Some variation of this is actually a pretty common occurrence in the damage repair business.  We often walk into a job that although they found themselves compelled to “do something”, the property owner didn’t really have the skills to successfully complete the action they took.  Unfortunately, it isn’t always the panicked homeowner that tries to do something that they don’t have the skill set to accomplish.

While we want to be “quick” in our actions to move the project along whenever we have the opportunity to do so, the second filter we want to use in taking action is to ask the ask “are we competent to do the task at hand”.

In dealing with property damage, there are a lot of things we do as a company on a regular basis. With proper training and repetition certain tasks requiring specific skill sets become routine and we become competent to carry out those tasks in a true journeyman like manner.  But one thing about dealing with property damage is that the project is not always about routine tasks.  Whether it is a restoring a damaged custom trim package or dealing with a unique piece of personal property like a sculpture with a patina smoked up in a fire or a pen and ink drawing in a damaged condition as a result of excess humidity, we are constantly presented with unusual scenarios that no one person or one company could be competent to handle in-house.

At the entry level, our newest member to the team needs to be able to give an a honest appraisal of the skills that they bring with them to the job.  Even the demolition of damaged drywall requires a certain level of skill to complete efficiently without affecting the next trade on the job.  From day one, we tell our staff that if they are put onto a project to complete a task and they do not feel they are 100% competent to complete that task, they should stop and make sure that they get the training or the supervision they need before they move ahead.

By the same token, when our most experienced supervisor runs a cross a situation that requires a skill set that they haven’t mastered, we need to be able to turn to our network of experts across the country for advice or hands-on expertise to make sure the project is as successful as it can be.

Property damage is never convenient.  There is always some level of pressure to “get it done” as quickly as possible.  It can be difficult for the egos of the new guy and the old pro to admit that they don’t  have the skills needed to address whatever set of circumstances comes up.  But at REE-Construction/First General Idaho we believe that the ability to judge our own competence is a important skill in and of itself.

The first time we talk about quick is when any call comes in.  We want to respond to the call as quickly as possible,  particularly in the case of a property damage emergency. Delay often translates into additional damage which may turn into additional time to assess the damage, additional time to come to agreement on the scope of restoration work and ultimately delay people from getting back into their homes and businesses.

With offices in the Treasure, Magic and Wood River Valleys and people working on projects in various places within that service area,  we can usually get somebody to the site of a damage emergency within an hour (or sooner) during regular business hours.  After hours and on weekends our goal is have an on-call tech on the phone in no more than 15 minutes and at the job site, equipped and ready to start work within 2 hours.

But the discussion of being “quick” is not something we limit to just damage emergencies.  In any decision that needs to be made during the emergency, mitigation, remediation, reconstruction or personal property restoration for a client, the first principle we want our staff to consider is will this action move the project along toward completion in a timely manner? .

There are typically several materially interested parties in a property damage claim.  There is a property owner and usually an insurance company. There may be one or more adjusters representing the insurer(s). The occupant may be renting the space or the insurer may be representing a third party in a liability claim situation.  Often a property manager will be representing the individual property owner or a group such as a homeowner’s association. Building officials from the city or the state are often part of the process.  We would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge mortgage company’s increasing role in process of navigating claims.  We believe that to say that there may be competing agendas working in less than complete harmony would be a fair assessment in many, if not most, cases.

The nature of the work is that the project usually begins before anyone has a chance to plan it out and details are often handled on the fly. There is an inherent challenge to keep the project moving along, without fits and starts

If we, as a restoration contractor,  take into consideration a more holistic view of the pieces of the damage equation from the phases (emergency, mitigation, remediation, reconstruction and restoration) to the interaction of the various parties, we may be able to see what is coming up around the next curve in the road and shape our actions to adjust for bumps or roadblocks that we know are likely to come up ahead.  We may not always be successful, but we believe it is incumbent upon us to make the effort to get people back into their homes and businesses in a timely manner.

If we make keeping this principle in mind a priority for everyone from field staff to project managers to administrative staff as we move through the process, we believe we increase the chances for a successful restoration project.

What if the source of the water is a sewage backup, would that change your mind?  How about if the property manager had called and owner was out of town and couldn’t be reached?  What if it was in an assisted living facility with elderly residents?

What if it looked like there was mold on the wall?  Or maybe it is an obviously high end residence with the same thick luxuriant patterned carpet thoughout both floors of the house? Or a 30 year old mobile home and the carpet is an orange shag that looks like it’s been there since the place was first set down?  Does it matter if there is insurance coverage?

