What Is Contents Restoration, and Why Is It a Separate Job?

After a fire or a water loss, most people expect one company to turn up and deal with everything. What usually happens instead is that the work splits in two, and nobody explains the split until you are standing in the middle of it.

The building is one scope. Everything in it is another.

Structural restoration is the walls, floors, ceilings, wiring and plumbing. Contents restoration is everything that is not attached to the building: furniture, clothing, kitchenware, electronics, rugs, the boxes in the garage, the things on the shelves.

These are priced separately on a claim, they are often carried out by different companies, and they run on different timelines. The building work cannot really start until the rooms are empty, which is why the contents side usually goes first.

Why your things cannot just stay put

Two reasons. The first is practical: you cannot dry a floor, replace drywall or run equipment in a room full of furniture. The second is that damage carries on after the event. Water wicks. Smoke residue keeps working on surfaces. Something that could have been cleaned in week one is often past saving by week four.

So contents come out early, get cleaned somewhere dry and controlled, and get stored until the property is ready.

The part that matters most: the inventory

Before anything moves, it should be photographed and written down, item by item, where it stands. This is the single most important step and the one most likely to be skimped.

A proper inventory does three things. It tells your adjuster what was in the property and what condition it was in. It settles arguments months later about what was there. And it is what makes it possible to put everything back where it came from rather than dumping boxes in a hallway.

If a company wants to start loading before anything is documented, that is worth stopping.

Restored, not replaced

A settlement can replace what you had with something similar. It cannot give you back the thing itself. Cleaning is usually both the cheaper answer and the one that keeps what you actually cared about.

Not everything survives. Porous material that has been wet and growing for a long time often does not, and you want a company that tells you that at the walkthrough rather than billing you to clean it twice. What can be cleaned should be cleaned. What cannot should be written down so it lands on the claim.

Questions worth asking whoever you hire

• Do you photograph and inventory before anything moves? If the answer is vague, keep looking.
• Is it your own crew? A lot of contents work is subcontracted, which means the people who packed your things out are not the people who bring them back.
• Where is it stored? You should be able to be told the address.
• Who handles the fabric? Textiles need their own methods. A general clean treats a wool rug and a work jacket the same way, and it should not.
• What are you certified in? The IICRC is the industry's certifying body, and the certifications are specific: water, fire, mold and so on.

How we do it

CCR is a family-run contents restoration company in Vancouver, Washington, and everyone on the team lives and works here. Every job runs the same way, and textiles get their own methods.

We are IICRC certified in water, fire, color repair and mold.