Water Damage: Medical Center Offices - Missoula, MT

December 2010 Montana Disaster Kleenup responded to an after hours call from a local hospital maintenance department regarding water leaking from the ceiling plenum within a 1st floor physician’s suite.

Upon arrival it was found that the plumbing lines from the above unit were obstructed and blocked, and a local drain cleaning service company was on site and in the process of removing the clog from the affected drain line. In their attempts to clear the line, the drain cleaning company unknowingly proceeded to break an adjacent drain line in two separate locations, which in turn dispersed additional damage out across two additional physicians suits located on the main level.

The loss was immediately classified as Category 3/Black water, affecting approximately 7500 sqft of physician’s office and clinic space. As these affected units were active medical offices with large volumes of clients, it was imperative to have a quick response and an aggressive schedule to properly restore the affected units. Due to the nature of the loss, and the affect upon multiple units; effective, complete, and consistent communication was paramount and carried out upon a daily basis in an onsite meeting between the Montana Disaster Kleenup commercial loss manager, physicians suites office managers, hospital maintenance management, industrial hygienists, hospital infectious disease control, hospital strategic planning directors, and three different insurance companies and their subsequent field adjusters.

The affected areas consisted primarily of the double layer fire rated sheetrock located within the ceiling plenum above the first floor office space. Effectively mitigating this area was a major challenge due the significant amount of infrastructure (plumbing, electrical, HVAC components etc.) located directly below the affected sheetrock material. These obstacles required a substantial increase in the initial labor force due to the abbreviated timeline given for the project and the reduced production efficiency from the difficult access to the affected materials. To attack the loss Montana Disaster Kleenup set up an elaborate containment barrier system and approximately 8000cfm of HEPA/negative air filtration to prevent the spread of potential airborne contamination from demolition/mitigation activities. Upon verification of proper negative pressure, Montana Disaster Kleenup performed the demolition, cleaning, and sanitization within 7 days using a work force of IICRC trained/certified technicians.

The project was fully completed by Montana Disaster Kleenup, and restored back to its pre-loss condition within the one month allotted time frame.