Each variable requires a decision resulting in (someone’s) money being spent and/or someone’s being money saved.  Indecision may mean wet materials sustain irreparable damage  in the interim and whatever decision is made will be subject to kibbitzing by everyone that walks in on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday to assess the situation.

Like any business providing services, we spend a lot of effort learning the ins and outs of our niche, developing skills to meet whatever contingencies we might encounter and establishing systems to do what we can to provide a consistent result to people when they call.

We have binder after binder of protocols from different insurance companies describing how to  meet their reporting requirements and more binders of training materials on “how-to” deal with about any damage situation. We have dozens of certificates on the walls from seminars, certification trainings and conferences on best practices.We have books of standards documents that spell out what we shall, should, can or may do on a water or mold damage to meet the definition of a qualified restoration company.

Unfortunately, when we try to come up with a standardized “best” answer for every contingency that might arise, one variable in the scenario changes and the “best” action requires a complete change in approach to bring about that “best” result. It seem the more rigid the rules, the less likely the people that actually go out and provide services at the site of the damage are likely to try and think through the situation to problem solve the best solution.

We realized long ago that, particularly in dealing with disasters large and small,  anyone that goes into the field will regularly be faced with making decisions and taking actions at some point in time that have consequences impact the overall success of a project.  It may be a marginal decision that turns out to be relatively inconsequential or a situation might arise that requires an immediate action that colors the conduct of the entire project.  When that moment comes, we believe that if we can get the person closest to the moment to think about what we are trying to accomplish instead of just what we have “always” done in the past, we have the best chance of making the “best” decision under the circumstances.

We worked to distill what we felt were the most important decision making principles into a sort of battle cry for our employees to use in the field.

From the time a new employee comes on staff and throughout the time they are employed here, we stress that there is only one “wrong” answer if they are ever in a position where they must make a decision on the job and are later asked to explain why they took a particular action. That “wrong” answer is “I don’t know?” followed by some variation of “that’s what we’ve always done, that’s what we did last time, I didn’t think about it, etc., etc. “.  To reasonably expect people to produce positive outcomes more often than not, decision makers at every level have to be given the tools to make judgements on the fly commensurate with their responsibilities.  We think we have distilled that decision making process down to four one-word principles that, if put into the decision making process, make good  outcomes much more likely.

Those four principles are our company battle cry.  Over the next four blog postings, we’ll share those four and ask you to comment whether you agree.

After 11 years of service to REE-Construction, Kanush retired to a small farming community in Illinois late last year and from all reports, is enjoying his relaxation from the fast paced lifestyle of water and fire damage restoration.

Shiner became water dog in training about three years ago when Kunush first began contemplating retirement. At first we were concerned that she might be a little too “laid back” to fill the shoes of Kunush, but she has taken her responsibilities seriously and verifies that Pixie (our mail carrier) is delivering the mail and a dog treat on time pretty much every day.

She also has developed an attachment to our regular UPS man, Earl, and verifies the freshness of his dog treats as well. For some reason the UPS, Fed-Ex and other occasional truck drivers don’t solicit the same enthusiastic greeting as Earl and Pixie, but she is always polite. She greets virtually any visitor with a wag and a smile.

As we have opened offices in the Magic Valley and now the Treasure Valley, Shiner has found that her responsibilities have spread her a little thin.

Just about Christmas time last year, after much negotiation, we agreed to bring in an assistant for her and Shoots started in on a part-time basis to help out.

Shoots is four months old now, weighs just a little over fifty pounds and from the size of his paws it appears he might be a little under half-grown. He is young, but is picking up on his duties quickly. (Which are not to confused with his dooties, which we have picked up from time-to-time, but which he has fortunately quit leaving around) He has been particularly helpful with his visits to the remote offices in Boise and Jerome. He recently came on full-time.

We had initially considered production responsibilities for Shoots, but it looks like he will follow in the footsteps of Kanush and Shiner and concentrate his efforts on PR. We believe he is a natural.

For information on what to do in case of water, fire, mold or other property damage situation in your home or business, please call.   If you come to our offices, it is considered polite to bring a doggie treat.

Robert is dedicated to making his clients happy.  We have to tell him to shut off his cell phone and take a day of once in a while (but he never listens).  If you work with Robert on a claim, there is no question that he will make sure and Put Things Right!

