If you are staring at a wet strip center, a clinic, or a warehouse off the Ship Channel, the playbook is not ‘tear the baseboards and set two fans.’
Commercial jobs have life-safety, possible after-hours work, tenant contents that are not yours, and often a separate flood policy from the building owner.
Start with who owns the water line, who owns the contents, and who can shut the building down.
Do this now
- Identify building owner, property manager, and each tenant’s insurer in writing.
- Make the site safe: power, gas, slip hazards, and any food or medical waste.
- Photograph common areas and tenant spaces separately.
- Call the commercial carrier and ask about business interruption, not just drywall.
Why crews treat it differently
A house is one family and one claim conversation. A building is access control, possibly a fire watch, and equipment that costs more than the finishes.
Restaurants and clinics have health rules. You cannot ‘sanitize and open Tuesday’ because a cousin brought a shop vac. Ask the health department path if food or patient care is involved.
High-rises downtown and Midtown may have wet elevator pits. That is a specialist, not a residential extractor with a longer hose.
Tenants and the rebuild clock
Tenants will want back in. The owner will want a certificate and a dry slab. Those clocks fight.
Put a daily log on the wall: who entered, what was extracted, what is still wet. Commercial adjusters like a log.
If you only have authority over your suite, do not authorize demo in the corridor. That is how you buy a fight with the landlord and still have wet gypsum behind your demising wall.
Written scope or it did not happen
Houston restoration threads after Harvey kept landing on the same ask: written scope, moisture readings, and who pays if the adjuster cuts the line item. Street water is contaminated. Porous materials usually leave. Do not sign an assignment of benefits on the porch so a stranger can run your claim.