WOLLONGONG MOULD REMOVAL SERVICES
Retail Water Extraction in Wollongong
If your shop is under water, you are probably not liable for rent on the days you cannot trade. That right is written into your lease by statute whether your lease mentions it or not, and it turns on dates we can prove.
What To Do Right Now
Isolate the water, or get centre management to. In a shopping centre the riser is usually not yours to touch.
Get power isolated to the wet area by an electrician. Display lighting, fridges and POS gear near water are a real hazard.
Get stock up off the floor. Cardboard cartons wick water a metre up in under an hour, and the stock above the waterline is often the stock that gets written off.
Photograph the whole shop before you move anything. Time-stamped, wide and close, including stock and the sales floor. Then again at the end of each day.
Notify your landlord or centre management in writing today. Not a phone call. Writing, with the date and time you stopped trading.
Write down the hour you closed. Sounds trivial but it is the number your rent abatement is calculated from.
Call us immediately if:
- Your shop, cafe, restaurant, salon, gym or clinic has taken water
- A sprinkler, hot water unit, dishwasher, fridge or ice machine has failed
- Water has come through from the tenancy next door or from above
- A storm has got in through your shopfront or the roof
- Your stock and fitout are wet and you need to know what is salvageable
- Centre management or your insurer needs it documented
Send the form and we will ring you back.
FREE INSPECTION, NO OBLIGATION
We will call you back personally to arrange a time.
Trusted Retail Water Extraction in Illawarra, NSW
Every hour the shutters are down is takings you do not get back. A flooded shop is not really a building problem, it is a trading problem with a building cause, and the whole job should be run to get you selling again rather than to get a floor dry.
That means containing the wet part so you can trade from the rest if there is any way to do it, working overnight so you open in the morning, and being honest about which stock is finished so you are not sitting on cartons that will smell in a week.
We have been doing water damage and mould work across the Illawarra since 2011. You’ll be dealing with the experienced team from Wollongong Mould Cleaning & Removal and we will coordinate the required trades so you’re not project managing a flood between customers.
Retail Lease or Commercial Lease? It Changes Your Rights
The Retail Leases Act 1994 (NSW) covers retail shop leases, which broadly means shops in a retail shopping centre and the listed retail businesses the Act specifies. A cafe, hairdresser, newsagent, clothing shop or takeaway generally sits inside this category.
An office suite, a warehouse, a factory unit or a standalone industrial building generally does not. Those are ordinary commercial leases, and the protections below do not apply automatically. If that is you, head to our commercial water extraction page for more relevant information.
If you are not certain which you hold, NSW Fair Trading is the authority, and your lease and your lawyer will settle it. Please spend five minutes investigating to find out, because the difference is thousands of dollars.
Everything about the extraction itself is the same either way. Start at water extraction for the emergency steps.
How We Run a Retail Water Extraction Project
First, we ask when you need to open
Everything else is planned backwards from that answer. Reverse engineering this makes our planning so much easier in the long-run.
We contain, so you can trade from what is dry
If any part of the shop can keep selling, we hoard the wet section off and you can try and remain open. As we say, half a shop trading beats a whole shop shut.
We extract, fast
Pumps and extraction units, then moisture mapping across the tenancy, under the vinyl, behind the shopfit, storage out the back and into the shared wall with next door. We need to make sure we know exact where the water has traveled so we can plan our next moves in real time.
We triage the stock with you
What is fine, what is questionable and what is finished. We will tell you when something is finished rather than drying it so it can be written off later anyway. Doing this at this point can save you thousands of dollars in time alone.
We dry overnight where that gets you open
Air movers and dehumidifiers running through the closed hours, monitored daily. Details on our structural drying and dehumidification page. We measure by numbers, not by feel to ensure we get everything as dry as it was pre-flooding.
We date-stamp everything
Every photo, every reading, every day. Why that matters is the next section. This is so important for your claim – we may sound like a broken record but it’s always best to record everything now, than try and recollect details later when a claim is being processed.
Your Rent Probably Stopped the Moment You Could Not Trade
Most retail tenants pay rent through a flood because nobody told them otherwise.
Did you know that Section 36 of the Retail Leases Act 1994 (NSW) says a retail shop lease is taken to provide the following where the shop or the building it sits in is damaged? It is implied into your lease by statute, so it applies whether or not your lease says a word about it, and section 36(2) stops a lease limiting a party’s liability to pay compensation for damage.
What it gives you:
- If you cannot use the shop, or cannot get into it, you are not liable for rent, outgoings or other charges for that period. Section 36(1)(a).
- If you can still trade but not properly, rent and outgoings are reduced in proportion to how much your useability has dropped. Section 36(1)(b). Half the floor behind hoarding is not full rent.
- If the landlord tells you in writing that repair is impracticable or undesirable, either of you can end the lease on at least 7 days written notice, and no compensation is payable for that termination. Section 36(1)(c).
- If the landlord does not repair within a reasonable time after you ask in writing, you can end the lease on at least 7 days written notice. Section 36(1)(d).
A bit specific but see where the two places the word “writing” appears? Ask for the repair in writing, and date it. A verbal conversation at the loading dock is not a request under section 36(1)(d).
