06/23/2026
The Most Expensive Mistake In Restoration
After years in disaster restoration, I’ve noticed something.
Most projects don’t go sideways because someone forgot how to dry a building, or improperly removed damaged flooring or drywall.
The biggest problems often start much earlier. A contractor (I am not a contractor by the way) thinks one thing. They see “The Problem that Must be Solved.” But an adjuster thinks another thing, “Is Money Being Well Spent?” And then, when you introduce a property manager, they have a different question, “I Worked Hard to Represent and Take Care of this Client and You Had Better Protect Me.”
The customer who has actually suffered the loss has a completely different understanding, or misunderstanding, of what is about to happen. Their life is suddenly upside down and they normally don’t have a clue of what is about to happen to them.
And everyone believes they are on the same page. Until they aren’t.
Recently, I was involved in a commercial loss where the technical work had already been started by another contractor.
Drying equipment was running, and some selective demolition had taken place. But the customer was frustrated, not because the work was wrong, but because they didn’t feel involved in “The Plan”.
In fact, they were not involved with any plan. There was no written plan at all. Workers came in daily and do what workers do, they worked and moved things and removed water damaged materials. And as the client watched their building being taken apart, they had zero input as to what was happening. Can you imagine being in that situation? Someone shows up to your house or place of work every day and just keeps tearing your building apart? Because, “It’s damaged.”
In restoration, we always feel pressure to move quickly. Speed matters to insurance companies. “Get out to the jobsite, report back quickly, estimate quickly AND don’t make one single mistake in your report.”
I personally know a heart surgeon who has less pressure, and he operates only on human hearts. Honestly, I have a friend named Al (I miss you bud) who is a heart surgeon in Arizona and he doesn’t get this kind of pressure.
At the end of my work day today (does our work day ever really end?) I received an email request from an insurance company without any phone call or “head’s up”. I read the email request, “A client you have never heard of before is not expecting your phone call. Out client lost power and heat for some reason to a portion of their dwelling. We don’t know why. Go find out why this happened and let us know what you think might have happened. Chop chop!”
Ok, I added in the last part, but we are actually timed and graded/rated by some insurance companies on how quickly we respond and upload information.
I have to slow down in these moments, even if it affects my insurance “rating and score”. I’ve found that spending thirty minutes talking to the right people often saves days of confusion later. Who are the decision makers? What are their concerns? What does success look like to them? What operational constraints exist? What expectations have been set?
The longer I work in this industry, the more I believe that successful restoration projects are rarely won by equipment, technology, or even technical expertise alone. And we never will win by speed.
We all win by communication.
Because when adjusters, contractors, consultants, property managers, and customers share the same understanding of the objective, the technical work becomes much easier.
Move quickly when necessary, but always align first.
The most expensive mistakes in restoration are often made before the first piece of equipment is ever installed.
