Emergency Restoration for Facilities Managers

Most commercial buildings operate under a preferred or approved supplier framework. Procurement teams need ABN verification, current certificates of currency, IICRC accreditation, and evidence of national coverage before a restoration provider can be added to the panel. We understand this process because we work within it every day — across office towers, retail centres, logistics facilities, hospitals, and government buildings from Perth to Cairns.

Disaster Recovery provides a complete supplier onboarding pack on request. This includes our ABN, current public liability insurance (minimum $20 million), professional indemnity insurance, workers compensation certificates for every state and territory, and IICRC firm certification. We also supply a capability statement outlining our national contractor network (NRPG), response SLAs, service categories, and documentation standards. Everything your procurement team needs to evaluate and approve us is available in a single pack — no chasing individual documents across multiple emails.

Once approved on your panel, we assign a dedicated account manager to your building or portfolio. This person becomes your single point of contact for emergency dispatch, scope queries, progress reporting, and invoice reconciliation. They learn your building's access protocols, escalation procedures, and reporting requirements so that when an emergency occurs at 2am on a public holiday, the response is seamless — not a cold start.

Facilities managers operate under service level agreements — from building owners, tenants, managing agents, and often regulatory bodies. When a pipe bursts on the fourteenth floor at 11pm, the SLA clock starts immediately. You need a restoration contractor who can match the urgency of your obligations, not one who returns calls "during business hours."

Our standard emergency SLA guarantees contractor contact within 60 minutes of claim lodgement, with on-site attendance within the hour — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. This applies Australia-wide, including after hours, weekends, and public holidays. There is no additional surcharge for after-hours emergency dispatch. The 60-minute SLA is not aspirational; it is contractual. Our NRPG contractor network has IICRC-certified technicians rostered around the clock in every major metro area and most regional centres.

For portfolio and enterprise clients, we offer escalation procedures tailored to your internal hierarchy. If the attending contractor identifies a large-scale event — multiple floors affected, structural risk, or hazardous materials — the escalation triggers automatically. Your account manager is notified, a senior project coordinator is assigned, and additional resources are mobilised before you need to make a second call. We also provide monthly SLA compliance reporting so you can demonstrate to building owners and tenants that your emergency response protocols are being met consistently.

Commercial buildings have compliance requirements that residential properties do not. Before a restoration contractor sets foot on your site, you may need to sight their Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS), Job Safety Analysis (JSA), risk assessments, asbestos awareness certification, working at heights certification, and confined spaces certification — depending on the building and the nature of the work. Failing to verify these documents exposes you, the building owner, and the contractor to serious WHS liability.

Every contractor in our NRPG network holds current IICRC certification — the international standard for water damage restoration, fire and smoke restoration, mould remediation, and applied structural drying. Beyond IICRC, our contractors maintain all relevant state-based trade licences, WHS inductions, and site-specific certifications. We provide SWMS and JSA documentation for every job, tailored to the specific scope of works and your building's hazard profile. Risk assessments are completed on arrival and updated as the scope evolves.

For buildings with environmental compliance obligations — such as hospitals, laboratories, food processing facilities, and heritage-listed properties — our contractors follow the relevant environmental management protocols. This includes waste classification and disposal in accordance with state EPA requirements, containment procedures for asbestos-containing materials (where identified), and air quality monitoring during mould remediation. All compliance documentation is provided digitally and can be uploaded directly to your facilities management platform or compliance register.

A single water event in a commercial building rarely stays on one floor. A burst fire hydrant main on level 8 can cascade through ceiling cavities, riser shafts, and service penetrations to affect every floor below. A roof membrane failure during a storm can impact the top three floors and the plant room simultaneously. Restoring a multi-floor commercial building requires a fundamentally different approach to restoring a single tenancy — and that is where many general restoration companies fall short.

We assign a dedicated project coordinator for every multi-floor event. This coordinator develops a floor-by-floor restoration plan in consultation with you, the building manager, and affected tenants. The plan addresses access scheduling (particularly for tenancies that cannot tolerate downtime during business hours), equipment placement (industrial dehumidifiers, air movers, and negative air machines need power and floor space), noise management (restoration equipment runs 24/7 during the drying phase), and waste removal logistics (wet materials need to leave the building without disrupting other tenants or common areas).

Documentation for multi-floor events is structured by tenancy and common area. Each affected tenant receives their own damage assessment, scope of works, and completion report — which they need for their own insurance claim or fit-out reinstatement. Common area damage (corridors, lift lobbies, fire stairs, plant rooms, car parks) is documented separately for the building owner. This separation is critical: it ensures that each party has exactly what they need for their respective claims, and that no costs are incorrectly attributed. As the facilities manager coordinating the entire response, you receive a consolidated project report covering all floors, tenancies, and common areas in a single document.

Building emergencies do not wait for business hours. Burst pipes at midnight, fire alarm activations at 3am, storm damage during a weekend cyclone warning — these are the events that test your emergency protocols and your supplier relationships. The facilities managers who handle these events well are the ones who have a pre-established protocol with a restoration partner who genuinely operates 24/7 — not one who puts you through to a voicemail after 5pm.

Disaster Recovery operates around the clock, every day of the year. When you lodge a claim online, our system immediately matches your building with an IICRC-certified contractor from the NRPG network in your area. The contractor contacts you within 60 minutes and can be on-site within the hour. The process is identical at midday on a Monday or midnight on Christmas Eve. There is no after-hours surcharge on the emergency make-safe fee.

For buildings with concierge, security, or building management staff on site after hours, we coordinate directly with whoever is available to provide access. We can pre-register our contractor details with your building security system so that after-hours access is not delayed by identity verification or approval chains. If your building uses swipe cards, PIN codes, or key safes for contractor access, we work with your protocols — not around them. The emergency make-safe fee is $2,750, comprising a $550 platform fee and $2,200 held for the attending contractor. This covers the initial emergency response: on-site attendance, damage assessment, source isolation, water extraction or temporary weatherproofing, and insurance-compliant documentation. Full restoration is scoped and quoted separately after the emergency is stabilised. Payment plans are available through Blue Fire Finance for larger restoration projects. Read the full Emergency Make-Safe Guide →