Category and class come before area
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Establish the category of the water
Clean, grey or black. It decides whether material can be dried and kept or has to be removed and disposed of, and it changes the protective equipment and the disposal route for the whole job.
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Establish the class of the loss
How much of the affected space is wet and how absorbent it is. Class is what predicts how hard the space will be to dry, which is what the equipment count is derived from.
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Map the affected area with a meter, not by eye
Moisture travels under flooring and up walls well past the visible line. Documented readings are what define the area, and they are also what an adjuster will ask to see.
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Derive equipment from the space, then multiply by days
Air movers and dehumidifiers are placed against room volume and class. The billable unit is the equipment-day, so the estimate depends on the drying time as much as on the machine count.
Equipment-days are the figure that accumulates
A loss is not priced by the piece of equipment but by each piece for each day it runs, and drying finishes when readings say it has finished rather than on a scheduled date. So the estimate states an expected number of drying days and the daily rate that applies beyond them, which turns an overrun into an agreed line instead of a conversation nobody wants to have.
What comes out and what stays
What moves a restoration number up
- Containment and negative air, which category and the presence of occupants both drive
- Antimicrobial application and the disposal route that grey or black water requires
- Contents — packing out, storing, cleaning and returning them is a job beside the structure
- Access into ceilings, cavities and under-stair spaces where the meter says water has gone
- Monitoring visits, which are labour on every day of the drying period and not only the first
Hold the price for seven days
Valid for 7 days, and shorter in practice than any other proposal this business writes. Every day of delay lets water travel further, so the scope the figure was built on is the scope that existed at inspection and nothing else. Say so plainly: this is not a negotiating position, it is the reason the number stops being true.
Common questions
- Why does the category of water matter to the price?
- Because it decides whether affected material can be dried and kept or must be removed and disposed of, and it sets the protective equipment and disposal route for the whole job. It changes the scope before any area is measured.
- What is an equipment-day?
- One piece of drying equipment running for one day. It is the unit restoration is billed in, which is why the estimate has to state both the expected drying period and the rate that applies if readings call for longer.
- Why is a restoration estimate valid for so short a time?
- Because the loss is still in progress. Water keeps migrating into materials that were dry at inspection, so a scope more than a few days old describes a building that no longer exists in that condition.