Water Damage Restoration Service in Hawaii with Ruy Brito

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Interview Transcription

ADRIENNE: 
Welcome back. And thanks for listening to the Team Lally Real Estate show home of the guaranteed sold program. We’ll buy it I’m Adrienne and I’m Attilio. And if you have any questions, just give us a call at 7999596 or check us out online at Teamlally.com.

ATTILIO: 
Our guest today is the co founder of Eco Clean Hawaii originating from Brazil alongside his partner, Lydio Odreski. They transition from federal government jobs to establish Eco Clean Hawaii in 2006. Specializing

ADRIENNE: 
in property restoration, they prioritize personalized service efficiency and continual improvements. Please welcome our guest, Ruy Brito

ATTILIO: 
Hey, Mr. Brito. Can you pronounce your first name for us?

RUY: 
Oh, certainly. Sure, it’s Ruy R U Y, but Ruy?

ADRIENNE: 
Thank you.

ATTILIO: 
Because you know, I It’s are you i So I was thinking you was I don’t think you you are you why? I don’t think it was like bread like, right? It’s Ruy, Ruy, Ruy. By the way, if you go into a heavy populated Filipino neighborhood don’t be surprised if people calling you by name Ruy?

RUY:
Oh my God to show

ATTILIO: 
that already. But okay, really, let’s talk about things that people don’t talk about till it’s top of mind and that is when we get some big oil leak or water pouring into a property. Well, first of all, there are listeners out there we do have the entrepreneurs and the people with the day jobs and the people trying to bridge both. What if you could give the best advice to the people out there that that are sitting in their day jobs because you had a day job? What was the motivation for you to transition from the day job to starting your own business?

RUY: 
Well, we reassure worked for a big carpet cleaning company. Yeah, back in the day. Yeah. And, you know, one day they stopped loving us. And that was the time we, you know, me and my business partner. I dropped off the boat. I said, Okay, no more love. No more fun. Bye, bye. Yeah. Do you jump into? You know, the, he decided to open his own business? Yeah, I assist in the beginning with the name. And you know, they’re not odd projects here and there. That’s 2006 right. Long time ago. And 2012 After jumping from another job here, and they’re, you know, steady our jobs. I decided to join him. Full time commitment. And we make eco friendly Hawaii come from a two man army. To about we have 19 people working with us.

ATTILIO:
Oh, wow. That’s off today. 90 people on the team. And let’s talk about let’s talk about services, the services that you guys provide. Let’s talk about the big one. You know, a homeowner can call you like they live say they call you on a Saturday and said, You know what, I just got home from vacation and there’s an inch of water in my entire house. What? How does that look like? How, what do you tell them on the phone? And then what’s your guy’s response time? And what do you guys do when you get out there?

RUY: 
Yes, I’m glad you asked him this. Yeah, this is an emergency. There’s a lot of different urgent matters that people sometimes call us, oh, I have a moldy shoe in my closet. That’s urgent. But like a water sitting on the ground. That’s an emergency, you want to remove that as soon as possible. And you want to start the drying process. Okay. Sometimes she depends on the course materials, but like, you might need to remove it. First things first, you know, you have a scenario that have water seeking or you know, you’re you’re gonna call professional. And the staff will be like, you know, average arrival time is like a 45 minutes to an hour, hour and a half. And then What time were you in Ireland? You know, I mean, Makaha Kailua Kapolei Yeah, Downtown Honolulu. You know, and we want to start this process as soon as possible. Yeah. You know, now, will the water stabilize? You know, start drying right away? Yeah.

ADRIENNE: 
So Ruy, we have your website up and you see that your availability is 24/7. Because we know these water leaks don’t always happen at the most convenient time. Yeah,

ATTILIO: 
so even three o’clock in the morning, somebody can call you and you guys will have somebody out as soon as you can. Yes. Okay. And that’s important to realize, because a couple of hours could make a huge difference as far as the amount of damage Yeah, yeah.

