How to choose a remediation company
What to ask when the decision is being made under pressure, and the two questions that separate a remediation firm from a cleaning company.
This decision is almost always made badly, and not because people are careless. It is made in the hours after something terrible, frequently by someone who has travelled to another state, and often on the first number that answers.
The list below is short deliberately. It is what to ask when you have five minutes and no capacity for research.
The five questions
- Are you registered or certified for this work, and can you send me evidence now? In California, is your registration on the CDPH published list?
- Is your quote remediation only, or does it include putting the room back? These are different numbers and different licences.
- Who removes the regulated waste, and under what permit?
- Will you bill my insurer directly, and have you done that with this insurer before?
- When can you start, and who is actually on site? Not the salesperson, the crew.
The two that separate remediation from cleaning
The waste question and the reconstruction question are the ones a general cleaning company cannot answer well. Regulated medical waste has a permitted disposal chain, and a company that has to think about who handles theirs is telling you something.
Reconstruction matters because the cost of the job frequently sits there rather than in the cleaning. A company that quotes remediation and stops, without telling you that flooring and drywall have to be replaced afterwards by someone else, has given you half a number.
On price, under pressure
Published ranges run $1,500 to $7,500 for most residential situations, and above $20,000 for complex cases. If a quote sits far below the bottom of that band for a serious incident, the likely explanation is a narrower scope rather than a better price.
Where insurance is involved, the more useful question than price is whether the company will bill the insurer directly and has done so before. That is worth more than a small difference in the estimate.