How DryMark Restoration Forest Hills Was Born in Forest Hills
It was a Tuesday morning in 2011 when we walked into a split-level on Ascan Avenue and found a family standing in two inches of Category 2 water, waiting on a company that had quoted them over the phone and then doubled the price once their boots were on the carpet. The husband was on hold with his insurance adjuster. The wife was moving photo albums to the kitchen counter, one by one, like she was buying time. We were there doing moisture readings for another firm, subcontracted, anonymous. That was the moment. We remember the smell of the wet drywall, the particular gray of water-stained plaster in Forest Hills light, and the thought that kept repeating: this doesn’t have to work this way.
We called Haven that afternoon. Not to complain - to ask what it would take to bring the DryMark standard to Forest Hills ourselves. The adjuster who founded this company in 2011 had built it on a frustration we’d just lived through: restoration invoices rejected not because the work was bad, but because the documentation was. Dried to a standard, with the readings to prove it. That phrase meant something different after Ascan Avenue. We opened our branch here because that family deserved a written scope before anyone started, and because Forest Hills homes - these pre-war co-ops, these Tudor revivals with plaster lathe and unpredictable plumbing - needed people who knew what they were looking at.
Alicia Brennan’s Personal Connection to the Damage Restoration Trade
We came to this work sideways. Before restoration, we spent years in property management in Middle Village, walking units after move-outs, learning to read the language of damage. The ring around a baseboard that means slow leak, not spill. The particular buckling of oak strip floors when the subfloor underneath has been wet for months. The smell of mold behind a refrigerator - musty, but with a sweetness that means it’s been there long enough to colonize the insulation. We didn’t know then that we were training for anything. We just couldn’t stop noticing.
The first time we ran a full drying job ourselves was a basement in Elmhurst after Tropical Storm Irene. A homeowner had been quoted demolition by a company that never opened a moisture meter. We spent three days with Injectidry hoses threaded through plaster, taking readings every four hours, watching the grain of the wood change as the numbers dropped. The smell shifted from wet earth to clean paper to nothing at all. That nothing was the goal. Dry is a measurable condition with a number attached. We were awake until 2 AM graphing the descent curve, and we weren’t tired.
What gets us out of bed now is the same thing: the moment a homeowner understands what we found versus what they feared. The relief when we show them the photo of the actual moisture reading, the dry standard for their material, the gap between the two and the path to close it. If we weren’t doing this, we’d probably be teaching something. Explaining things to people who are scared and making them less scared is the whole job, really. The tools are just how we get there.
We’ve been at this for over fifteen years now. Not fifteen years of “experience” on a truck wrap - fifteen years of specific walls, specific failures, specific surprises. The spring in Forest Hills when the steam mains in six pre-war buildings all failed the same week. The winter we learned that Ozone Park row houses dry differently than anything in Fresh Meadows because of the masonry. The job in Jamaica where we traced a three-month mystery leak to a failed shower pan that three other companies had missed because they never pulled the access panel. That’s the work. That’s the whole point.
Meet Alicia Brennan - The Person Behind Every Job
Alicia Brennan is the Owner and Founder of DryMark Restoration Forest Hills. She holds state licensure in damage restoration and has trained extensively in applied structural drying, microbial remediation, and the documentation protocols that turn restoration work into claim-ready evidence. What separates Alicia from a corporate franchise technician is simple: she’s the one who answers when the local coordinator connects a caller to our team, and she’s the one who reviews every moisture log before it goes to an adjuster.
Outside of work, Alicia rebuilds vintage furniture - badly, she’ll tell you, but persistently. The hobby matters because it keeps her literal about materials: what wood does when it gets wet, how long it actually takes to dry, why rushing the process ruins the piece. Her commitment to every customer is direct: you will know what we found, what we plan to do, and what it costs before we start. No exceptions. That’s Haven Standard Clause 1, and it’s how we work.
Before
AfterOur Promise to Forest Hills Homeowners
Our values aren’t decoration. They’re policies with consequences.
Honest pricing: Every job gets a written scope with a flat price before work begins. We learned this the hard way in our first year, when a homeowner in Jackson Heights needed three additional rooms dried and we had to stop work to renegotiate. Now we measure everything first. The price you sign is the price you pay.
Quality equipment: We run Phoenix dehumidifiers and XPOWER air movers because their specs match what we promise in our drying plans. When we specify a low-grain refrigerant unit for a hardwood job in Forest Hills, it’s because we’ve seen what happens when someone substitutes a standard unit to save on rental costs. The floor cups anyway, and the homeowner pays twice.
Standing behind every job: Our warranty is written, dated, and tied to the final moisture readings. If a problem traces back to our work, we return. No “call the manufacturer,” no “that’s normal settling.” In 2019, a Flushing co-op called us back six weeks after a completed drying job - humidity spike in the building, not our equipment, but we re-checked every reading at no charge because the documentation was ours and the peace of mind was too.
Our Credentials
State-licensed - Every professional working under our name is required to hold the license their state requires. For homeowners, this means accountability: a license number you can verify, a regulatory body that answers complaints, a standard that exists outside our marketing.
Insured & bonded - Coverage that protects your property while we’re in it. The bond exists for your financial protection if work is left incomplete; the liability policy exists for damage during the job. We carry both because we’re working in your home, often while you’re not there, and “trust us” is not a credential.
Years of local experience - We’ve dried homes in Forest Hills, Middle Village, Elmhurst, Ozone Park, Jamaica, Jackson Heights, Flushing, Fresh Meadows, Maspeth, Woodside, Howard Beach, and Bushwick. Each neighborhood teaches something different: the steam heat of pre-war Forest Hills co-ops, the crawl spaces of Ozone Park bungalows, the post-Sandy flood patterns in Howard Beach. That knowledge is specific, earned, and documented in our job files.
Strong local reputation - We are known by the adjusters who’ve accepted our documentation without challenge, by the property managers who call us back, and by the homeowners who leave reviews describing exactly what we did and what it cost. Our reputation is traceable. That’s the point.
These credentials matter because damage restoration is invasive work. We’re in your walls, your floors, your air. The license means someone checked that we know what we’re doing. The insurance means you’re protected if we don’t. The documentation means you can prove either one.
Rooted in Forest Hills
We’re on Queens Boulevard because this is where we live. Alicia’s kids went to school near Yellowstone Boulevard. We’ve dried out apartments on 71st Avenue after pipe bursts, traced leaks in Austin Street retail spaces, and worked with the same Forest Hills property managers for over a decade. We know which buildings on Continental Avenue have the original 1930s plumbing, and which co-op boards require pre-approval for equipment staging. This isn’t “community” as marketing. It’s the specific geography of our daily work. When you call DryMark Restoration Forest Hills, you’re calling neighbors who happen to own moisture meters.
Written by Alicia Brennan, Owner at DryMark Restoration Forest Hills, serving Forest Hills and surrounding Queens neighborhoods since 2011.