The company (Superior Restoration Inc) sent a guy who came and took a look at the water stain in our living room. He did some humidity measurements and said that he would have to open the ceiling (about 6x8 feet) in the living room, and the wall (3in x 1ft) behind the toilet in the upstairs, and use some equipment (2 dehumidifiers, 2 fans, 1 negative air/hepa unit) for 4 days (counting days in an uncommon way, from saturday afternoon, to Tuesday afternoon 4 days, when it really is 3 days). He said on Saturday, when home insurance companies don't work, that everything will be paid by home insurance, so he gave us a verbal estimate of $2, 100.00. It felt really expensive from my point of view, but he said that we had to do it ASAP otherwise the insurance would not cover it. He displayed the equipment, in about 1 hour right after opening the ceiling which took about 5-10 minutes. He left, and came back on Monday, basically to check out if it was enough time to dry out. However, before he came I did some research and called a few companies. All of them were astonished about the estimate we had been given. I exlplain with all details what had been done, all the equipment it had been used (even the specific models) and they agreed on a $600.00 range. And we were gona be charged 2100!! However, this is not the worst part. Since we wanted to dispute the charges, when the guy came on Monday, we told him to write down the exact estimate. What a surprise when he said that it was going to be more expensive, and he gave us a bill of $3823.00!!

I'll show the charges made in detail:

-Service call (basically answer a call and present himself at our door): $250.00.
All the other companies we called either did that for free or charge between 45-50 dollars.
-Contents move out & reset: $110.00.
In the paper it says 1 hour minimum-per each man or $35.00 per room, but he wrote 2 hours which is not correct and 110!! Do the math...
-Mildecide (antimicrobic) treatment: $75.00
In the paper it says $0.19 per SF. Math: 0.19x8x6 = $9.12 How can you go from 9.12 to 75?
-Demolish drywall (ceiling): $235.00
It took 5-10 minutes, and the paper says $0.64 per SF. Again 0.64x8x6=30.72 How can you go from 30.72 to 235?
-Dump charge (it was basically a trash bag of ceiling): $110.00
-2 Dehumidifiers 4 days: $1200.00
This had a base rate of $150.00 per dehum. per day, but he counted from Saturday to Tuesday as 4 days... last time I checked a day was 24 hours.
-2 Airmovers (basically a fan) 4 days: 240
Man, I checked online and you can buy the same model they brought for $299.00 you can check on www.steam-brite.com (model Viking 3000 air mover). So this is as if you were to a car rental place and wanted to rent a regular chevrolet camry and they said it is $20, 000.00 to rent it for four days.
-1 Negative air/HEPA unit 4 days: $576.00
Again, the same model he brought HEPA 500 is $799.00 on jondon.com.
-Equipment set up & take down & monitoring: $150.00
What is the difference between this and the previous "contents move out..."??
-Miscellaneous labor 2 hours x 2??: $240.00
I though he had already charged us for the different labors...what is this "labor" he is trying to charge us about now?
-Then, at the bottom, one more charge: O/P: $637.00
What is O/P? I asked him about it and he didn't want to explain anything from the paper estimate...

Total charges: $3823.00!