“Remediation” is work done in a structure known to be microbially contaminated, with the purpose of eliminating the contamination or reducing it to acceptable levels.

“Restoration,” on the other hand, is work done following fire or water damage, in a structure not known to be microbially contaminated, with the purpose of returning it to pre-loss condition.

Two factors that significantly increase the cost of remediation are, 1) increased cost per hour for labor and, 2) reduced production rate. Since the great majority of remediation charges pay for labor, increasing these costs has a major impact on the total price of the job.

A third relevant factor is the higher standard of care to which remediators are held, and that this standard is often enforced by third-party testing upon completion of work.

Finally, remediation contractors and their employees are exposed to increased risks and poorly defined, but significantly increased, liability. This risk increases the cost of doing remediation work and must therefore be factored into a contractor’s pricing.

This analysis discusses only the way remediation work increases unit prices for what appear to be identical tasks. There are many tasks, such as installation and maintenance of containment and negative pressure, which are seldom required on a restoration project. These additional tasks also increase the bottom line price for remediation as compared to restoration.

Remediation is a highly labor-intensive process. To be efficient, a remediation contractor must recruit and retain employees who are more highly skilled and motivated than those routinely needed for fire and water damage restoration work, primarily because of the intensely detailed nature of remediation work.

Training entry-level employees to do remediation work is difficult and time-consuming. Such employees require a much higher level of supervision to maintain the necessary standard of quality workmanship. Such supervision adds to the cost of the job. When remediation workers are largely self-supervising, they must be paid a higher wage to retain them.

Remediation work is often unpleasant and uncomfortable, and may even be potentially dangerous due to heat-stress and the possible failure of safety measures. Worker’s comp rates for remediation workers are climbing, directly increasing the contractor’s cost of doing this type of work.

To recruit and retain employees for such unpleasant and demanding work requires that remediation workers be compensated at a significantly higher rate than those performing the less stressful and hazardous tasks typically associated with restoration work. It is conservatively estimated that recruiting and retaining qualified remediation workers will cost the employer at least 25% more than for restoration workers.

There are a number of reasons why production rates (in units per hour) drop dramatically for remediation workers as compared to restoration work.

Tasks that appear identical are often not similar at all. For example, detailed cleaning of surfaces for mold remediation must be done using specialized techniques that require the employee to move slowly to avoid disturbing and aerosolizing settled spores on surfaces. This means that the total surface area covered in an hour of actual work will be less for remediation work than when doing restoration. More importantly, detailed cleaning must often be performed in three or more “rounds” to reach a truly “dust-free environment” that is likely to pass the appropriate clearance test(s). Detailed cleaning on a remediation project is likely to represent at least 5 times as many hours of TOT (Time on Task) as seemingly identical services on a restoration project.

Remediation technicians require more training than restoration technicians. It is estimated that at least twice as many hours of training are needed before a remediation employee is fully trained and ready to begin generating revenue. These non-income-generating training hours and costs apply not only to the new employee being trained, but also to the experienced technician or supervisor providing the training. Direct training costs and associated loss of production hours must be recovered through the rates charged.

Donning and doffing the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) required on a remediation project significantly reduces TOT. Assuming it takes 10 minutes to don PPE and enter containment, and 5 minutes to doff PPE and exit containment using appropriate techniques, this creates a full hour of non-productive time over the course of an eight-hour day. That’s 15 minutes for each of the four “shifts” required by the regulations of many states, and by practical considerations elsewhere. This adds up to a minimum 12.5% decrease in production.

PPE also reduces production because the work progresses at a slower pace when it is worn. Gloves, often with both an inner and an outer pair, protective clothing, respirators and eye/face protection make all actions slow and awkward, especially those of the precise and detailed nature required for effective remediation work. This factor alone decreases the work actually completed during each hour of TOT by a minimum of 25%, often much more.

