PROFILE: Water Damage Company
Emergency Services Restoration, Inc.
1-800-540-5532Physical Address: Mailing Address:
4429 W. 153rd St. P.O. Box 1638 Lawndale, CA 90260 Redondo Beach, CA 90278Owner: Dan Hartwell and his wife Sendy Hartwell
Dan Hartwell's Home Address: 29851 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA
90265Employees at the office: General Manager: Jay VP: Steve Other employees in the company: Shawn (Dispatch), Niel (Dispatch), Ben (Dispatch), James (Dispatch), Ruben (QC), Jeff (QC), then they have a billing dept and a marketing dept. in the same office.
Pay structure: All water damage technicians are commission based independent contractors. The water damage techs earn a 35% to 50% commission on everything they sell and on every job they close. You can negotiate with them in any way you want since they are independent contractors and NOT employees of ESR. They will tell you that they are employees and the invoices have fixed prices but that is all UNTRUE.
The company has 30 large 15' Ford box trucks covering most major areas in California from San Francisco to San Deigo. Majority of the fleet covers the Los Angeles area.
E.S.R., Inc. generates over 1 million dollars in revenue per month. All is 100% profit since they only sell services!
E.S.R., Inc. leases their trucks to the water damage techs for $800 per month. The trucks are fully loaded with all necessary equipment. Each tech gets 40 air movers, 10 dehumidifiers, 2 air scrubbers, 5 negative air movers, a flood pump, a carpet cleaning machine, 2 sump pumps, a generator, and a very large truck mount (for sewage) with a
100-150 gallon capacity. The techs keep the trucks at their own homes since they are on call 24/7. The techs pay for gas and E.S.R., Inc. pays for all maintenance, auto insurance, etc.How does ESR get its' customer base: Simple, good old fashioned kickbacks, they call it an "advertising fee". When a plumber sees/hears that there has been a flood at a property the plumber will call E.S.R., Inc. or persuade the homeowner call ESR for help with their loss. If the water damage technician closes the sale, the plumber gets a commission from ESR. The kickback is 10% of the total sale if the job is over $2000. If the job is under $2000 the plumber gets a fixed amount, please see the pay structure below.
Sale price: Commission that plumber gets: $75-$200 $25.00 $201-$350 $75.00 $351-$500 $100.00 $501-$650 $150.00 $651-$1,999 $200.00 $2,000+ 10% $10,000+ 15% $100,000+ 20%
About 7% of the jobs get closed for under $1,500 About 80% of the jobs get closed for between $1,500 and $3,000 About 10% of the jobs get closed for $10,000+ About 3% of the jobs get closed for $100,000+
Also, as a perk to ensure that the plumbing company does business with ESR exclusively, they will help the plumbers out free of charge if the plumber ever messes up and causes a flood or any damage to the property.
Plumbing companies that refer jobs to ESR: Mike Diamond George Brazil Roto Rooter Rapid Plumbing Rescue Rooter Jack Steffen A&B Plumbing Adee Plumbing Mr. Rooter Plotki Anytime Plumbing Oscars Plumbing Priority Southland Drain Patrol Drain Rooter Reliable Plumbing Unlimited Plumbing Fisket Plumbing Culver Plumbing SOS Plumbing Red Lilly Royal Flush Palisades Plumbing Stewart Plumbing Curtis Plumbing LLoyds Plumbing Drain Enforcer Mike Yosum Pete's Family Speedy Rooter I'll Be There Plumbing Clark Plumbing
How to become a water damage technician for E.S.R., Inc. They hire people off the street and have them train with one of the independent water damage technicians until that person is ready to do the job.This usually takes anywhere from 1 to 6 months depending on how fast the trainee learns the business. The trainee earns a flat $2000 per month during his training. ESR pays the independent water damage technician the trainee's $2000 salary and the trainee is considered an employee of the independent contractor. ESR does not permit hiring of trainees aged 40 or older since they consider anyone over 40 too old for this sort of work.
Once the trainee is ready to go on his own, they will ask him to relocate to a territory that is not covered or has a lack of coverage. Then the technician becomes a independent contractor and starts leasing the truck and must get 1 million dollars of liability coverage. But the insurance will not cover anything because the technicians get "Carpet Cleaning Liability Insurance" since it is cheap any they can show it off to the customer. But if a customer ever files a claim against ESR the insurance will not cover anything since the insurance policy DOES NOT cover "Water Damage", mold, or any other damages unless they are directly related to carpet cleaning. If the homeowner trys to go after the independent contractor, the contractor will just file for bankruptcy and the homeowner will be left with the damage and completely penny less. Owner profile: Dan Hartwell lives in Malibu, drives a Ferrari to work on a daily basis he has a collection of other vehicles that he keeps at his office which include a few Mercedes cars, a limo, a custom tour bus, and a collection of other exotic and rare vehicles.
Dan Hartwell Also owns a construction company (I.R.R.) and the commercial truck leasing company (R.T.T.) which leases the trucks to the water damage techs. This is done to avoid liability and for tax purposes.
Also, Dan does not have his name associated (California State corporate filings) with any of these companies, instead he makes family members, trusted employees, and personal friends the owners of these companies, again for TAX and LIABILITY reasons.
Techs are usually unskilled and uneducated laborers. Only a handful of their techs are IICRC certified.
E.S.R., Inc. has many complaints against it with the B.B.B. and has many pending lawsuits against it. They DO NOT have a clean track record with the B.B.B. and there are still unresolved complaints dating back many years.
Quite a few insurance companies refuse to do business with E.S.R., Inc. due to their unsatisfactory past performance and questionable work ethics. ESR pushes homeowners very hard NOT to call their insurance company and not to file a claim until E.S.R., Inc. and it's technicians have completed all the work, to prevent the insurance company from removing them from the job and getting some other water damage company involved.
END OF PROFILE REPORT