BIP Water & Fire Damage

I had a tenant text me with an emergency on Sunday, 20-July, 2014 at 2:30am in the middle of the night. They had returned to the house after being away for 1 hour, and it was “raining” from the hallway swamp cooler vent with water all down the hallway, four adjoining bedrooms, a bathroom, and into the kitchen. My rental house has laminate floors in the hallway and three bedrooms, so it was critical to get a water remediation company there quickly. I searched using Google and Angie’s List and called four water remediation companies that advertised 24 hour service and covered Antelope Valley area. Pablo Barrera, owner of BIP Water and Fire Damage, called me back within 15 minutes, while another company called back 1 hour later, and the other two called back the next business day on Monday. Pablo requested that my tenants call him, so he could ask more questions about the extent of water damage, so he could bring the necessary equipment. I text the tenants his contact information, and requested they call him directly to provide more details so BIP would know what equipment to bring out. However, I got no confirmation back from them, so I called BIP at 8:00am Sunday morning and Pablo said my tenants had not called him. We setup to meet at my rental house at 11:30am Sunday morning, but I was unable to get a response from the tenants, and they were not at the house when I arrived at 11:15. Pablo arrived right on schedule at 11:30, and it took 30 minutes before my tenants finally called back. They were at a seminar in Los Angeles, and had decided this was more important than calling BIP to come out and start the water damage repair process. However, they didn’t want us entering the house without them present, so we waited 75 minutes for them to arrive. BIP did an excellent job of minimizing the damage and only removing what was necessary. They carefully removed the hallway laminate flooring and baseboards, and decided not to remove the laminate into the bedrooms and pulled up the carpeting in the 4th bedroom. BIP setup a couple dehumidifiers and fans at both ends of the hallway and came back in 2 days to test for moisture in the hallway drywall, hallway wood base flooring, laminate flooring in 3 bedrooms, ceiling area around vent, and the carpet in 4th bedroom. When they returned after 2 days everything was dry, except for 3 inches of drywall right around the swamp cooler vent. The insurance adjuster from Travelers met us at the house, and seemed very pleased with the work that BIP had performed. He wrote me an equitable check to cover damages on the spot. The adjuster said many times he encounters “extra” work performed by water remediation companies that want to pad their bill with unnecessary work, e.g. remove drywall around swamp cooler vent ceiling. BIP came back a 3rd time a couple days later, and this time the vent drywall around swamp cooler tested completely dry. They packed up their equipment, and my contractor started the repairs for the laminate flooring. BIP techs were prompt, honest, courteous, and provided thorough explanations of what repair steps they were going to take. They also explained the home owner insurance process, and worked well with my insurance adjuster, which resulted in an equitable check. BIP has my highest recommendation, and I will definitely use them for any future water or fire damage at our rental properties or personal home.

Pablo's work at drying down the water damaged room was so well done we asked him to bid on the repair. His was the winning bid. Again when told of this, he said when he and his crew would be there. They arrived on time, and went right to work. The insulation and sub-flooring, sheet rock, taping and floating the tape was done the first day. The next day one man returned smoothed the tape seams, and textured not just the repaired area, but the entire ceiling at no extra cost. The third day the same worker came and primed the room in the morning, and in the afternoon put on two coats of paint, and cleaned the room so it was ready for the carpet layer. It has now been a year and a half and there are no problems. Pablo's work is excellent.

After inspecting the damaged area that evening he submitted a bid that detailed the work to be done and the cost for each aspect. When the bid was accepted Pablo let me know what time the next day he and his crew would arrive. He and his crew arrived on time, and immediately installed floor protection from front door into the water damaged room. The removal of the wet, damaged sheet rock, carpet and pad, insulation, and sub-flooring was done quickly. They installed a containment barrier to isolate the wet part of the room. All areas touched by water were sprayed with an anti-microbial. 3 fans and a large commercial dehumidifier were brought in and set to work. While the initial estimate was three days drying, he was not satisfied and left the large commercial dehumidifier for two extra days, the weekend, at no extra cost. This is now a year and half latter, and there has been no problems, his work is excellent.

They came right away to look at the water damage that we had from a broken pipe. They gave a very fair estimate; I got three estimates. Their estimate was the best. The thing that I was quite surprised at was that the estimate was regardless of any additional problems that they might find. There were additional problems and they stayed with the original bid. Jose Barrera is the owner and the person that I worked with. He did an outstanding job. We were so pleased with them that we had another problem later that month and had them come back and take care of that too.

They deal with mold remediation, water extraction, sewage water cleanup, and smoke damage cleanup, and odor control. The claims adjusted from my homeowner insurance recommended him. He had to rip out almost one whole wall of my closet and then he had to treat it. They had to put huge equipment up there and even wall it off from the rest of the house with huge plastic. They also sprayed it with something.