Why the Same Crew Should Handle Mitigation and Reconstruction
The most common pattern that hurts insurance restoration clients is the hand-off problem. The mitigation contractor extracts water and runs drying equipment. Then the homeowner hires a separate general contractor for the rebuild. Three weeks of scope arguments later, the rebuild starts — except the GC's price doesn't match the mitigation scope, the carrier's adjuster has to re-evaluate, and items that should have been documented during demo are now invisible behind new drywall. That sequence turns 4-week projects into 3-month projects.
Our reconstruction is the back-end of the same job. The crew that pulled out the wet drywall in week one is the crew putting the new drywall in week three. The Xactimate scope from mitigation maps directly to the rebuild scope — no separate negotiation. Photos taken during demo (so we know what was behind every wall) inform the rebuild. Specialty trades (plaster matching, hardwood refinishing, custom millwork, tile setters) get coordinated by us, not bounced to the homeowner to find. One contract. One phone number. One walkthrough at the end.
What the rebuild typically covers
- Drywall replacement and finish — cut to the documented flood line during mitigation, replaced with matching board thickness, taped, mudded, sanded, primed.
- Flooring — hardwood (sand and refinish where dryable, full replacement when needed), LVP/LVT, ceramic and porcelain tile, carpet and pad. We coordinate with material suppliers to source matches for older installations.
- Cabinetry + trim — kitchen + bath cabinets when water reached the toe-kick line, baseboards, casing, crown. Salvageable cabinets get pulled, dried in the shop, and reinstalled where possible.
- Paint and finish — primer + two coats matching the original color when documented; whole-wall repaint when partial-wall blends won't read clean.
- Specialty coordination — plaster repair on older homes, custom millwork matching, designer paint matching for premium-finish units. Sub-trades scoped through us, not handed off.
How the timeline actually runs
Standard residential reconstruction after a Cat-1 or Cat-2 water loss runs 2–4 weeks once the dry-out clears. Cat-3 sewage cleanup adds another 1–2 weeks. Premium-finish units with material lead times (custom cabinets, imported tile or hardwood) can run 6–14 weeks for the rebuild phase, mostly waiting on materials. We give a real timeline at the start, with a written schedule that updates weekly so you always know what week of the project you're in and what's coming next.