Common Misconceptions about Mitigation and Restoration

9/26/2019 (Permalink)

An example of carpet being saved by being lifted for drying.

There are many misconceptions regarding the mitigation and restoration of property damage.  However, our technicians are trained to see beyond the misconceptions and misinformation that often complicate a claim.  They will apply the right course of action to mitigate the damages.  If someone doesn’t act quickly enough or doesn’t take the right actions due to these misconceptions, they can end up with even more damage to deal with, that could have easily been avoided.

A professional restoration technician will prioritize mitigation over restoration ensuring damage costs do not escalate. Mitigation is extremely time-critical, as it stops further damage and reduces additional loss. It usually needs to be performed within 24 hours or less. Any delay will further complicate or devalue the mitigation effort.  Restoration, on the other hand, puts the damaged items back to a preloss condition. It is less time-critical, but still important and should be done as quickly as possible.

Here are the more common misconceptions and the truth behind them:

1. Replacing costs less than restoring/salvaging. In most cases, cleaning and salvaging the contents and structure is less expensive than replacing them.  This can vary with the circumstances.  For instance, if after a fire, smoke soot hasn’t been properly cleaned from all surfaces, replacement may be the only option.  Hundreds of dollars of cleaning can become thousands of dollars of replacement due to delayed action.  Today’s restoration professionals are able to effectively clean and remove contaminates, saving expensive replacement costs.
2. If you clean your carpets, they’ll get dirty more quickly. Techniques, equipment, and materials used in the past to clean carpets were inferior to those used by today’s professionals. In the past, inefficient carpet shampooing left a soap residue that attracted soil more rapidly than prior to cleaning. Restoration professionals now use a cleaning process that both flushes and rinses carpets, and prevents that from happening.
3. Drying a home is complete when the carpets are dry. The greatest failure in restoring water-damaged structures is to remove the drying equipment before the drying is complete.  Using the carpet or cushion to determine dryness is a poor misrepresentation of whether the structure is dry or not (and one that is not easily defended if litigation follows).  Carpet and cushions dry quicker than other structural materials and are not an accurate gauge.  The danger with ineffective drying is that it can turn a small loss from water damage into a multi-thousand dollar mold claim.  Professional restoration firms use measuring equipment (moisture meters/sensors) to determine if moisture content has been returned to normal standards.  Meters and sensors are used to document and record the data that justifies the use of the equipment and the best time to remove it.  That is extremely important to accomplish the end result – a totally dry structure.
4. A home that has been damaged by fire will always smell like smoke, so cleaning it fast is unnecessary. If you don’t clean the smoke residue immediately after a fire, the valuables in your home may suffer irreversible damage, due to the acidic nature of the smoke particles.  Prompt cleaning actions can reduce losses if this acid is removed or neutralized.  Odor removal is more complicated than turning on one machine and hoping to achieve satisfactory results.  Restoration for smoke odor has to be thorough. All contaminated areas need to be cleaned, deodorized, and sealed where applicable. It is important that all odor molecules are neutralized, either airborne or absorbed.
5. It’s cheaper to do it yourself rather than hire a restoration company. This holds true in some cases, but you must be extremely careful, since a botched repair can cost you more in the long run.

Professional restoration firms are the best assurance when it comes to mitigation and restoration.  Due to their continuous technical training, they do not repeat the erroneous theories and mistakes of the past. Using the latest equipment and techniques, they make sure that the job is done correctly and completely – the first time.  

Make sure to call SERVPRO of East Central Morris County  at 973-887-9100 so that we can make it "Like it never even happened."