Top 10 missed line items on mitigation estimates

Don’t let your profits go down the drain — by including these line items on your mitigation estimates, your property restoration company can easily ‌increase their margins!

Certified Restorer, Kris Rzesnoski, provided this list of top line items to include when writing your mitigation estimates so you can stop flushing away any extra profits. Start learning and earning more!

1. Safety and site protection 😷

Restorers need to justify PPE usage and for building contaminants, protecting floors and walls is critical for unaffected areas. These items typically carry a +50% margin when applied properly, but contractors miss noting the quantities used and explaining the “why.”

2. Three-step bio-wash — pressure wash, extraction, and antimicrobial 🧼

Many contractors apply this process to the job, but it's rarely properly charged out and parts of it are sometimes confused with the extraction of the solids.

3. Evaluate, inventory, and pack 📦

Because you are using a digital system to document contents, even if it is just moving them to an unaffected area, it's critical. This charge accounts for the box, time, and materials to inventory the contents of the box.

4. Electrical components ⚡

Although this is all-encompassing such as alarms, lights, tv outlets, and switch covers, these items are normally not included in the “Water Category” and therefore a technician or estimator would have to search other categories to find these items.

5. Drapes and blinds 🪟

Doing the work on site can save your staff from having to clean blinds or get wall wear from them baffling against the walls during drying. The removal charges are worth the effort of taking drapes and blinds down and transferring them to a safer location. Don’t miss charging the $30/blind to detach and reset, or the 20 minutes to clean the blind.

6. Closet shelves 🔨

Detaching hardware, shelving units, and shelves is required on many jobs. Failure to document this simple task results in charge outs not being completed properly.

7. Appliances 🖨️

We see this on almost every estimate: cabinets sitting there without any appliances and no charges accounting for the appliance detaching. In an average kitchen, it's $125 - $150.

8. Vanities and cabinets 🪞

When you are in the middle of a water damage claim, it's imperative that you capture the revenue associated with cabinets and countertops and determine if you are detaching or tearing out. Simple tasks and time allocation, when combined with contents packing is key to getting the cabinetry to an empty state where your techs can work on them.

9. Equipment add-ons ➕

Utilize the add-ons for equipment to improve the drying and increase the rental revenues. Companies are buying more specialized equipment to maximize their return on investment. This can include things like spider boxes and the generator to get power to other parts of the structure, or attachments for air movers to increase airflow under cabinets and into voids.

10. Furnace / carpet cleaning 🔥

Companies forget the impact a water damage has to the carpets, carpet stain protection, and the finish of the carpet. If the carpet was wet, solid from the base of the carpet wick up the carpet and dry. This provides a dull lackluster look and requires a good cleaning to restore the carpet. Furnace cleaning is also often overlooked, because we forget the impact of aerosolizing the contaminants on the indoor environment. The added dust load to the filters, vents, and HVAC system should be cleaned at the end of the mitigation to prevent cross-contamination. These can add $500 $1,000 to an estimate.

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