RUY:
Especially fists. Right. You know, a beauty skyscraper. True story home. Yeah. You know, and not just this, like water will travel up or how does it travel up the spawn? Jump on the drywall? Yeah. And furniture and other building materials. So that’s why it’s important. You know, people sometimes I call Yeah. Some some clients know that they gotta take action right away. Yeah. So people are called they decide to shop around and then they call like, a 234 different restoration companies. And sometimes by the time you know, they call the Oh, yeah, let’s go with the first guy. Yeah, and the first guy is no longer available anymore. Like call it Oh, man. I’m gonna have a beauty. I have 10 story here. I don’t know why they’re gonna get back to you. Yeah, and you know, you want to get the line Access contractor you want to have a gonna get the company reputation? You know, but you don’t want to wait. Yeah, got to decide. And as a homeowner, that building give you equity. Right? That building gives you some money. Yeah. And it’s there. So you got to take out the beauty

ADRIENNE: 
period. And the other thing is, if it’s an investment property, it’s a write off. Yeah, this is all about the main maintenance, right? You want to maintain it, and you want to make sure that like you said, a licensed professional company is assisting. You guys have a very good reading on Google, I see quite a few reviews and then a happy customers. I mean, obviously, it’s not a happy reason why they’re, you know, reaching out to you when it’s the water restoration. But um, yeah.

ATTILIO: 
Let’s talk about the other thing, let’s talk about cheese. No talk about cheese, we’re gonna talk about mold the mold that you see on your cheese, and sometimes mold is good, sometimes it’s bad. But here’s been our personal experience, because we’ve had quite a we’ve been doing this for 20 years and you know, been in we’ve had feelings fall through, we had ceilings fall through because an upstairs bathroom leaked. And by the time we got there, the whole ceiling caved in. And I’ve personally been over there to take out that drywall, break it all up, put it you know, get dispose of it, sweep everything up, shut off all the water and do that. But I’ve been in listings where we could backtrack from the last visit, and know that the water had only been there, maybe a day and a half. And I already started seeing mold going growing in the corner. And that that water wasn’t there very long. Talk about mold remediation. Why? How does that work? And why is it important to to take care of that right away?

RUY: 
That walks kind of together with with water damage, you know, people when I call, it’s just a leak. Let’s just wipe that and see the forest is dry. Everything is good. Yeah. Let’s go back to normal. And now like a week or two later or even longer. They’re like, well, what is this? Now? Why does that stain? What’s this? Why is this color? Yeah, that’s, you know, that’s where you might have a mold issue. Yeah. And that’s mold got a pack for air quality? And we can we do have a piece of equipment. That that’s kind of exclusive only we have here. Okay. And that can tell you right away on site. What, you know, if you do have what concentration of mold you have susceptible because you have mold in nature? Yeah. Can I be helped? Yes. But when you have a high concentration of spores inside a building, that means something’s wrong. Something’s wrong. You might have too much moisture in the in the building. And, you know, we got to find out like what’s going on? We have a leak. We have an ongoing leak, a past leak, water intrusion. What happened? The building? Is the building envelope compromised? Yeah, you know, so that’s when we need an inspection. You need to have a follow to process and once we identify the cause, or you know, what materials are impacted. We go with that for building materials. You know, you don’t want to disturb any asbestos or lead. You’re already gonna be meddling with mold. You know, so called Damon is created, right? And then you can remove this impacted building materials.

ATTILIO:
Now the other thing too is you guys do remove asbestos? Yes.

