Why Hire IICRC-Certified Fire Restoration Technicians?

7/11/2021 (Permalink)

We heard an interesting story the other day about a fire damage cleanup that we’d like to share with you (without naming any names, of course).

A fire recently swept through a lovely apartment building. While the fire itself was contained to a single unit, the smoke from the fire infiltrated hallways, common areas and apartments throughout the building.

The property manager hired what she thought was a professional fire damage restoration company. As it turned out, this company relied mostly on temporary labor, overseen by managers who spent most of their day herding cats instead of strategically approaching their restoration projects.

After the cleaning was done, the property manager was disappointed to find that the apartment still reeked of smoke. While she did not visually see any remnants of the fire, she had a bad feeling that she’d been given a raw deal. So she called SERVPRO.

During the initial walkthrough, it didn’t take our manager very long to shake his head and ask whether the cleaners had been IICRC-certified technicians or temporary workers. The property manager confirmed that they were temps, and asked how our manager knew. 

“Simple,” he said. He lifted a framed photo off of the wall - behind it was a rectangle of heavy soot. No one had bothered to tell the temps to clean behind the photos, so they hadn’t. The property was still infested with soot particles - just none that you could see without a proper investigation.

It’s so important to trust your fire damage restoration to a reputable company that employs certified technicians. With restoration, it is very easy to cut corners in ways that aren’t always immediately obvious. The consequences of that kind of poor workmanship, however, can be deadly serious.