Please can someone explain to me what would be needed to do an upholstery job from a flood or fire disater. I have a man that wants to hire me in this area. I am not sure if I need special equipment or am I going in over my head. The cleaning is mostly for soot & ashes on upholstery. As for the carpet it is both soot,ashes & water damage.
Please, I'll take any input or advice.

louis

Yes, you're in over your head. Back out now with dignity and respect for his furniture and your reputation. He will respect you for it.

We used to mostly stay away from upholstery due to the details involved. Took a 2 day upholstery cleaning class and enjoyed it, so now we do more. But even now we don't take on jobs we feel we're not qualified for.

We could not give you the equivalent of a 2 day class in a 2 minute post.

Fire restoration calls for soot and odor removal, which are not the exact same as normal cleaning. Special chem's and procedures. Take a class or two so you can take on this work in the future. Especially if you're going to do fire restoration, since upholstery often needs cleaning, due to the smoke.

But don't 'buy him new furniture' by guessing how to do it.

I gotta agree with Clay.

I did this work for some 20 or 30 years. Normal cleaning detergents and tools are mostly not successful. It calls for special chemicals and equipment in a lot of cases. Ozone, fogging, injection, special handling, and VERY high insurance coverage.

I found in some cases, the insured did not want the items back, in any condition, they wanted new. So the time, energy, chemicals, etc used in the restoration was wasted.

Who pays for the time energy and chemicals used?

That runs to many pages. Some came to court. The time spent in court and for attorneys- who pays for that?

Sure, some will be easy. Some will be impossible. Some will fall in between the 2. Who will decide which is which?

My suggestion at this point is- pass.

Gary

Many a small carpet cleaning operation have gone bankrupt by thinking that the restoration business was an easy way to make money.
Education is vital before you even attempt to venture into this side of the business.
Right now there are hundreds of court cases involving cleaners and mold issues, don't know of one case yet where the cleaner has won,
Than there is the financial side of the business, you will wait many a month to get paid by insurance companies, friend of mine has an outstanding invoice for over 250,000.00 dollars on a very large claim that is now going into the 18th month past due. Can you afford to wait months to get paid for your services?

Thanks for your reply, I'll take the advise

I agree with all the guys above. I do 5-6 water damage claims a week and routinely have $50,000 and $75,000 worth of receivables. I also have around $250,000 worth of equipment and many many hours of education. Also I am considered a small operation in the drying industry.