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Restoration Glossary
Every term you are likely to see on an estimate, a protocol, or an adjuster's email, defined the way we would explain it standing in your hallway. If a contractor uses a word you do not know, look it up here and then ask them about it.
TLG Restoration · Updated August 2026 · 10 Min Read
01 · 7 Terms
Standards And Categories
The reference documents and classification systems a legitimate scope is written against.
- IICRC S500
- The industry standard for professional water damage restoration. It defines how losses are categorized, how drying is planned and verified, and what documentation the process should produce. When a scope references drying to a standard, this is usually the standard.
- IICRC S520
- The industry standard for professional mold remediation. It covers containment, engineering controls, worker protection, removal methods, and verification. A remediation protocol written by a competent assessor generally references it.
- Category 1 Water
- Water from a sanitary source, such as a supply line or a water heater. Clean at the moment of release. It does not stay Category 1 indefinitely: time, temperature, and what it touches will degrade it.
- Category 2 Water
- Water carrying significant contamination with the potential to cause discomfort or illness. Washing machine discharge, dishwasher overflow, and toilet overflow with urine but no solids are typical examples.
- Category 3 Water
- Grossly contaminated water. Sewage, rising flood water from outside, and any water carrying pathogens or toxins. Porous materials it contacts are generally removed rather than dried, which is why category drives cost more than volume does.
- Class 1 Through 4 Water Damage
- A separate scale from category. Class describes how much material is wet and how hard it will be to dry, from a small amount of low-porosity material at Class 1 up to deeply saturated low-evaporation materials like plaster, hardwood, and concrete at Class 4.
- Condition 1, 2, And 3
- Used to describe a mold situation. Condition 1 is normal fungal ecology, Condition 2 is settled spores and fragments without active growth, and Condition 3 is actual growth. Clearance generally aims to return a remediated space to Condition 1.
02 · 7 Terms
Containment And Equipment
What should physically be on site during a real remediation, and what each piece is for.
- Containment Barrier
- Sealed sheeting that isolates the work area from the rest of the building, usually with a zippered entry and often an airlock. Its job is to keep what gets disturbed during removal from traveling into clean space.
- Negative Air
- Running the containment at slightly lower pressure than the surrounding space so air flows in rather than out. Any leak in the barrier then pulls clean air inward instead of pushing contaminated air out. Containment without negative pressure is just plastic on a doorway.
- HEPA Air Scrubber
- A filtration unit that captures very fine particulate and either recirculates the cleaned air inside containment or exhausts it outside the building. The same machine typically creates the negative pressure.
- Air Mover
- A high-velocity fan aimed to move air across wet surfaces and accelerate evaporation. Air movers do not remove moisture from the building; they move it into the air where a dehumidifier can take it out. Running them without dehumidification just relocates the problem.
- LGR Dehumidifier
- Low Grain Refrigerant. A dehumidifier that keeps pulling water out of air that is already fairly dry, which is what structural drying requires in the later stages. A household dehumidifier stalls well before a structure reaches a dry standard.
- Desiccant Dehumidifier
- Uses a moisture-absorbing material rather than a cold coil. It performs better than refrigerant units in cooler conditions and can drive humidity lower, which makes it useful on dense materials like hardwood and plaster.
- Pressure Differential
- The measured difference between the containment and the surrounding area, monitored to confirm negative air is actually being maintained. On a multi-unit job it also covers the corridor, so nothing migrates into common space.
03 · 6 Terms
Assessment And Verification
The independent side of the job. In Florida these are done by a licensed assessor, never by the remediation contractor.
- Mold Assessment
- An inspection by a licensed mold assessor to determine what is present and how far it has traveled, sometimes including sampling. In Florida this is a separately licensed activity and cannot be performed by the company that will remediate the property.
- Remediation Protocol
- The written specification produced by an assessor: what must be removed, what containment and engineering controls are required, and how the result will be verified. It is the document every bid should be priced against so bids are actually comparable.
- Post-Remediation Verification (PRV)
- The check after the work is finished, confirming the area was properly remediated and returned to normal conditions. Usually visual inspection plus sampling, performed by the assessor rather than the remediator.
- Clearance Testing
- Sampling after remediation to confirm the space passes. Typically $250 to $500 in South Florida depending on how many samples are required. If it does not pass, the remediator goes back in.
- Air Sampling Versus Surface Sampling
- Air sampling captures what is airborne at that moment and is compared against an outdoor control. Surface sampling identifies what is on a specific material. They answer different questions and an assessor often uses both.
- mVOC
- Microbial volatile organic compound. The gases produced by active fungal growth, and the reason a space can smell distinctly musty with nothing visible anywhere. Odor with no visible source is a reason to look inside cavities.
04 · 5 Terms
Moisture And Drying
How a crew knows what is wet, and how it knows when to stop.
- Moisture Mapping
- Systematically measuring and recording moisture across the affected area to establish how far the water actually traveled, which is almost always further than the visible stain. The map defines the work area.
- Dry Standard
- The moisture reading taken from unaffected material of the same type in the same building, used as the target. Drying is complete when affected material matches it, not when a surface feels dry to the hand.
- Thermal Imaging
- An infrared camera showing surface temperature differences that often indicate where moisture sits behind a finish. It does not detect moisture directly, so findings get confirmed with a meter before anyone opens a wall.
- Hygrometer
- A meter that reads relative humidity. On a job it tracks whether the drying environment is actually working. In a Florida home generally, it is the cheapest early warning available for a humidity problem.
- Structural Drying
- Drying the building assembly itself, including framing, subfloor, and wall cavities, rather than just the surfaces you can see. It is the difference between a room that looks dry and a wall that will not grow mold in three weeks.
05 · 6 Terms
Treatment And Rebuild
What happens to materials, and what comes after the drying stops.
- Antimicrobial Versus Biocide
- An antimicrobial slows or inhibits microbial growth; a biocide is intended to kill organisms. Neither substitutes for physical removal of contaminated material, and applying either to a wet surface without removing the growth is treating the symptom.
- Controlled Demolition
- Removing affected material deliberately and within containment, cut to defined boundaries rather than torn out. Done properly it limits both what spreads and how much has to be rebuilt.
- Flood Cut
- Cutting drywall horizontally a set distance above the water line, commonly twelve to twenty-four inches, to remove wet material and open the cavity for drying. The height depends on how far moisture wicked up, which the moisture map determines.
- Reconstruction
- Putting the building back: drywall, texture, paint, trim, flooring, cabinetry. It is a separate scope from remediation with separate pricing, which is the single most common reason two bids look thousands of dollars apart.
- Direction To Pay
- An authorization telling your insurer to send the portion of a claim covering a contractor's work directly to that contractor. You remain the policyholder and keep control of the claim, which is what distinguishes it from an assignment of benefits.
- Assignment Of Benefits (AOB)
- A contract transferring insurance claim rights to a contractor. For Florida residential policies issued on or after January 1, 2023, these are void by statute. A company still asking you to sign one is working from an old playbook.
Still holding a document that does not make sense? Call us and read it to us. We would rather spend five minutes translating an estimate than have you sign something you did not understand, even if the estimate is not ours.
Related: what remediation costs, why assessment is separate, and how Florida coverage works.
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