How Tidemark Water Damage Hempstead Was Born in Hempstead
Rick Sumner spent years watching restoration crews walk into Long Island homes and treat them like job sites instead of someone’s living room. The first time it really landed was in a split-level off Peninsula Boulevard in Hempstead. A young family had a supply line let go on the second floor. The national franchise crew that showed up did the extraction and left, and the family spent three weeks arguing with an adjuster about whether the kitchen ceiling needed to come down. When Rick walked through, the tide mark was still visible above the cabinets. The crew had stopped at the visible water line and never checked what it had wicked into. The family was living with wet drywall behind their backsplash and nobody had explained anything to them in plain English.
That was the moment the promise took shape. Rick knew the restoration trade backwards and forwards, and he knew the brand he wanted to bring to Nassau County: a team that finds the tide mark, dries past it, and hands every homeowner a written price before a single fan gets plugged in. No surprises, no jargon, no walking away before the job is actually done. That is why Tidemark Water Damage Restoration opened its Hempstead branch, led by Rick, with a service area reaching from Flushing to Long Beach to Wantagh and beyond. We do not rush a dry-out because the schedule says so. We dry until the meter says it’s dry. That is the whole job.
Rick Sumner’s Personal Connection to the Damage Restoration Trade
Rick did not grow up dreaming about moisture meters and air scrubbers. He came into the trade the way a lot of people come into it: through the basement of a house that was supposed to be a simple fix. Early in his working life he took a job helping a restoration crew after a nor’easter pushed groundwater into homes across Hempstead and Uniondale. The smell hits you first, that mineral-heavy damp that clings to cinder block and old carpet padding. By the end of the first week his boots were shot, his back ached, and he could not stop thinking about the families who stood in their flooded basements holding a garden hose they had been bailing with all night.
What kept him in the trade was one specific afternoon. An older woman in Levittown had refused to leave her house even as the crew set up containment. She kept pointing to a built-in china cabinet her late husband had installed in the living room. She did not care about the drywall. She cared about that cabinet. Rick watched the lead tech explain, calmly and slowly, exactly what they would protect and how, then write the plan down so she could show her daughter. The woman relaxed for the first time in two days. Rick thought: that is what this job actually is. Not equipment and protocols, though those matter. It is standing in someone’s flooded kitchen and telling them the truth in a voice that does not add to the panic.
He has now spent more than ten years in the restoration trade, years that have included sewage jobs in Westbury, roof leaks in Bellmore, and the slow stubborn work of mold containment in East Massapequa. What gets him up in the morning is not the emergency itself. It is the follow-through. Any crew can move fast on day one. We stay until the structure is actually dry and the family understands what happened and why. If Rick were not doing this work, he would still be doing something with his hands, probably restoring old houses instead of drying new ones. The trade is not a credential to him. It is a way of being useful when people are having their worst week.
Meet Rick Sumner – The Person Behind Every Job
Rick Sumner is the Owner and Founder of Tidemark Water Damage Hempstead, leading the local team that serves Hempstead and the surrounding Nassau County communities. His background is built on over a decade of hands-on restoration work: water extraction, structural drying, mold remediation, and the long quiet labor of putting a house back together after a loss. He holds state licensing and works to the standards of the restoration industry, bringing a level of care that corporate franchises often cannot match at a local level because he lives here and answers to his neighbors.
Off the truck, Rick is the person who reads the manual before he plugs in a new piece of equipment, not because he has to but because he likes knowing how things actually work. He treats other people’s homes the way he treats his own. That is not a slogan, it is the reason he started this branch. When you hire our team, you are getting someone who will be in your house thinking about your floors, your pets, your sleeping kids, and the fact that you did not plan for any of this. Rick’s commitment is simple: we will tell you the truth, put the price in writing first, and stay until the meter says the job is done.
Our Promise to Hempstead Homeowners
Every job we do follows the same four-part code, the C.A.R.E. standards that every Tidemark Water Damage Restoration location works to. Clean up like it is our own home means shoe covers and drop cloths inside the house, no exceptions. Ask before we move or touch anything means we treat your furniture, your keepsakes, and that china cabinet your husband built with real respect. Respect the family’s time and quiet hours means we do not run loud equipment when the kids are asleep unless the emergency truly demands it. Explain the price before the work means you get a written scope and dollar range before we plug in the first fan.
These are not ideals on a poster. They are the operating instructions for every visit. We protect what you tell us matters, we use pet-safe products where there is a choice, and we take a photo of the clean-up before we leave so you can see exactly how we found the house and how we left it. That photograph matters when you are filing an insurance claim and need documentation. It also matters because you should never have to wonder what happened in your own home while the crew was working.
Our Credentials
When a restoration crew walks into your home, you deserve to know exactly who you are letting through the door. Here is where we stand:
- State-licensed: every professional working under the Tidemark name is required to hold the license their state requires for the work they perform.
- Insured and bonded: we carry the coverage a restoration company should carry, so you are protected if something goes sideways on the job.
- Years of local experience: Rick Sumner brings over a decade of hands-on restoration work to every call, with deep knowledge of how Long Island homes respond to water: older copper supply lines in Levittown ranches, high water tables near Long Beach, the humidity patterns that make Oceanside basements slow to dry.
- Strong local reputation: our work lives in the neighborhoods we serve. Homeowners across Hempstead, Uniondale, Merrick, and Wantagh know where to call when water finds its way in.
Why does any of this matter to a homeowner? Because the person standing in your kitchen with a moisture meter is going to be making decisions about your walls, your floors, and your family’s air quality. A license means they are accountable to the state. Insurance means the job is covered. Local experience means they have seen your exact house twenty times before and know what it does when it floods. Reputation means the last family we helped would tell you to call us.
Rooted in Hempstead
Our service area is stitched together from the neighborhoods where our neighbors actually live: the ranches of Levittown, the colonials of Westbury, the shoreline blocks near Long Beach and the split-levels spread across Hicksville, Bellmore, and East Massapequa. We do not pretend to be from every town. We are a Hempstead business, and the people we serve see us at the local stores and school events. That connection changes how we work. When we dry a basement in Uniondale, we are drying a neighbor’s basement. We treat it that way from the first call to the final photo of the clean-up.
Written by Rick Sumner, Owner & Founder of Tidemark Water Damage Hempstead, serving Hempstead and Nassau County since 2006.