Most remediation work is performed in situations where heat stress is a highly relevant factor. Even when ambient temperature is 70°, an employee wearing full PPE is likely to be uncomfortably warm. This discomfort reduces production rate directly. Of course, the ambient temperature is often significantly higher than 70°. State and federal regulations or guidelines require or recommend a heat stress monitoring program and extended rest-breaks for employees working in elevated temperature conditions, dramatically reducing production rate. There are several PPE measures that can be used to reduce employee heat stress, but they all require considerably more donning and doffing time and thus cut productivity. Engineering controls can reduce heat levels in the work area, raising productivity, but they increase equipment costs and require labor to set up, monitor and maintain them.

The high level of documentation required for remediation projects also affects labor costs. A remediation worker capable of using the instruments appropriately and entering the data accurately must perform these tasks, in other words an expensive employee. Significant amounts of time each day are spent on documentation, which although necessary to properly evaluate the effectiveness of remediation work and limit liability for all parties concerned, is not a directly productive activity.

For these reasons, it is conservatively estimated that the production rate per hour, even for apparently identical tasks, is likely to be at least 25-50% lower for remediation work than for restoration projects.

Both decreased production rate and increased labor costs must be factored into a contractor’s pricing if he is to recover these costs.

As an example, assume that an appropriate price for a primarily labor-based unit price on a restoration project is .20/SF. For remediation work the same contractor must calculate his prices based on a conservative 50% drop in productivity and 25% increase in labor cost/hour. His .20/SF price will need to be adjusted as follows to result in the same profit margin. (.20 x 2) + 25% = .50/SF. That is a 150% increase for a seemingly identical task.

It is an unfortunate but well-known fact that inferior restoration work often “slides by” because property owners are unable to distinguish between work done correctly and work done incorrectly.

Many water-damaged structures, for example, are not thoroughly dry before drying equipment such as dehumidifiers, structural cavity drying systems and airmovers are removed from the site; excessive moisture remaining is not visible, so the customer believes that the job has been properly completed. Many fire restoration projects are accepted as completed despite not having had all smoke residue removed because contractors are able to reduce the odor given off by the remaining residues below detectable levels using a variety of “deodorization” techniques.

Neither of these examples returns the property to “pre-loss condition.” Therefore, they are unacceptable from a technical standpoint. Yet they often “slide by” because there is no expert third-party evaluation of the quality of workmanship. The only standard is that the property “look good and smell good.”

A properly designed remediation project, on the other hand, calls for a post-remediation or “clearance” investigation, including sampling, after work is believed completed. Unless a very high level of workmanship has been maintained throughout the project, it will not pass an appropriate clearance test performed by a qualified Environmental Consultant. If similarly stringent standards of workmanship, verified by a third-party expert, were applied to fire and water damage restoration, unit prices for these types of work would be much higher than they presently are.

Litigation is more likely to result from a remediation project. Worse, the limited legal precedents in this area make it impossible to exactly determine the extent or character of these risks.

Responsible contractors carry additional specialized insurance, which adds to the overhead of these projects. Such insurance is increasing in price rapidly while simultaneously becoming much more difficult to find. Significant numbers of restoration contractors have elected to avoid the remediation field because they see the return as not sufficient to justify the risk.

High-risk operations, such as remediation contracting, must operate at a higher profit margin to allow the contractor to accumulate reserves that can be used to offset the costs of likely future litigation.

A contractor cannot provide remediation services at low prices without cutting corners, which almost guarantees that the project will fail properly performed clearance tests. Some of the possible consequences of failed clearance tests include:

additional work at additional cost (regardless of who pays these costs)

additional clearance testing costs

higher costs to insurers for Additional Living Expense or Business Interruption

erosion of customer confidence in contractor and/or insurer

increased likelihood of litigation

In the long run, it is always less expensive to do remediation work right the first time. Contractors who do not charge rates adequate to compensate for their increased costs when doing remediation work are unlikely to be able to do the work right the first time.