How DryMark Restoration Huntington Beach Was Born in Huntington Beach
We opened this branch in 2015, four years after DryMark Restoration started in 2011, because we’d spent two years driving up from Orange County to jobs in Huntington Beach and seeing the same thing every time. Homeowners were stuck. They’d already had one company out that ran fans for three days and left without proving anything was dry. Or they’d gotten a bill that doubled between the phone call and the final invoice. Or their adjuster was asking for documentation they didn’t have.
The moment that locked it for us was a water loss in a home near Huntington Harbour. The homeowner, a woman in her sixties, showed us invoices from two previous companies and a denial letter from her insurance. She’d paid eleven thousand dollars out of pocket for work that left her subfloor at twenty-two percent moisture, which is wet enough to grow mold. She cried in her kitchen. Not from the water damage, from the feeling that she’d been failed by people who were supposed to know what they were doing.
We finished that job properly, logged every reading, and helped her resubmit. But driving back down the 405 that night, we decided we weren’t driving up for Huntington Beach anymore. We’d be here, with local crews, local knowledge of how the salt air off the Pacific affects drying times, and the Haven Standard behind us. That was the start of this branch.
Alicia Brennan’s Personal Connection to the Damage Restoration Trade
I got into this work sideways. I was managing rental properties in Costa Mesa in the late 2000s, and a tenant’s washing machine hose let go on the second floor. I called the first company in the phone book. They showed up with a truck that looked like it had been through a flood itself, set up four fans, and told me it would be “a few days.” They came back once, moved the fans around, and sent a bill for thirty-eight hundred dollars. The wall cavity was still wet. I could smell it.
So I started learning. I bought a moisture meter, read the IICRC S500 standard cover to cover, and shadowed a restoration tech who taught me how to read a psychrometric chart, how to calculate dehumidification capacity for a sealed room, how to tell the difference between surface dry and structurally dry. The first time I pulled a baseboard and found black mold behind it because someone had stopped too soon, something shifted in me. This work is invisible. People don’t know if you did it right until years later when their walls fail or their kids get sick.
What gets me out of bed is that invisibility. We’re the only trade where the better we do our job, the less evidence we leave behind. A perfect restoration looks like nothing happened. That means your only proof is the documentation, and your only protection is the character of the person doing the work. I’ve turned down jobs where the homeowner wanted us to “just dry it out and don’t worry about the readings.” I don’t know how to do that. If I weren’t doing this, I’d probably be arguing with insurance adjusters about something else, because the through-line of my whole career is: show me the evidence, and I’ll show you the truth.
The smell of a properly dried structure is specific. It’s not the chemical smell of antimicrobial, and it’s not the musty smell of lingering moisture. It’s just neutral. Clean drywall, clean wood, nothing happening. That’s what we’re after. That’s the only smell I want to leave behind.
Meet Alicia Brennan - The Person Behind Every Job
I’m Alicia Brennan, Owner and Founder of this DryMark Restoration branch. I’ve been in the restoration trade for over fifteen years, starting with those rental properties, then running mitigation crews, then building this operation with the Haven Standard as our backbone. I’m IICRC certified in Water Damage Restoration and Applied Structural Drying, and every crew working under our name is required to hold the state licenses and insurance their role requires.
What separates me from a corporate technician is simple: I’m the one who answers when something goes wrong. Not a regional manager, not a call center. My cell number goes on every job folder. I also happen to be a compulsive baker, which means our office break room usually has sourdough or cookies, and it means I understand that timing and temperature are everything, whether you’re proofing dough or drying a subfloor.
My commitment to you is personal. If I wouldn’t accept the work in my own mother’s house, we don’t sign off on it.
Before
AfterOur Promise to Huntington Beach Homeowners
We operate under the Haven Standard, which means five specific promises, each one grounded in a policy we’ve had to enforce at least once.
Have it in writing. Every job starts with a flat price, a written scope, and a written warranty. Clause 1 of our standard. We learned this the hard way when an early customer asked us to “just handle it” on a sewage backup, and we spent six months in a payment dispute because the scope was verbal. Never again.
Arrive on schedule. A real window, a named technician, a text when they’re on the way. Our policy is thirty minutes’ notice minimum. If we’re running late, we call. The one time our GPS failed and a tech went to the wrong address in Fountain Valley, we credited two hours of drying time. We don’t make excuses; we make it right.
Verified crews. Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires, and we keep those records on file. You can ask to see them. We expect you to.
Evidence on every job. Photos and readings of what we actually found, not what we think you want to hear. Daily moisture logs, room by room, signed and dated. This is what turns a restoration invoice into a claim an insurer will pay without a fight, and it’s why DryMark was acquired by Haven in the first place.
No surprises. No door upsell, no scope creep, no “while we’re in here.” If we find something unexpected, we stop, document it, and get your written approval before proceeding. This policy once cost us a four-thousand-dollar mold job because the homeowner wanted to think about it. We slept fine that night.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed - required for all structural drying and reconstruction work in California
- Insured & bonded - general liability and workers compensation coverage in place
- IICRC certified - Water Damage Restoration Technician (WRT) and Applied Structural Drying (ASD)
- RIA trained - advanced moisture mapping and documentation protocols
- Over a decade of local experience - serving Huntington Beach and surrounding communities since 2015
- Strong local reputation - built on documented results and repeat referrals from local adjusters and contractors
Why this matters to you: Restoration work happens inside your home, often when you’re already stressed. Licensing means someone has verified our technical knowledge. Insurance means you’re protected if something goes wrong. Certification means we follow industry-standard protocols, not shortcuts. And local experience means we know that a home in Huntington Harbour dries differently than one inland near Golden West College, because the marine layer holds moisture longer and salt air corrodes equipment faster. That knowledge saves you days of drying time and prevents secondary damage.
We use professional-grade equipment from B-Air and Injectidry, chosen for their reliability in coastal conditions. The drying logs we produce with this equipment are what make your claim straightforward with your adjuster.
Rooted in Huntington Beach
Our office is just off Beach Boulevard, and our crews live here. We know the difference between the older slab homes near downtown and the raised foundations in the Bolsa Chica area, where crawl space drying requires different equipment. We’ve worked jobs after the winter storms that push water through the older window seals in Seacliff, and we’ve documented salt intrusion in garage slabs near the wetlands.
We’re here Monday through Friday, 7:30 AM to 8:00 PM, and weekends 8:30 AM to 7:00 PM. When you call, you reach a live coordinator who connects you with our local team. We’re not from somewhere else pretending to be local. This is our license, our trucks, our neighbors. What Haven contributes is the standard we agree to work to, the documentation system that proves it, and the buying power that keeps our prices honest.
Written by Alicia Brennan, Owner at DryMark Restoration Huntington Beach, serving Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Midway City, Westminster, Costa Mesa, Garden Grove, Stanton, Santa Ana, Newport Beach, Tustin, Orange, and Irvine since 2015.