The Value of SERVPRO

5/20/2019 (Permalink)

The Value of SERVPRO

Full disclosure, I have worked for multiple SERVPRO franchises for over 15 years and my family has been involved with SERVPRO for almost 25 years.  It’s easy for me to talk about the value of SERVPRO, especially to me personally.  SERVPRO has provided me and my family food on the table, a roof over our heads and many opportunities that we consider ourselves lucky to have.  I’ve gained lifelong friends and had experiences that has enriched my life.  For most of you, you may not have had the same experiences I have had.  In fact, you may not have wanted to call SERVPRO at all…. (don’t worry, we get it). That is why I wanted to share a difference experience I recently had that made me realize even more the value of SERVPRO.

A few weeks ago, we experienced a large rain storm.  I believe we had about an inch of rain fall in about an hour.  My gutters couldn’t handle it (and yes, they needed to be cleaned as well) and the basement door area was submerged in water.  Admittedly, we do get some water in a corner of the basement from time to time, but never more than a small amount.  This time the entire basement was affected, including my music studio area (carpets, equipment, soundproofing, instruments, etc. all got wet).

I began (after many choice words yelled into a pillow) by moving contents, extracting water with a shop vac and trying to get mitigate the best I could.  Now, at this point I am already appreciating the hard work our crew does every day.  I’m tired from doing all this work by myself (and to be honest, I have not done the field work in a while and not as conditioned as I once was) and my shop vac is not nearly as strong as our extractors and needs to be emptied every 2 minutes.  After about 4 hours of work, that our crew would do in less than a ½ an hour…, I had taken the necessary steps and was ready to continue drying.  So, I set up my Dehumidifier (standard basement one from hardware store) and couple of box fans throughout.  Immediately I knew this was going to cut it.  The fans were not powerful enough to lift the area rugs, let alone force air into affected walls, etc.  and the dehumidifier was not big enough to capture all of the moisture in the air and required emptying constantly.

Over the next few days I moved the fans around and repositioned area rugs, etc. to help them continue drying.  Within 36 hours my basement (and now whole house) smelled like a wet dog and water stains were now setting in with more permanence.  Eventually things dried out (about 7 days), but not before damage was done.  I ended up throwing away 4 area rugs, removing/replacing the bottom 2 feet of all soundproofing/insulation and lost about $400 worth of equipment (not necessarily because they got wet, but because they didn’t dry fast enough).  All told, it cost me about $1000 dollars in damages and about 8 hours of my time.

Because this water damage was not covered under my homeowner’s policy, I did/could not file a claim and I felt that the amount of work/damage (especially since I am experienced at the process) was also not worth hiring SERVPRO myself.  I would definitely not take make that decision should this happen again.  In the grand scheme of things, my basement water damage was relatively small in comparison to what we deal with on daily basis.  SERVPRO would have charged me approximately $500-$750 to complete the work I did and install the proper amount and type of drying equipment.  The area rugs and bottom of the soundproofing would have dried out faster (before bacteria growth and staining) and most likely could have been salvaged.  

I’ve always valued SERVPRO, but I have a new appreciation for the value of the work we do every day and I am proud to part of it!