RUY: 
Yes, sir. We are licensed as bestest

ADRIENNE:
testing and removal. Yeah. Very

RUY: 
important. Especially people I call it do a renovation. You know, oh, yeah, this this place is kind of outdated. Let’s Yeah, let’s knock this wall. Let’s rip this floor. You want to test everything you’re touching prior to it. Even if this you know, this is before 9080. It’s after even like newer buildings, you know, you want to make sure you test so you know, have a headache and expose your loved ones to hazard, you know, scenario and get this person sick. That’s irreversible.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah. You know, I always say asbestos is like a mullet hairstyle. It was cool when they first came out, you know, it like retarded fire. But then they realize, oh, it causes cancer if it goes airborne and gets into your lungs, and so just like that mullet you like it’s not good. Having a mullet hairstyle today. Same thing with asbestos on your ceiling. I’ll get rid of the Molly called asbestos in your property. The other thing too is that you guys got to be very I’ve had asbestos removal in in a property that I owned and it’s a very specific process that you guys use Can you kind of describe that because it’s like you don’t want to be just having like a handyman

ADRIENNE:
just kind of winging it or like follow a YouTube video it’s not

ATTILIO: 
kind of kind of described the process of like, let’s talk about the basic one that that’s I’m gonna imagine is common the popcorn ceiling with the asbestos. What’s that? What does that process look like when you guys go remove that say from on Kondal

RUY: 
Okay, condo that’s good. This condo is more than four units. It says you need more than four units and there’s a certain square footage threshold regarding form you know, you got to inform doh right away Department of Health Health does evolve there we you know you’ve got a licensed contractor this contractor going to inform your age is a 10 day period usually unless it’s emergency it’s a per person you know, depending on the case Yeah. We go there we isolate the area you know, there’s a preparation with like a six mil plastic, you prepare everything to remove all the contents, you know, appliances whatever you can get out of the way too much back out job, get everything out it cannot be occupied. You know, once you commenced the job, whatever is inside the containment area must be a certified asbestos worker or supervisor gotcha you know new inside the area there is like air filtration devices people already like up shoots you know the coverall hazmat shoot full face respirator and there’s a who did one that you using lately. So this workers are protected you know, you got to make like the materials are gonna cut off or remove it there. You want to make them wet so

ATTILIO: 
they don’t have airborne particles. Yeah,

RUY: 
yeah, you want to prevent us yes, no good. is talking about us versus gonna make things like not crumbly at all. Yeah, after all this removal you know, there’s layers of plastic you you get all the debris away packing in a special six Meal bag, or as best as all the clean up HEPA vacuum. Repeat the process remove the first layer of plastic Yeah, clean up and everything that get out of the containment gotta go to like it got to be kind of washed and clean, including the technicians you know their suit. So pretty much gotta get out of the containment dust free you know now even Oh, it looks a little No, it doesn’t look at all it’s every single thus fleet free double bagged. And after this is done we have a third party environmental professional going there. And testing there. Yes. You know, of course Sheva co Yeah, I just felt like we I know again, it’s it’s all good. You can go in there and no, you want to have some bite and knock on this guy’s gonna go past they’re like, Okay, we’re clear. Yeah. Similar process for lab. You know? But it’s it’s very important you know for for the folks out there especially homeowners all I can do it my own you know, can do yourself. You don’t want to deal with this kind of stuff. Yeah, but you can get a fine. We got a client a while ago called us. Oh, yeah. What happened? They got the handyman. Handyman disturbed the popcorn ceilings? Yes. In the whole condo. And of course, you you know spend like maybe 10 $15,000 The cleanup for them as was like,

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, the other thing double. Yeah. And especially to because the you know, they’re not sealing off the area. And a lot of these condo high rises. If you’re being a knucklehead, you also jeopardizing your neighbors because a lot of them have shared air systems with a sea. So now you’re going all these asbestos particulates all into your neighbor’s being time lawsuit, not only from the Association, but from your neighbors if they find out

ADRIENNE:
so go check out the Eco clean websites, give them a call. They can, you know, walk you through give you an estimate.

