Severity Index™
A proven classification system with visual, easy to understand categories that make assessing, customer education, estimating, job preparation, production, and customer satisfaction accurate every single time.
Standards of Remediation
Industry Recognized
Severity Indexing does not replace the standards. It starts with them.
Mold Remediation
The S520 Standard outlines proven procedures for safe and effective mold remediation, protecting both building materials and occupants, with an exceptional level of contamination control as levels of cleanliness are reached.
Fire Remediation
The S700 Standard, released in 2025, establishes a framework for evaluating, cleaning, and restoring areas impacted by fire and smoke, with a new focus on preventing corrosion, pre-testing cleaning methods, and documenting results.
Water Remediation
The S500 Standard, currently in its 5th edition from 2021, provides step-by-step guidance for assessing, drying, cleaning, and restoring water damaged structures and contents, from Category 1 through Category 3 response.
Standards Give You Guidance. Not Precision.
Industry standards provide general information for the public and the contractor alike. What they do not provide is the measurement.
What the standards leave to you
Every one of these is a judgment call made on site, in the moment, by whoever happens to be holding the clipboard. Two inspectors walk the same building and write two different scopes.
That gap is where estimates drift, crews get surprised, and customers end up expecting something the job never promised.
- The severity of a problem
- Specific, step by step procedures for eliminating it
- The detail that leads to an accurate estimate
- The requirements to prepare for and complete the job while meeting customer expectations the first time
So we created a simple, visual standard and testing method by service that sets severity, confirms cleaning methods, ensures results, and meets customer expectations.
The Severity Index
Every remediation challenge has levels of severity, and severity can vary from room to room inside the same building. Severity breaks down by measurable variables.
Severity Indexing combines trusted industry standards with practical clarity, so you understand the damage and the exact steps needed to restore it, in the same walkthrough.
Severity That Guides Remediation
One system, four indexes, each built around how its own damage actually behaves.
Five categories that identify surface versus embedded growth, soil load level, and level of staining.
Three categories that classify the soot level by visibility or obscurity of the underlying surface.
Three categories that define the source and contamination level of the water damage.
Three categories that define the source of the odor issue and how to prevent it from returning.
Severity Indexing, Walked Through
How the categories get assigned, tested, and turned into a scope your customer can see.
Severity Index™ walkthrough
The Severity Index Test Kit
Each service has its own kit: a labeled caddy holding the Enviroguard products and methods matched to that index, so the inspector can prove out a cleaning method on the actual surface before anyone quotes a number.
That is what separates an index from an opinion. The category is assigned from the definitions, then confirmed on the wall, and the before, during, and after images go straight into the Service Inspection Guide.
The Stages of Severity Indexing
Identify it, prove it, write it down. Three stages that happen inside one inspection.
Identification
Working from the definitions, the inspector assigns a Severity Index to each surface or space within the Service Inspection Guide for that job, whether it is mold, water, fire, or odor.
Testing
Using a Severity Index Test Kit, the inspector pre-tests each surface with the appropriate Enviroguard product and method to determine the most effective outcome, documenting the process with before, during, and after images.
Documentation
Inside the Service Inspection Guide, notes from the testing are recorded to do four jobs at once:
- Educate the customer
- Provide detail for accurate estimating
- Help the production team prepare for and complete the job
- Ensure the results match what the testing promised
The Power of Severity Indexing
Severity Indexing supplies the assessment tools and organized information that set expectations and visually demonstrate success, both to your customer and to your production team. Here is how one inspection travels through your whole company.
The Assessor
An inspection that defines the problem by severity, demonstrates success in overcoming it, and gives the customer education and confidence. The same document drives accurate estimating, job planning, and an objective definition of success.
The Management Team
The information collected in the inspection carries forward to ensure estimating accuracy and to start job planning that accounts for safety, contents manipulation, materials, and equipment requirements.
The Production Team
Every Severity Index report, whatever the service, hands your technicians the images, test results, and instructions they need to deliver exactly what was demonstrated and agreed to with the customer.
The Customer
A satisfied customer who becomes an advocate for your business, and who returns the favor with testimonials, word of mouth referrals, and a glowing Google review.
The Assessment Sets the Standard
Without a clear and thorough assessment, meeting expectations becomes difficult. You have to identify the problem, define the solution, outline the procedures, and calculate the cost with accuracy.
Without that foundation, budgets become unreliable and results become unpredictable, and that is what makes sustainable growth and long term success so hard to reach.
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