How DryMark Restoration Everett Was Born in Everett
We opened this branch in 2011 because we had watched too many homeowners in Snohomish County get stuck between two bad options: the national chains that treated Everett like a zip code on a spreadsheet, and the one-truck operators who showed up with a wet-vac and a handshake. Neither was good enough.
The moment that decided it happened in late winter, 2010. A homeowner in the Riverside neighborhood called us in tears. A pipe had burst while she was visiting family in Spokane. Another company had already been out, run three dehumidifiers for five days, and handed her a bill for work her insurance adjuster was refusing to pay. The drying logs were blank. No moisture readings. No photos of where the water had actually traveled. Just a machine count and a daily rate. She was out thousands of dollars and the wall was still wet behind the baseboard. We spent the next week documenting every square foot, mapping the moisture gradient with a pinless meter, and presenting a record her adjuster could not argue with. That was when we knew Everett needed what DryMark had already built: a standard you could hold in your hand.
We brought the brand here because drying is not a metaphor in this city. It is a number. And we were not going to let another homeowner pay for guesses.
Alicia Brennan’s Personal Connection to the Damage Restoration Trade
I did not grow up dreaming about psychrometric charts. I grew up in a house where things got fixed or they got worse, and nobody had money to hire out. My father rebuilt our bathroom after a toilet supply line failed when I was fourteen. I remember the smell of the particleboard subfloor after three days wet, the way it turned to oatmeal under a putty knife, the particular gray color of mold that bloomed behind the vanity where nobody thought to look. He worked weekends for a month. I handed him tools and learned to read a moisture meter by watching the needle jump.
That is the work I fell into, and then fell for. Not the emergency part, though that matters. The part where you find what is actually damaged, not what looks damaged. The part where you prove it. After college I worked for a restoration company in King County that sent me to every kind of job: Category 3 sewage backups in Bellevue basements, ice dam water in Kirkland attics, a hotel fire in Seattle where the smoke traveled through the HVAC and settled in rooms three floors from the flame. I learned to read buildings like a language. The way water follows the path of least resistance through wall cavities. The way smoke etches glass at different temperatures. The way a homeowner’s voice changes when you show them a photo of what you found behind their drywall, and it is worse than they hoped, or better.
What gets me out of bed is the look when someone realizes they are not going to have to fight this alone. That we have already documented it, already priced it, already planned the dry standard. If I were not doing this, I would probably be teaching. Same thing, really: showing people how something works so they are not at the mercy of someone who will not explain it.
Over ten years in this trade now, and the jobs that stay with me are never the big ones. They are the elderly couple in Silver Firs whose washing machine hose failed while they were at church. The young family in Mukilteo who bought their first home in February and found water staining the garage ceiling in March. The landlord in Marysville with four units and a tenant who never reported the leak until the floor started bouncing. Each one needed someone to show up, look carefully, and leave a record. That is the work.
Meet Alicia Brennan - The Person Behind Every Job
I am Alicia Brennan, Owner and Founder of DryMark Restoration Everett. I hold an IICRC certification in Water Damage Restoration (WRT) and have completed advanced training in Applied Structural Drying through the same body. Before opening this branch, I spent years in the field running mitigation jobs start to finish, from the first moisture reading to the final clearance testing.
What separates me from a corporate franchise technician is simple: I live here. My truck is parked in Everett tonight. I have walked the crawl spaces in View Ridge-Madison, measured humidity in Delta homes during the January freeze, and explained drying plans to adjusters who know my name. I am also a gardener, which taught me patience and the uselessness of rushing a drying process. You cannot force wood to release moisture on a deadline. You can only create the right conditions and document what happens.
My commitment to you is personal. Every job that carries my name gets my attention. Not because I micromanage, but because I built this branch to be small enough that I still can.
Before
AfterOur Promise to Everett Homeowners
Our values are not decorations. They are the H.A.V.E.N. code we work under, and each one costs us something to keep.
Have it in writing. Every restoration job is quoted in writing before it starts. Not an estimate. A flat price, a written scope, a written warranty. We learned this the hard way early on, when a homeowner in Lake Stevens assumed “dry the living room” included the hardwood we had to pull to reach the subfloor. Now nothing is assumed. Clause 1 of the Haven Standard.
Arrive on schedule. We give a real window, a named technician, and a text when they are on the way. Not because we are perfect, but because we know you have already lost enough control to whatever damaged your home.
Verified crews. Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. We do not send helpers who are learning on your job.
Evidence on every job. Photos and readings of what we actually found, room by room, day by day. This is what turns a restoration invoice into a claim an insurer will pay without a fight. It is why Haven acquired DryMark in the first place.
No surprises. No door upsell, no scope creep, no “while we are in here.” The price we write is the price you pay.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed - required for all structural drying and reconstruction work in Washington
- Insured & bonded - general liability and workers compensation coverage in place
- Years of local experience - serving Snohomish County since 2011
- Strong local reputation - built across Everett, Lake Stevens, Marysville, Snohomish, Mukilteo, and surrounding communities
- IICRC-certified - Water Damage Restoration Technician (WRT) and Applied Structural Drying (ASD) training
- Haven Standard - documented drying logs, photo evidence, and written scope on every job
These matter because you are letting strangers into your home during one of its worst moments. The license means we have met the state’s minimum competence bar. The insurance means you are not exposed if someone gets hurt on your property. The documentation means you have proof of what was done, which is what your mortgage company, your insurer, and your future buyer will ask for. The local tenure means we know which Everett neighborhoods built before 1980 have plaster and lath that dry differently than drywall, and which new construction in Silver Firs has OSB subfloors that fail fast when wet.
Rooted in Everett
We are not pretending to be from somewhere else. Our trucks leave from Everett in the morning and return here at night. We have dried basements in the Port Gardner neighborhood after the November rains, cleared smoke damage from kitchen fires in Delta, and crawled through attics in View Ridge-Madison during the freeze-thaw cycles that split pipe insulation. We know the difference between the clay soils that hold water against foundations in southern Everett and the sandier drainage north of 41st Street. This is not marketing copy. It is the work we did yesterday and will do tomorrow.
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. The local business is ours: our license, our trucks, our neighbors. That is the deal.
Written by Alicia Brennan, Owner at DryMark Restoration Everett, serving Everett since 2011.