Contents in Flooded Businesses and Homes

Contents restoration professionals serve private businesses, homeowners, municipalities, hospitals, schools, county buildings, restaurants, theaters and many more public and private establishments. Over the years they have been sought out by insurance firms to help restore the valued items from homes and offices.

Usually, restoring a company’s or individual’s valuables costs far less than replacing them – some restoration companies are estimating that as much as 90% of contents can be restored to pre-loss condition for as little as 20% of the item’s replacement cost.

And sometimes, as with irreplaceable documents, the value of the restoration process is incalculable. After a home flood, soft contents such as clothing, bedding, curtains, towels and other textiles require not only cleaning, but decontamination as well in order to remove dirt, mold, bacteria and odors — if you think COVID-19 is potentially dangerous, just think of a sewage back-up or a flood from a nearby river or even what the neighborhood streets offers.

The National Center for Health Research released a paper recently that stated, “University of Arizona researchers also found that the average desktop has 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat. That study took samples from offices across the United States, and also showed that women’s desks tended to harbor more bacteria than men’s.” http://www.center4research.org/bacteria-computer-keyboards- toilet-seats/

And that is before a flood or sewage backup!

Many business owners and homeowners are often amazed at the massive number of items that can be restored – purses, stuffed animals, photographs, figurines, paintings, antique furniture and clocks – the list seems to be endless.

Saturated couches, beds and anything with stuffing and padding takes far more time and effort to restore than a wet table or chair, but it can be done. Even with that in mind, sometimes a Contents Manager will point out that the cost of dismantling a bed mattress, removing the padding, replacing it and restoring the stitching may exceed the price of replacing it. And the manager, ever mindful of the budget, is constantly balancing the cost of one process over the worth of the item(s) being restored – every dollar saved in one section can be used to restore more valued articles in another.

Wet documents can be restored. Often the procedure includes freeze-drying the papers, but there are other practices that rely on computer scanning and reproducing the documents from the scans.

Homeowners are particularly grateful for the contents valet’ ability to restore items that have very little monetary value, but great personal worth.

For the contents specialists, everything that has been exposed to the flood is valuable no matter where they encounter it, home, office, bank, storefront, hospital – their motto is always, “Restore, not replace!”

Their goal for businesses is to “get the doors open.”

For families it is to make the house safe, dry and clean and to get the owners back home as soon as is possible.