RESTORE RENOVATE BUILD

On August 11th, 2016, at about 8:30 p.m., our three year old(?) hot water heater malfunctioned and caused a flood in our basement. My disabled wife, already in bed for the night, looked up a list of restoration companies on Google and, fortunately for us, decided to call Restoration One.

As I stood in water, totally disheartened, my wife informed me by our phone intercom, that Restoration One (whose contact was Josh Perelman) was on its way to help us. At that time, I had no idea just how much help and solace they would be giving me throughout the whole process of bringing us back to normal, particularly Josh.

True to their word, two workers came out about 9:30 the same night and began immediately to vacuum up the water. At about 10:30 p.m., I was so tired that I had to go to bed, leaving these strangers in our house, working on completing the initial stage of the restoration process. They worked until about 3:30 a.m. when they left, securing our house on their way out, as promised.

Much to my surprise, the next day there were five people at our door about 9 a.m. from a Toronto-based company called Controlled Contents (ordered by Josh). After laying protective sheets over our rugs and staircase, they immediately began working on dealing with the contents of our basement, deciding what was dry, what was wet but restorable and what was damaged beyond repair. What was dry was then boxed, well-labelled and stacked carefully out of harm’s way. Then came the painstaking process of going through the remaining, soggy items piece by piece, paper by paper, and recording exactly what every item was. (Later, this would be given to us as a list so we could estimate the replacement cost of each lost item.) I cannot and would not wish to try to fathom going through this material all by myself as it took the five people two days of at least eight hours a day to do so! Also, great care was taken to protect other furniture, rugs, etc. from being damaged as items were taken out of our basement for repair and for discarding.

An anti-fungal agent was applied to the flood area to protect more and future damage from occurring. About fifteen fans and three dehumidifiers were brought in (all industrial strength) for a week or more to dry the basement concrete back to industry standards. Other workers estimated damage to walls and rugs in order to restore them to their pre-flood condition.

As all of the above work was happening, I was in touch several times with Josh who was in charge of this whole restoration project. Josh was not only efficient about all aspects of the work being done and to be done (there were many diagrams and lists given to us), but he always took the time to hear me as I asked him questions and also expressed my grief over the situation. Josh never pushed, complained nor was impatient with me, but always was ready with encouraging answers. In fact, he was so personable, we became friendly and had many times of joking and uplifting talks.

Even though the work had been moving at a good pace, Restoration One’s work force had been taxed by other previous local projects. Time went by and as October came, I was scheduled to have a vacation out west, just at the time Restoration One was able to come back to finish repairing our home. Since my wife would be in respite care and I would be away, this meant opening up our home to strangers without being home. However, our fears were allayed when we met the person in charge of the repairs and received his assurance that all would be well. When both my wife and I returned, all was well indeed! The basement had never looked so good. Even the one, small wall that had been missed being painted while we were gone, was quickly done after a brief phone call to Josh.

About this time, Controlled Contents returned the restorable items in an organized, protected fashion, delivering them directly to the spot in the basement where I asked.

As far as the insurance was concerned, Josh dealt with our insurance adjuster from the beginning. Discussing and dealing with the details of “his” part of the work were done completely by him. As can be easily imagined, this was a considerable relief for us. We only had to deal with the lost contents themselves which was made easier, again by Josh, because we had the lists with the items to be claimed.

To have a flood in one’s basement is never very pleasant. However, once Restoration One and Josh Perelman (Peril-Man?) were involved, ours was far less daunting. It was a joy to behold Josh and his team at Restoration One restore our basement and our life back to normal. We believe God blessed us in our choice of companies.

Thank you, Josh, and please, thank all of your team.