ATTILIO: 
General rule of thumb it we do know this as realtors, you know all of this stuff was banned from the 80s forward. So if you have a property that you know just you look up the tax report and it was built prior to then just have the blame the plan that you know that there could be lead in there there could be asbestos. The other thing that I learned too from all the As of doing this as we think of asbestos as things that are like, you know, like they were used to, to put around pipes around like with the stoves, they were used to put in the ceiling to hopefully, stop fires. But people don’t realize they’re also put in floor tiles that floor tiles were made of asbestos composites. And so a lot of those stick tiles, yeah, those stick tiles needs to be removed in the same thing. So, so

ADRIENNE: 
ecocleanhawaii.com. And you can take a look at all of their services. We’ve only talked about you know, a couple of them. Yeah. But we are going to be coming to the end of our show here in a little bit. Yeah. So I had, we had a couple more questions for you, that we wanted to touch on. Yeah. So like, how do you guys stay ahead of the industry advancements? What are you doing to keep up with that? Yeah,

ATTILIO: 
any kind of new technology or equipment you guys have? Besides that? The mold testing thing?

RUY: 
Well, the most tests in the eastern scope, it’s pretty, like, bored. Yes. It’s fairly, is not the new technology is being used, like, you know, by Defense Department that in that kind of a for, for tracking, you know, hazards on there. Yeah. And tracks and stuff like that. And then they turn that into, you know, let’s let’s actually look at the seagull, Lord, and He can tell, you know, your mold spores. We try to educate, certify every one of works in a timely manner. Yes. So that’s how we try to read we keep up with the new trends. You cannot be rigid regarding the always adapt and always evolving,

ADRIENNE: 
always learning. Oh, I

RUY:
always yeah, I’ve done that for 10 years. I want to keep doing this way. Okay, so I’m gonna happen, you’re gonna become obsolete. Yep. And you’re gonna be part of the museum, you know, might become a dinosaur. Yeah. Safety

ATTILIO: 
also. And then I know you guys are, you know, their licensing and regulations and oversight. Some even comes from EPA, right? The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Health.

ADRIENNE:
Yeah, keeping up with all those new OSHA laws and strategies.

ATTILIO: 
And you know, you may you said things that makes people that would hire you feel comfortable. If you’re a business owner that’s taking care and concern about top priorities, safety of your employees, then you’re definitely going to be concerned with and making it a top priority, the safety of the customers that you’re working for. So good job on that.

ADRIENNE: 
And then one last question. Before we let you go. Can you give us a one memorable project that you guys worked on? Yes.

RUY: 
Well, this

couple with all Okay, last couple of years ago, we did the Hawaii Supreme Court, there’s a fire job. There are Leilani Palace, about a 40,000 square feet. Area was impacted by soot and smoke we got to deal with like a Chief Justice. Attorney General, judges, you know, was and it’s a stark and beautiful historical building. Yeah. So that was that, like a mental launch was and I assume for the community as well. Yeah, you know, so that was a project we got really proud off, we got like a baleka 36 people into that building, cleaning every crevice as possible. And being very careful with the artwork, and nav The other aspect of off the facility. And another one that was quite a challenge was military us Force Base. Five hours away from a jet flight. You know, I cannot disclose the location, but like, Oh, God, tell technicians. Yeah, for two months, was about 20,000 square feet of barracks was mold remediation. Yes. And we accomplished that on time.

ATTILIO:
Nice. Well, that’s talking about pressure right with the judges. If you didn’t do a good job, they throw you in jail. With the military, if you didn’t do a good job, they would shoot you. So good job under that pressure. You did good. You know, you did good work, and obviously they hire the best. That’s right.

ADRIENNE: 
Yeah. Well, thank you for coming on and sharing a little bit more about your guys services and you know, educating us and our listeners.

ATTILIO: 
Well, it’s real easy. All you got to do is go to Eco Clean Hawaii. Ecoclean hawaii.com Google it remember it put it up next to your phone because they got all their reviews. You guys are like, you know go with Ghostbusters, who you’re going to call when you go water all over your house. Eco Clean Hawaii. All right. All right. Well, we thank you so much. Yes.

ADRIENNE: 
Appreciate your pleasure. Thank

RUY: 
you very much for for having me. Us. And you guys have a good one. Yes.

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