How Wade’s Restoration Was Born in Midtown West
Wade Ferris had been running restoration crews across the river in New Jersey for years before he opened the Midtown West branch. The decision happened after a two-week stretch in the winter of 2007 that showed him exactly what this part of Manhattan was dealing with. Three separate buildings within twelve blocks of each other had pipe failures in aging pre-war risers, and all three owners told him the same story: they called a restoration company, got a quote over the phone, then watched the final bill climb to nearly double once the crew was inside. One of them showed Wade the paperwork. The numbers did not add up, and the work was already done, so there was nothing to dispute.
Wade walked those blocks for a week before signing anything. He counted the buildings from the 1920s and 1930s that still run original supply lines. He mapped which blocks flood first when the Hudson swells or a main breaks. He knew that Midtown West needed a restoration shop that would write a scope in plain language, photograph everything before the first fan was placed, and keep its word on price. So he brought the brand here. He found a space he could reach from anywhere in the neighborhood in under twenty minutes, and he started answering his own phone at midnight because that is when the water comes in.
Wade Ferris’s Personal Connection to the Damage Restoration Trade
Wade came into this trade through the hose and the wet-vac, not through a classroom. His first serious job was a basement that backed up during a nor’easter, and he still remembers the smell of it: river mud, old fuel oil, and wet drywall that had been behind paneling since the 1970s. The homeowner was standing on the stairs in rubber boots, watching water rise past the third step. Wade got the extraction running and watched the level drop, inch by inch, until the floor appeared again. The homeowner did not say much. But the look on his face when he stepped down onto that floor two days later, dry and framed for repair, stayed with Wade in a way that no paycheck ever did.
What keeps him in this work is that it is honest. Water moves the same way every time. Fire damage leaves the same evidence. Mold follows the same moisture paths. If you read those signs correctly and do the work the right way, the building recovers. If you cut corners, it does not. Wade has spent more than a decade learning to read those signs: which floors can be saved with drying and which ones are gone, when an adjuster needs to see the framing opened up, where mold hides behind cove base and under window returns. He gets out of bed for the moment a homeowner realizes someone actually cares whether the job is done right. If he were not doing this, he would still be doing something with his hands, probably finish carpentry. But restoration is where he stayed, because every job has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the end is a home that works again.
Meet Wade Ferris - The Person Behind Every Job
Wade Ferris is the Owner & Founder of Wade’s Restoration, leading the Midtown West branch since it opened. He holds the state-required licenses for water, fire, and mold restoration work and carries insurance and bonding that protect every homeowner he works for. He has spent his entire adult career in this trade, starting on the equipment side and earning his way up through every phase of restoration: extraction, drying, demo, rebuild, and final clearance. He has worked on high-rise apartment flood losses with a dozen affected units and on single-family row houses with a hundred years of layered renovations. When he is not on a job, he is restoring the 1952 Chris-Craft runabout he keeps in dry dock. He has rebuilt the hull twice. He is the kind of person who wants to know how a thing failed before he believes he has fixed it, and he brings that same patience to every home he works in. If it matters to your home, it matters to him, and he will put his own name on that.
Our Promise to Midtown West Homeowners
Our promise is the same one Wade made when he opened this branch. Every job gets a written scope before work starts, and the price on that scope is the price. If the scope changes because we find something new behind a wall, you hear about it before we touch it, not after. We photograph every step, because your insurance company needs evidence and you deserve the same file we keep. We log moisture readings daily and hand you that log at the end, which almost nobody in this trade does. We run equipment from brands like Dri-Eaz and Phoenix because they are built for this work and they hold up. And we stand behind every water, fire, and mold restoration job for ninety days in writing. One call brings us back.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed for water, fire, and mold restoration. Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires.
- Insured and bonded, with coverage that protects your home and property while we work in it.
- Years of local experience serving Midtown West, Midtown Manhattan, the Financial District, Lower Manhattan, and the surrounding boroughs and New Jersey towns.
- A strong local reputation built one job at a time, with homeowners who see the same faces return when they call.
Here is why those credentials matter. A licensed pro has answered to a state board and can lose that license for doing bad work. Insurance means if something goes wrong on the job, you are not paying for it. Years of local experience mean we know how these buildings are built, how they fail, and how to get them dry before the damage spreads. And a local reputation means we run into you at the hardware store on a Saturday, which is the oldest accountability mechanism there is.
Rooted in Midtown West
We work in the buildings that define this neighborhood: the pre-war walk-ups along Ninth Avenue, the converted lofts west of Eighth, the brownstones near the Theater District, and the high-rise co-ops looking out over the Hudson. We know the building supers by name and the doormen by sight. We know which blocks flood first when a Hudson surge hits and which old riser pipes are most likely to go. Midtown West is where we answer the phone and where we show up, every time.
Written by Wade Ferris, Owner & Founder at Wade’s Restoration, serving Midtown West and the New York metro since 2007.