damage this heating season, the cause is often traceable to one of these factors and understanding it matters for both the restoration scope and preventing a recurrence.
Local Resources
Useful Links
