Fire Damage Restoration in Hopkins, MN
In Hopkins, a fire rarely affects just one household. Renters live in more than 65 percent of the city’s housing units. When fire hits an apartment building, a double bungalow or a rented house, the owner, the manager and every tenant need answers the same night.
Kiser Construction handles fire damage restoration in Hopkins for owners of homes and rentals, and for the people who manage them. We board up, clean up and rebuild. We hold Minnesota license BC416441, and we’ve done this work since 2003. One company handles every step, so owners have one number to call.
This page covers what owners, managers and homeowners should know.
What fire damage restoration includes
Fire damage restoration covers everything after the fire trucks leave. That means securing the building, removing water from firefighting, cleaning smoke and soot, tearing out what burned and rebuilding.
Most of the work is usually in rooms the fire never reached. Smoke and water travel much farther than flames.
Fire in a Hopkins rental: what owners should know
Hopkins requires a rental license, renewed each year, for every unit that’s rented. That goes for big apartment buildings, and it goes for a single condo or one side of a double bungalow. The city inspects rentals at least every three years. It’s all on the city’s Renting in Hopkins page.
The hazards tenants are told to report
That page also lists hazards tenants should report to the owner right away. They include a failing structure, no running water, no power and no heat in winter. After a fire, one unit can have all four at once.
Why speed matters for owners
The sooner the building is secured, dried and repaired, the sooner units can be lived in again. Every day a unit sits empty is a day of lost rent and a tenant living somewhere else.
What we do for landlords and property managers
Rental fires have more people involved than a single-family fire. Here’s how we keep it organized.
Secure the building
We board openings and tarp the roof as soon as the fire department releases the property. See our emergency board-up and tarping service.
Document unit by unit
We take photos and write up each unit on its own. That way the owner’s adjuster and each tenant’s insurer can see what happened where.
Clean tenant belongings
If a tenant or their insurer asks, their things can be packed out and cleaned. We coordinate that through our fire damage contents cleaning partners.
One point of contact
One project manager keeps the owner, the manager and the adjuster in the loop. Owners can check the job schedule in our customer portal.
Fire damage in Hopkins houses and mixed-use buildings
Not every Hopkins fire is in an apartment building.
Older single-family homes
The city’s own housing plan describes single-family neighborhoods that range from small lots on a classic street grid to large homes on heavily wooded lots. In older houses, smoke and heat travel up open stairways and into plaster, trim and attic spaces. We check well past the fire room before we write the scope.
Shops with apartments above
Some buildings on Mainstreet mix stores and homes. For those, see our commercial restoration work.
Signs of fire damage beyond the burned room
After the fire is out, look past the obvious damage.
Soot on walls and ceilings in other rooms
A gray film or dark streaks on walls and ceilings far from the fire mean smoke moved through the building.
Water from the fire hoses
Wet ceilings, soaked carpet and water in the unit below are common after firefighting. That water has to be dried fast.
Smoke smell in units that didn’t burn
Smoke travels through halls, shared attics and ductwork. A unit can smell like smoke even when nothing in it burned.
How the work goes, step by step
Here’s the order we work in.
1. Night one
We board up, tarp the roof and pull out the water the fire hoses left.
2. Cleanup
We remove soot, treat the odor and check the heating system. Our smoke damage cleanup page explains how.
3. Tear-out and rebuild
Burned materials and things that can’t be saved come out. Then we put back framing, drywall, trim, floors and paint, with city permits.
4. Walkthrough
We go through the finished work with you. Every job carries a one-year warranty from the completion date.
What fire repair costs
Cost depends on how much burned, how far smoke and water spread, and how many units were affected. A small kitchen fire in one unit is a much smaller job than a fire that damaged a roof and three apartments.
The main factors are the rooms or units involved, the amount of tear-out, contents cleaning and the size of the rebuild.
We meet your adjuster and share our photos and scope. We don’t interpret your policy or adjust your claim. Inspections are free, and we work on 50/50 payment terms.
What to do right after a fire in a rental
Owners: Call your insurer, then call us to secure the building. Tell tenants who their contact is for the building and for getting belongings out.
Tenants: Call your renter’s insurance if you have it, and keep a list of what was in your unit.
Everyone: For general first steps, like when it’s safe to go back inside, see what to do after a fire.
Serving Hopkins
Hopkins sits between Minnetonka, St. Louis Park and Edina. We cover it along with our Minnetonka and Excelsior service area and our Golden Valley and St. Louis Park area.
We serve apartment buildings and double bungalows near downtown and Mainstreet, The Avenues north of Mainstreet, Hobby Acres, Park Valley and Interlachen Park. Each building burns differently, and we plan each job around the building in front of us.
For owners with more than one building, we can be the same contractor on every job. That means one set of photos, one kind of scope and one project manager who already knows your properties.
Our emergency line works the same way in Hopkins as it does in Elk River, and a real person answers it.
Some of these neighborhoods go back a long way. The Bellgrove and Hobby Acres associations both date to 1940, before either area was fully built out. Older framing, plaster and multiple remodels all change how smoke moves and what has to come out, so we look at how each house was built before we write the scope.
Common questions
Yes. A person answers our emergency line at (612) 518-8852 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including holidays. Board-up and tarping start as soon as the fire department releases the property.
Call your insurer, then call us to secure the building. We document each affected unit separately and give you one written scope for the building.
Often, yes. Clothing, furniture, dishes and documents can be packed out and cleaned by our contents cleaning partners when the tenant or their insurer wants it.
Yes. We work for homeowners, for people who manage rentals, and for owners of stores and offices. That includes buildings with shops below and homes above.
Both. We’re a licensed Minnesota contractor (BC416441). Board-up, cleanup, tear-out and the full rebuild come from one company.
Yes. One project manager keeps the manager, the owner and the adjuster up to date. The job schedule is in our customer portal.
Yes. Each affected unit gets its own photos and write-up, so tenants and their insurers can see the damage in that unit without sorting through the whole building.
Call us
A fire in Hopkins often touches several households at once. Kiser Construction keeps it organized, with one written scope for the building, unit-by-unit photos and one project manager from board-up to rebuild. For fire damage restoration in Hopkins, call (612) 518-8852 any time. A real person answers 24/7, including holidays. For a free assessment and a written scope, call our office at (763) 633-2010. We’ll help you get tenants back home as soon as the work allows.