What is the “Restoration Bottleneck”?
Many restoration projects have 2 phases: the mitigation phase and the reconstruction phase.
The mitigation phase a property damage restoration service like Constructeam comes in, performs emergency services, dries the property, performs any necessary material removal, and applies an antimicrobial or decontaminating solution.
Mitigation tends to take place very quickly. The goal is to “mitigate” the damage to prevent it from spreading. Tarp a roof to prevent rain from getting in, dry up water to prevent mold growth, and so on. You dry, you deodorize, you stabilize, and you perform any controlled removal (i.e. tear-out) of excessively affected materials like drywall or flooring.
Once mitigation is complete however, things can slow down pretty abruptly, and it sometimes causes some confusion. Here’s where the “restoration bottleneck” comes in.
During the reconstruction phase, that’s where we put everything back together. We’ll rebuild anything that was removed during mitigation, such as wet drywall or carpet, and get your home or business back to what’s known as a “pre-loss condition”.
Before reconstruction can begin however, we need to finalize a scope of work with the insurance adjuster, which can take a lot of time going back and forth.
There are things we can do to make use of that downtime, such as coordinate tradesmen, work with the homeowner to create a construction schedule that fits their needs, and get any material orders started. For example, cabinets can take weeks to be built and delivered once they are ordered.
However, it’s still often takes quite a bit of time, especially on larger reconstruction projects that can take months to complete. The key is ensuring all parties involved have set expectations of the delay that can occur in the middle of the project.
Now, if you’re the home owner or the business owner, this can be confusing, frustrating, and even scary. You have a company come in, they do a bunch of work on your house during mitigation, then all of a sudden nothing is happening – progress seems to have come to a halt.
Rest assured, this is perfectly normal!
Mitigation is simple. You come in, you clean, you dry, you deodorize, and you stabilize. If there’s a hole in the roof, you cover the hole. If there’s water on the floor, you dry it up. You do all these things based on pre-set standards and guidelines set by the IICRC.
Reconstruction can be a bit more complicated, and unfortunately it can take a little longer as well. The good news is, once it’s done, your home or business will be good as new!