Are You Planning on Drying in a Flood Ravaged Area of the Country?
There certainly has been an increase in natural disasters over the last few years. Some contractors make it their living to storm chase. They make great money doing it. There are also contractors that are eyeing a big payday, but instead get burned while doing out of state work. How can you not lose your shirt while chasing a flood?
Here are 4 tips to make sure you are successful in your endeavor:
1. Make Sure The Money Is There
Waiting for insurance company to make a payment is not in your best interest. A lot of the times insurance may not even cover a loss like this. If you are trying to get money from FEMA you may be waiting a long time as well.
For the best results collect from the home owner, if possible. Have them prepay for the work. Also, you can try and have a financing company ready for these types of situations, to help the homeowner be able to prepay for the services that need rendered.
If a customer wont pay when the house is dirty and wet, they sure wont pay when its clean and dry. This is a proven fact. Collect the money up front.
2. Figure Out Logistics
You are going to get hungry and tired. Figure out logistics. Don’t wait till you get there to try and make it all work. If it is a major event, food and hotels are probably in short supply. Not planning ahead for these things will probably have you coming home pretty upset and probably in a foul mood.
3. Staying Safe
Putting your and your other technicians safety first is a must. Going down there and starting work without the proper equipment and PPE is not a good idea. In a silty environment where you have the flooding off the river that will make the environment you need to be drying very hazardous. You cannot go into a job thinking that only gloves are going to protect you. Wear the googles, respiratory mask, suits, and gloves. Wear your full PPE. It may be hot, but you would rather be hot in that suit than sick in the hospital. Wearing the proper PPE on these jobs are a must and for your protection. Also, know going in that there may be a criminal element due to desperate times in some of these areas. Be prepared!
4. Get it Clean
Making sure you get the property completely clean is essential. There is no just throwing some drying equipment in. You have to clean up any silt that may have come in with all the flooding. That has to be completely out before you can even start to think about the drying process. Do the gutting that is necessary and scoop out the silt. Maybe you need to wipe it or even have to pressure wash it. Making sure you are leaving a structure is completely clean. Once you have completely clean you can then you can start the drying process. You are giving that customer back a clean, dry, home or building. That is the way restoration drying should be done.
Use these 4 tips from Jeremy Reets to have success when mobilizing into major flooding areas.
Jeremy Reets started in water restoration in 1990. He is known as the innovator of the TES/ETES drying systems and a discipline of drying called Directed Heat Drying™. He developed the Evaporation Potential formula for use by restorers. He opened Reets Drying Academy and flood house in 2005 to provide water damage restoration education. In 2011, Jeremy developed Reets.TV, a series of online water restoration training packages