Dirty Jobs: Top Disaster Restoration Franchise

PuroClean of Victor Heights franchise owner Charles Omajuwa says he overcame early pushback from competitors to grow his business to two territories in California.

Winner: PuroClean

Finalists: 911 Restoration, FRSTTeam

Being a full-time firefighter in New Jersey hasn’t stopped Nelson Rivera from running a lucrative PuroClean business. In fact, he believes having exposure to homes and offices damaged by fire, smoke and water, and witnessing the impact on people’s lives, provides all the incentive he needs.

“Being a firefighter, I see the devastation up close and I can understand the emotions of home and business owners. It gives me a purpose and reason to want to rebuild, improve people’s lives,” said Rivera, who acquired his first PuroClean in Morristown, New Jersey, in 2019 and now operates six locations in his home state.

The 17-year veteran of the Morristown Fire Department is also a partner with another PuroClean franchisee, a retired firefighter who operates locations in Eugene, Oregon, and Humble, Texas, outside of Houston.

Rivera is an example of someone who’s built a second career as a franchisee, thanks in large part to his wife, Sujey, who handles most of the day-to-day operations as the finance chief. The Riveras run a multi-million-dollar operation and are past Franchisee of the Year winners.

“We’re doing amazing and couldn’t be happier. I never thought we would get to six locations in five years, but here we are,” said Rivera, who estimated their business is growing at a 20 percent annual rate and exceeded $5 million in revenue in 2024 with 20 employees. “We’ve scaled up and have been able to be extremely fluid, which is why we’ve been as successful as we’ve been.”

The cost to open a PuroClean franchise within a territory of up to 100,000 people ranges from $95,530 to $245,920 with purchase of vehicle and equipment and supplies. The average unit volume was $1.07 million in 2023. Locations open less than two years averaged $551,195. Those open three to six years did an average of $885,917, while locations in business for more than seven years did $1.56 million.

The initial investment and opening is the easy part, said franchisees. The hard part, they explained, is getting through training provided by corporate and then generating customers.

Another challenge is learning to work with insurance companies, which have their own processes and requirements for filing claims. Once you get past those early hurdles and through the inevitable growing pains of being a new business, said Rivera, the payoff is well worth it.

“Making sure you’re rotating customers and keeping the business going during your dry spells is going to happen in this business, so that’s another challenge,” Rivera said. “But because of my connections with insurance adjustors being in firefighting, we’ve been able to remain busy throughout most of the year and have kept the business growing, which is great. I couldn’t be prouder of our success.”

Like Rivera, Charles Omajuwa felt he was prepared to become a PuroClean franchisee. The immigrant from Nigeria leveraged his experience at another property restoration company and in claims management for an insurance company after buying a franchise in Los Angeles in 2022.

What Omajuwa was not prepared for was taking on jobs in some of L.A.’s high crime areas or even the early pushback he received from other restoration businesses who he said fiercely guarded their territories against competition.

“We had one of our first vehicles vandalized while on a job the first year, which was very depressing, but we’ve gotten a lot smarter about the jobs we take on now and I must say I’m real happy with how it’s all going, now that we’re an established business and getting referrals,” said Omajuwa, the owner of two PuroClean territories in California.

He said another big hurdle for him was learning how to market his new business.

“The first three months I taught myself how to do Google Ads, and that took up a lot of my time. But it really was worth it because it got my business the exposure it needed and the jobs which you need to get started and pay off your bills,” he said.

Omajuwa said he has about 16 employees, including three to four temp workers he can call when the work increases. He has a devoted digital marketer and outsources his paid ad campaigns.

He estimated about 50 percent of his time is spent dealing with insurance companies to complete the paperwork for claims that climb to $50,000 or more. He also builds time into his busy schedule for resolving disputes over invoices.

An energetic entrepreneur, Omajuwa made it point to say, “I feel blessed to be living the American dream” and “honored to carry on the legacy of PuroClean.”

“The support I receive from corporate is really unbelievable,” he said. “They assigned me a director who has been like a mentor to me, who has given me advice and encouragement. I never had a mentor like that in my life and he told me from the start when things were a little rough to keep my head up and keep pushing and keep trying. He got me through the most difficult times and now I’m pleased to say my business is doing real well.”

PuroClean

Positives

• There is always going to be need for home and office emergency restoration services, even when the economy is down.
• With 475-plus units and sales growth of more than 44 percent in 2023, PuroClean holds a strong position in the property restoration space.

Use Caution

• Because a high percentage of emergency restoration jobs need to go through insurance companies, getting paid for work completed can take months.

PuroClean, has a large North American network of franchise locations providing disaster restoration services. It handles cleanup and remediation needs resulting from water, fire and mold damage, along with biohazard situations.

Source: Franchise Times