NYS and NYC M/WBE Certified Contractor
When a storm comes through Hewlett and the Five Towns, it doesn’t just take shingles. Wind opens the roof, water follows into the attic, insulation gets saturated, and if nothing’s done within the first 24 to 48 hours, mold starts. In Hewlett, where a significant portion of homes were built before 1960, that timeline matters even more because older construction gives water more places to travel and hide.
The homes along Hewlett Harbor and Hewlett Neck have felt this firsthand. After Sandy, Hewlett Harbor alone required over three million dollars in stormwater infrastructure recovery — and that was just the public side. The private damage inside those homes told a different story. When you’re sitting on a property that’s been in your family for decades, or one you’ve invested heavily in because of the Hewlett-Woodmere school district, a slow or incomplete restoration isn’t just an inconvenience. It’s a financial risk.
What you get at the end of a proper storm damage restoration isn’t just a patched roof. It’s a home that’s been assessed from the outside in — moisture-mapped, dried, treated where needed, rebuilt where required, and documented for your insurance file. That’s what actually protects your investment.
We are a Nassau County-licensed general contractor and NYS Office of General Services Approved Emergency Response Contractor. That second credential matters more than most homeowners realize — it means the state has already reviewed and approved us before you ever needed to call. In a post-storm environment full of out-of-area crews who show up fast and disappear faster, that kind of vetting is worth knowing about.
What makes the difference for Hewlett specifically is the license stack beyond general contracting. We hold NYS DOL Mold Remediation, NYS DOL Asbestos Handler, and USEPA Lead and RRP certifications. Most homes in Hewlett and the Five Towns predate 1978 — which means when storm damage opens up a wall or disturbs roofing materials, there’s a real chance of encountering asbestos or lead. A contractor without those licenses has to stop work and refer out. We don’t. One call handles the full scope, start to finish.
We also handle the insurance process directly — documentation, adjuster coordination, and direct billing — so you’re not navigating a claim on top of managing a damaged home.
When you call, someone picks up — day or night. We ask a few quick questions to understand what you’re dealing with, and then we get someone out to your property. The first priority is always stopping active damage: tarping a breached roof, boarding windows, extracting standing water, or whatever the situation calls for. The goal in that first visit is to stop the clock on the damage that’s already happening.
From there, we do a full assessment — and that includes thermal imaging to find moisture that isn’t visible to the naked eye. In a Hewlett home with older wall construction, finished basements, and attic spaces that don’t get looked at often, that step isn’t optional. It’s how we find the damage that would have turned into a mold problem six weeks later. We document everything with photos and written reports, which also feeds directly into your insurance claim.
Once the scope is established, we pull the required permits through the Town of Hempstead or the relevant village building department — Hewlett Harbor, Hewlett Bay Park, and Hewlett Neck each have their own requirements, and properties in flood zones require additional floodplain permits on top of standard building permits. We handle that coordination. The work then proceeds in a logical sequence: structural repairs, water mitigation, any required hazardous material handling, and finally the rebuild and finish work. You get a restored home and a complete permit record — not just a patch job.
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Storm damage restoration in Hewlett covers a lot of ground depending on what the storm did. The most common scenarios are roof damage from wind or falling trees, water intrusion through the roof or windows, flooded basements from storm surge or overwhelmed drainage, and structural damage from sustained high winds. Hewlett and the Five Towns sit directly in the South Shore’s exposure zone — 33 hurricanes have been recorded in the Hewlett area since 1930 — and nor’easters hit this stretch of Nassau County hard in the fall and winter months as well.
We provide the full chain of services: emergency board-up and tarping, water extraction and structural drying, mold assessment and remediation, asbestos and lead handling where required in older homes, roof repair and replacement, siding and window repair, and full interior rebuild including drywall, insulation, flooring, and finishes. For properties in Hewlett Harbor or Hewlett Neck that fall within FEMA flood zones, we’re familiar with the substantial damage threshold — if repairs exceed 50% of the structure’s assessed value, full floodplain compliance upgrades are required before rebuilding, and we account for that in the scope from the start.
Everything is documented, permitted, and inspected. When the job is done, you have a complete record — not just a restored home, but proof that the work was done right and to code.
Yes — in most cases, it does. The Town of Hempstead requires building permits for any storm damage repair that goes beyond temporary protective measures like tarping or boarding. That includes structural repairs, roof replacement, and any work that affects the framing, insulation, or mechanical systems of the home. If you’re in one of the incorporated villages — Hewlett Harbor, Hewlett Bay Park, or Hewlett Neck — the permit process runs through the village building department rather than the town, and each has its own requirements.
For properties in or near a flood zone, there’s an additional layer: a Floodplain Development Permit is required on top of the standard building permit. Given that Hewlett Harbor and Hewlett Neck sit adjacent to Jamaica Bay and the South Shore back bays, a meaningful number of homes in those communities fall within FEMA’s Special Flood Hazard Area. If your home does, and the storm damage is severe enough to trigger the substantial damage rule — meaning repairs exceed 50% of the structure’s pre-storm value — the rebuild must meet current floodplain compliance standards. We handle permit coordination as part of the job, so you’re not figuring that out on your own while also managing a damaged home.