For more information on water, fire, mold or other property damage click here

How would you know?  Isn’t it just a matter of sucking up some water and blowing air around until everything looks dry or three days, whichever comes first? It’s really not that simple.

The fact is there is a published standard describing procedures to follow after a water damage from a “clean” , “grey” or black” water intrusion in a building. There is also a similar published standard for dealing with a mold contamination in a building.  These standards are published by the IICRC (International Institute of Cleaning and Restoration Certification) and spell out what procedures shall , should, may and can be done depending on conditions at the site.

These standards guide competent and qualified restoration contractors in completing a water damage project, provide a framework of expectations for insurance companies and put shoes on the feet of the children of more than a few attorneys around the country when somebody thinks the restorer or insurer didn’t put things right.

The first water damage standard was written in the early 90′s and was 75 pages from front to back.  Basically, a group of  restorers and equipment manufacturers got together, wrote down and published what they thought should be done to address a water damage.  Many thought it was biased in a number of ways and it was less than universally accepted.

The third addition of that initial effort was published in 2006 and is 357 pages of standards and guidelines. It was the first edition to gain ANSI (American National Standards Institute approval.)  I have been a member of a group called the “consensus body”, updating the next edition standard for a scheduled late 2013 publishing.  We have been working on this rewrite for almost four and a half years and are almost ready to release it for peer review by the industry as a whole. After several months of comments (and written responses addressing each one of those comments) it will be published and will define the current “standard of care”. Immediately afterward a new consensus body will form and start rewriting for the next edition.

Who’d-a-thunk-it over a little water damage?

Brad Mantz is our senior estimator and project manager for water damage, fire damage and other projects in our Wood River (Hailey, Ketchum, Sun Valley office)

Brad Mantz is our senior estimator in the Wood River Valley.

Thirty years ago, the state of the practice was to use techniques like thermal fogging  to lay down a layer of reodorant at the start of a fire project and finish off by trying to cover any exposed framing with a coat of oil based paint and hope no body smelled smoke when you were done.

As the 80′s faded, and into the 90′s there were a few restoration contractors that began following a practice called source removal.  This included a de-emphasis on trying to treat damage by sealing odors in or covering smoke smells with (stronger) more  pleasant smells. The newer practice involved more complete removing of the visible residues and source of the odor by emphasizing detailed cleaning and introducing techniques like abrasive blasting  using soda or dry ice to remove residue from framing and sheathing. Any sealing that was done was minimal and accomplished with clear products to avoid the appearance of covering up damage.

While this evolution in restoration was happening,  property inspections were becoming increasingly common.  Buyers and banks were becoming more particular about the history of a building, what might have happened during its life and what was done to correct it. Source removal is a quantum leap toward restoring a property to its pre-loss condition.

We know there are still some who think that painting the attic or the crawl space white is “restoration”. Some even try to “remediate” mold the same way.  We also know that when the time comes to sell a property, the real cost of the cover up may present itself in a buyer walking or an expectation of a discount in the price of a property. The question of diminution in value has been litigated in several states, with mixed outcomes.

We were talking real world scenarios of restorers starting work on a water damaged building. My comment was “we are lucky none of us have been electrocuted at some point over the years”.

A number of years ago, taking a class on safety, I had the experience to view a collection of actual home movies (edited together in  between messages on electrical safety) of people at the moment of their death from electrical shock while doing various things in their home. It was a devastatingly presentation.  Two of the examples have stuck with me because they are reminiscent of situations I have seen repeated over the years that have all of the makings of the tragedy.It is only by grace that to date I haven’t been witness to the same gruesome conclusion.

The first was a teenage boy on a bright sunny day washing his car on the concrete drive way, in his bare feet, when he reached over and turned on a shop vac.  He died instantly.  I don’t know how many times I’ve been in a home where someone in the family (particularly a child) was walking around on the wet concrete floor with the lights live and a shop vac plugged that  had been used to try and clean up the water themselves.

The second was a 30 something man standing in about a foot of water, joking with the person holding the camera about the flooded basement, who reached over and touched a cold water line from a water heater.  The line was shorted and he also died instantly, on camera, in front of his family.  I couldn’t count the number of times over the years where I have been on my back in water in a crawl space  and reached up to inspect a leak in a water line.

Don’t mean this to be a depressing posting, but remember, Safety First! Water in a house is supposed to stay in the pipes and electricity is supposed to stay in the wires.  If one gets out, you don’t want to be the thing that brings them together.  It could be the last thing you do.