Profile: Integrity Restoration & Remodeling, Inc.

The Healthy House Institute (HHI) and its sister site, Healthy Facilities Institute (HFI) are publishing profiles of firms striving to help consumers restore their buildings and homes after a natural or other disaster. Integrity Restoration & Remodeling, Inc. is the first profile. We supplied the questions, the company provided the answers.

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1.     Given your company name, how important is the issue of "Integrity" in providing residential or facility services that impact health?

When dealing with microbes and conditions that are primarily invisible to the naked eye, Integrity is paramount. Our motto is: "we do what's right, even when no one is looking." Our technicians, estimators and office staff live by this motto; we never cut corners and have never cheated anyone out of a dollar. 

"Integrity" means meeting or exceeding the standards set for our industry, in this case the IICRC S500 and S520 standards. It also means admitting when something is outside your area of specialization or ability. Our company is focused on providing quality work in the commercial and residential arena. Our staff are structural professionals, so when large amounts of contents are involved, for example, we refer the work to a content specialist who shares our core values, because they have the knowledge, expertise and training to provide the same level of service in their area of expertise that we do in ours.

2.     What type of education or training do your technicians receive to help ensure their effectiveness?

Our technicians are all certified by the IICRC and use the IICRC service mark cleantrust in the areas in which they specialize. We encourage our technicians to strive for Master Status, and, based on our research, we have the highest ratio of Masters to number of staff in the Metro Atlanta area.

In addition to holding the core training of the IICRC, if we feel there is other training outside the organization, we go there too. We have one of only three Restoration Industry Association Certified Mold Professionals in Georgia, we take classes in industry related technology, we meet with manufacturers reps and have them into our meetings, and we attend conferences and conventions related to and tangential to the industry.

All that being said, training is only as good as company culture. Many companies send their technicians for training, but do not monitor the work of their employees closely. We meet twice a week and review all jobs in process. Supervisors audit files and visit jobsites regularly, and we try to send different employees to the same jobsite and encourage them to cooperatively double check each other's work. All mold projects are also subject to final inspection before the area is cleared.

3.     Which tasks or activities do you perform that are most important to your customers in protecting health?

Preserving health should be the primary goal of every restoration contractor, both that of their own employees and their customers. The first step in safety is a thorough risk assessment. If you don't understand the dangers involved, it is impossible to prevent them. In addition, we have standard responses to every type of situation. We employ engineering controls such as plastic sheeting, we place air scrubbers to filter the air, and, when appropriate, we use pressurized containment. Further, we assess the risk of chemicals on each job, and only use them when the risk of contaminants is greater than the risk of reactions to chemicals, while many of our competitors only see a high profit margin application of anti-microbials and apply them on every job. Further, we understand that trip and fall and electrical hazards are as great a danger as microbial contamination, so we make sure to tuck cords and hoses out of the way. 

4.     How is IICRC certification important in ensuring and validating technical proficiency in these matters?

Certification ensures two things for us: 1) It gives us a yardstick against which we can measure a technician's intellectual knowledge and, 2) it provides standardization of training at a relatively low cost compared to developing our own program.

For more information: Integrity Restoration & Remodeling, Inc.

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