Mold can begin growing within 24 to 48 hours of water intrusion — and that clock starts the moment moisture gets into your walls, subfloor, or insulation, not when you notice it. The problem is that most homeowners don’t call a restoration company immediately after a storm. They wait to see if the damage is “bad enough,” or they spend the first day or two dealing with insurance calls and cleanup. By the time a contractor arrives three to five days later, mold is often already present in areas that weren’t visually obvious.
In Hewlett’s older housing stock — most of which was built before 1960 — wall cavities, wood framing, and finished basement structures give moisture more places to travel and sit undetected. A finished basement that takes on water during a nor’easter or a storm surge event can go from a water extraction job to a full mold remediation and gut in under a week if the drying process doesn’t start quickly. We use thermal imaging as part of every assessment — to find the moisture that isn’t visible before it becomes something much more expensive to deal with.
It can, and it does more often than most homeowners expect. Homes built before 1978 — which covers the majority of the housing stock in Hewlett and the broader Five Towns area — may contain lead-based paint in walls, trim, and window components. Homes built before roughly 1980 may also contain asbestos in roofing materials, floor tiles, pipe insulation, and attic insulation. When a storm causes structural damage that requires opening walls, replacing roofing, or disturbing those materials, New York State law requires that the work be handled by contractors holding specific licenses: NYS DOL Asbestos Handler certification and USEPA Lead and RRP certification.
Most general contractors and many storm restoration companies do not hold these licenses. That means they either stop work when they discover the material and refer you to a separate specialist — adding time, cost, and coordination complexity — or they proceed without the proper credentials, which creates legal liability for both the contractor and the homeowner. We hold all of these certifications, which means we can legally and safely handle every phase of the restoration in a pre-1978 Hewlett home without stopping work or handing off to someone else.
Most standard homeowner’s insurance policies cover storm damage caused by wind, hail, and related water intrusion — but the specifics depend on your policy, and there are important distinctions to understand. Wind-driven rain that enters through a breach in the roof or walls is typically covered. Flooding caused by storm surge or rising water is generally not covered under a standard homeowner’s policy — that requires separate flood insurance through FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood policy.
For homeowners in Hewlett Harbor or Hewlett Neck, where properties sit close to Jamaica Bay and the South Shore back bays, this distinction is especially important. If your basement flooded during a nor’easter or a coastal storm event, whether that’s covered depends on whether the water came in through a structural breach or came up from the ground. The documentation we provide — photos, moisture mapping, written damage reports — is designed to support your claim and clearly establish how and where the damage occurred. We coordinate directly with your insurance adjuster and bill the carrier directly where possible, which removes a significant amount of the administrative burden from your plate during an already stressful situation.
Storm damage repair costs vary widely depending on what was damaged and how far it spread before mitigation started. On the lower end, a contained roof repair with no secondary water damage might run in the range of $2,500 to $5,000. A more involved job — one that includes water extraction, structural drying, mold remediation, and partial interior rebuild — can run anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 or more. Severe cases involving significant structural damage or flood zone compliance upgrades can exceed $60,000.
In Hewlett specifically, two factors tend to push costs higher than homeowners initially expect. The first is the age of the housing stock — older homes often reveal additional issues once work begins, including deteriorated framing, outdated materials, or hazardous materials that require licensed handling. The second is the permit and compliance layer: properties in flood zones that trigger the substantial damage threshold must be brought into full floodplain compliance before rebuilding, which can add meaningful cost to the scope. The most effective way to control costs is speed — the faster mitigation starts, the less secondary damage accumulates.
The most important thing you can do is verify the license before anyone starts work. In New York, a contractor performing storm damage restoration in Nassau County needs a Nassau County General Contractor license — not just a Suffolk County or New York City license. Those don’t transfer. You can verify Nassau County contractor licenses through the county’s licensing portal, and you should. After a major storm event, Hewlett and the Five Towns area — like most of Long Island — sees an influx of out-of-area crews who are not licensed in Nassau County and may not carry adequate insurance.
Beyond the general contractor license, ask specifically about mold remediation, asbestos, and lead certifications if your home was built before 1978. In Hewlett, that covers most of the housing stock. A contractor who can’t produce those credentials for a pre-1978 home is not equipped to handle the full scope of what storm damage commonly reveals in this area. Finally, ask whether they handle insurance billing directly. A contractor who coordinates with your adjuster and bills your carrier directly is not just more convenient — it typically results in better claim documentation and fewer gaps in what gets covered. Our NYS Office of General Services Approved Emergency Response Contractor status is also publicly verifiable, which provides an additional layer of third-party vetting that most contractors in this market simply cannot offer.
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