A Successful Brown County Pack Out

Commitment to Training and Applying it in the Field

Our new Fire and Biohazard Manager, Meghan, attended the Fireline Training Centers “Pack out, Contents Estimating, and Invoicing Strategies” Workshop the week of June 15^th, 2020 in a socially distanced setting in Minneapolis. Recognized by the IICRC (Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification), the workshop provided Meghan with 14 credit hours. Under the direction of our franchise owner, Mark, she would come back to Green Bay and supervise a pack out the following week of June 22, 2020.

Brown County, Wisconsin Fire Pack Out

PuroClean Property Restoration Green Bay was contracted to do a fire pack out and contents cleaning from another restoration company. Not every restoration company offers this service, and we are happy to work with other companies as a sub-contractor to offer this often-critical service. You may wonder…. what is a pack out?

What is a pack out and what does it entail?

Pack outs involve inventorying, packing, and transporting items which are salvageable and need cleaning and deodorizing to the PuroClean facility.  Items which have been damaged by water, fire, or smoke will be inventoried and disposed. There are several steps to a successful pack out. From assessing the scope of the project, handling the contents, considerations such as water removal & drying, removing smoke & soot residue, cleaning and sanitation, storage and packing back the items.

The Team & Game Plan

Meghan, supervising Carey and Elaine (both experienced in pack outs and contents cleaning) packed a water cooler, boxes and packing materials, full PPE including respirators for each of them, individual iPads with software used to track all contents, and brought a generator as the electrical was shut off due to a fire so they could run our air scrubber. A dumpster was on site upon their arrival. Objective: Determine and inventory what contents could be cleaned and what contents were considered total loss.

Process

Cleanables: When something is determined to be cleanable, a photo is taken with the iPad and added to our software, ContentsTrack by Xactware. The software lets the technicians  itemize the total loss items and the cleanable items including pictures and detailed descriptions of each item and it allows the customer to have a full concept of everything that is being replaced and everything that is going to be cleaned thus allowing them to easily work with the adjuster on getting the proper compensation. Each item is assigned a barcode and is placed with like items, room specific and carefully boxed and labeled to be brought to our shop, cleaned, and stored in a secure vault until the times comes to bring it back to the homeowner.

Total Loss Items: Once an item is considered total loss, a photo is taken with the iPad and is uploaded to our contents tracking software. Depending on the loss, a homeowner may not know exactly the scope of the damage, so our team works hand in hand with them through this process and we work closely with the adjuster. In this pack out, a record collection was a total loss, but the homeowner wanted to hang on to it for the sentimental value to go through at a different time. Items considered total loss, are then placed in the dumpster.

Status

The cleanable items have been brought back to our shop and are being cleaned by Meghan and her team. Once an item is clean, it is placed in a new box, same code and moved to a separate storage area within our facility until the times comes to bring it back to the property owner.

PuroClean Property Restoration Green Bay is a RedStar Certified Contents Restorer when it comes to contents cleaning with 14 storage vaults and 7,000 sq. feet of space of storage, a strong commitment to ongoing training, you can see we are dedicated to offering this service in Northeast Wisconsin.