With nearly 20,000 square feet of climate-controlled space, Steamatic of Sacramento (S.O.S.) has designed our facility to effectively clean and store contents removed from commercial or residential losses.

The showpiece of the S.O.S. cleaning warehouse is what is believed to be the first certified clean room for cleaning mold contaminated contents. Company owner Charles Cassani conceived the idea and two talented employees spent more than a year and $100,000 to turn it into reality.

Click here for a slide show of the decontamination facility.

The cleaning chamber began with a pre-fabricated clean room. After experimenting with different designs and types of equipment, Don Huson and Steve Cook created a cleaning chamber for mold contaminated contents. Designing the pressurization and air flow proved to be their main challenge. Unlike conventional clean rooms used in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry which operate on positive air flow, the chamber for cleaning mold contamination had to operate under negative pressure with laminar air flow (continuous and even flushing) to safely remove mold spores. Fully permitted by the County of Sacramento, the unique S.O.S. decontamination chamber has been operating since January 2002.

The S.O.S. facility has three adjoining warehouses. On either side of the central cleaning warehouse are two climate-controlled storage warehouses. Unprocessed contents and cleaned contents are stored in separate warehouses with environmental controls to prevent cross contamination.

After customer belongings are cleaned inside the first two rooms of the decontamination chamber, S.O.S. technicians move them to a third room for final cleaning and packaging. Positively pressurized to prevent cross contamination, this third area is also used for cleaning smoke damaged contents. It is equipped with commercial grade appliances, ultrasonic tanks, spray booths, drying ovens, and a cleaning station for decontaminating and cleaning large appliances including big screen televisions. S.O.S. also uses a separate chamber to dry water-damaged contents and to apply ozone to smoke-damaged contents for odor reduction.

In the front of the S.O.S. facility is a classroom with multi-media equipment for training purposes. In June 2004, S.O.S. hosted a week long Certified Restorer School through the Association of Specialists in Cleaning & Restoration (ASCR). The Certified Restorer designation is the highest certification offered through the National Institute of Disaster Restoration (NIDR), a division of ASCR. NIDR is the worldˆs foremost authority and resource on the restoration of residential and commercial property that has been damaged by fire, smoke and other disasters. S.O.S. also hosted ASCR mold classes in the company classroom in April 2005 and April 2006. The instructor was Dr. Michael Pinto, author of the book Fungal Contamination: A Comprehensive Guide for Remediation. S.O.S. also uses the classroom for in-service training of employees and seminars for home builders, property managers, and facility managers.