Here is where we come in, and it is the only reason this is on our website. Every one of those entitlements is calculated from dates and from a measure of how much of the shop you lost. That is not a vibe, it is evidence. What we produce on a retail job is exactly that record:
- The hour we arrived and what was wet, photographed
- Which parts of the tenancy were unusable, and the square metres behind containment
- Daily moisture readings showing the shop was not fit to trade from
The date the readings confirmed it was dry and useable again
Tenants who have that record negotiate an abatement in a week. Tenants who have a shoebox of receipts and a memory argue for three months.
This is general information, not legal advice, and section 36 has more to it than four bullet points. Read the Act, talk to NSW Fair Trading, and get a lawyer across your lease before you rely on any of it.
Want the dates documented properly from Day 1? Call (02) 4093 0541.
Shops, Cafes, Salons and Shopping Centre Tenancies
- Cafes, restaurants and takeaways carry a second problem: anything from a grease trap, floor waste or dishwasher line is contaminated, and food premises have their own hygiene obligations on top. That is sewage cleanup territory if it came up a drain.
- Salons, barbers and clinics are mostly fitout damage. Cabinetry kickboards and plasterboard partitions hold water long after the floor looks dry.
- Clothing and general retail is a stock triage job first and a building job second.
- Shopping centre tenancies bring centre management, a shared services problem and often a neighbouring tenancy involved. Documentation matters twice as much when three parties are pointing at each other.
- Carpet and soft flooring in a shop is usually a write-off if the water was contaminated, and salvageable if it was clean and we got there fast. See water damaged carpet for more information.
Whatever the cause, if it sat long enough to start growing, mould remediation runs with the drying, and the commercial side of that is commercial mould remediation.
How Much Does Retail Water Extraction Cost?
The assessment is free and you get a written scope before anything starts. Retail prices the same way as other commercial work: by affected area and by days on site, with a loading if we work your closed hours to get you open.
| Stage | What it covers | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency assessment | Attend, make safe, moisture map, written scope and the dated record | Free |
| Small tenancy | A single shop contained, extracted and dried | $800 to $1,500 |
| Extraction & drying by area | Larger tenancies, priced per square metre of affected floor | $45 to $90 per sqm |
| Overnight & weekend work | Working your closed hours so you open on time | 25% to 100% depending on the window |
| Contaminated water | Grease trap, floor waste or sewer origin, contained and disposed of correctly | Quoted on site |
What moves the price: floor area affected, how much fitout has to be worked around, whether the water was clean or contaminated, and how many days the drying runs. Working overnight costs more and is usually the cheapest thing you will buy, because it is priced against a day of takings.
These are Illawarra market rates for scoping, not a quote.
How Our Local Illawarra Knowledge Helps
Crown Street Mall, Wollongong Central and the strips through Corrimal, Thirroul, Dapto and Shellharbour are mostly older buildings with shared services and tenancies that back onto each other. Water in those does not stay in one lease. A failure in the tenancy above turns up two shops along, and the first person to document it is the one who does not end up paying for it.
We are minutes away, which on a retail job is the difference between opening tomorrow and opening next week. The interstate operators clear Sydney first, and every day in that queue is a day of takings.
We cover Wollongong, Corrimal, Fairy Meadow, Thirroul, Bulli, Woonona, Figtree, Dapto, Warrawong, Shellharbour, Albion Park and Kiama.
Get Us In Tonight, Open Tomorrow
Tell us when you need to open and we will work backwards from it. Free assessment, 24/7, and a dated record you can hand to your landlord.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to pay rent while my shop is flooded?
If you hold a retail shop lease under the Retail Leases Act 1994 (NSW), generally not for the period the shop cannot be used or is inaccessible because of the damage.
If it is partly useable, rent and outgoings reduce in proportion to the loss of useability. That is section 36, and it is implied into your lease by statute. Get your lease and the Act in front of a lawyer before you stop paying anything. General information, not legal advice.
What if the landlord will not fix it?
Section 36(1)(d) lets you terminate the lease on at least 7 days written notice if the landlord fails to repair within a reasonable time after you asked in writing.
The written request is the part people miss. Put it in an email, keep the date.
Does this apply to my office or warehouse?
Usually not.
The Retail Leases Act covers retail shop leases, which is a defined term. Offices, warehouses and industrial units are generally ordinary commercial leases without those statutory protections. See commercial water extraction and check your lease.
Can you work overnight so we can open in the morning?
Yes, and on retail jobs it is usually the right move.
It carries a loading tied to award penalty rates, and against a day of lost takings it is almost always the cheaper option. We give you the figure before we do it.
Can we keep trading from part of the shop?
Often, and we plan for it.
If any part of the tenancy is dry and safe we hoard the wet section off so you keep selling. It also matters legally, because partial useability means partial rent rather than none.
Is my stock a write-off?
Depends on the water and the packaging.
Clean water and sealed goods, usually fine.
Cardboard cartons, fabric and anything porous that has sat in contaminated water is generally finished.
Photograph it all before you move it and do not throw anything out until your insurer has seen it or you have the record.
Who is responsible if the water came from the tenancy next door?
That is what the documentation settles.
We record which areas were wet, when, and the likely path.
Liability is between the parties and their insurers, but the argument goes much faster when someone has dated evidence.