Any time a Water Damage Restoration Company, in Santa Clarita, CA, receives a referral for a home flood, the first step upon arrival is always assessment. Pretesting helps water damage remediation experts fully understand the problem at hand and thus make the restoration process more efficient. It also reduces the claim amounts homeowners file with their insurance providers.

There are three main benefits to a thorough preliminary assessment.

1. Determine Contamination Level of Water – Before you can tackle mitigation, it’s good to know what’s in the water your team is siphoning away. The contamination level of the water informs the cleanup process. If the water contains a lot of bacteria, you know before the work even begins that disinfection will be a step of the mitigation efforts that show up on the customer’s insurance claim. A pretest can determine what category of water is flooding the home:
   • Category 1 – clean water from a pipe burst or supply line
   • Category 2 – dirty water from a bathtub overflow or appliance leak
   • Category 3 – contaminated water from storm flooding or sewage issues
2. Identify Source and Extent of Damage – Some homeowners are able to tell you exactly where the water that causes the damage is coming from. If they cannot, however, pretesting can reveal this information. Identifying the source allows you to stop the flow of water so that no further damage occurs. The assessment should also tell you the extent of the damage, which is important for compiling the estimate for the job.
3. Discover Secondary Damage – Water damage spreads pretty easily, but it’s difficult to distinguish between the original damage and the additional issues that occur after the fact. An insurance agent may need to know which items on the estimate are the result of the covered event and which ones may have occurred due to delays or neglect. A pretest provides a record of the original state of the home upon arrival

Pretesting is a vital service that every restoration franchise should offer. The information found in this assessment ensures a well-informed cleanup process.